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The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell
House Democrats blast Alex Acosta: ‘Defiant and evasive'
00:43:06
Tonight on The Last Word: The House Oversight Committee plans on releasing the transcript of the Alex Acosta interview. Also, Democrats criticize Donald Trump for attacks on free speech. Plus, Americans are losing trust in health agencies under Trump. And moderate Democrats are split on Zohran Mamdani’s candidacy. Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi, Lisa Rubin, Zack Beauchamp, Dr. Vin Gupta, and Basil Smikle join Ali Velshi.
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- [00:00]
Ted Danson
Hey everybody, Ted Danson here to tell you about my podcast with my longtime friend and sometimes co host Woody Harrelson. It's called Where Everybody Knows yous Name and we're back for another season. I'm so excited to be joined this season by friends like John Mulaney, David Spade, Sarah Silverman, Ed Helms, and many more. You don't want to miss it. Listen to Where Everybody Knows yous Name with me, Ted Danson and Woody Harrelson. Sometimes, wherever you get your podcasts, the biggest homeowner mistakes.
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- [01:02]
Ally Velshi
The last word with Ally Velshi starts right now.
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Ali Velshi
Hey Ali, great conversation with Ezra. Not just about the size of the protest, which you know, Jen, this has worked, right? I mean this is happening. The army parade happened. But that day, as you and I remember, the counter protests were much, much bigger across the country. But the fascinating part is going after groups that organize peacefully. I mean, this is something, this is 2025 in our America, Jen. It is.
- [01:32]
Ally Velshi
And their group, which you know well as well, I mean they purposefully train people who are of all ages, 80 year old grandmas, people who have never been to a peaceful protest, to do it peacefully. That's exactly what they do. So it is really crossing another line.
- [01:48]
Ali Velshi
I will remind everybody, it's still our America. We can still do these things and make sure that this is the country we want it to be. Thank you for your great show tonight. Have a great weekend. Thank you, Allie.
- [01:59]
Ally Velshi
Have a great show.
- [02:00]
Ali Velshi
Okay. Defiant, unremorseful and evasive. That's how Democrats on the House Oversight Committee described their six hour closed door interview today with Donald Trump's former Labor Secretary Alex Acosta about the secret non prosecution agreement that he approved for Jeffrey Epstein in 2007 when he was the U.S. attorney for the Southern District, Florida. That highly controversial sweetheart deal shielded Jeffrey Epstein from federal prosecution and likely saved him from life in prison, allowing him to plead guilty to a single state prostitution charge. Epstein served just 13 months in a county jail where he was given work release privileges, allowing him to spend up to 12 hours a day, six days a week at his office. As the Miami Herald reports, quote, while he was monitored by Palm Beach County Sheriff's deputies, he was nevertheless able to have women come into his office, where he pressured them to have sex with him while a sheriff's deputy was standing outside the door. The Herald's investigation also showed that Acosta and his prosecutors agreed to seal the plea deal so that no one, especially not his victims, would find out about it. The Herald series also showed that federal prosecutors led the sentencing judge to believe there was only one victim, when in fact there were at least two dozen. Most of his victims were between the ages of 14 and 16, end quote. This week, at a Senate hearing, Trump's FBI director, Kash Patel, essentially placed the blame for botching the Epstein investigation on Alex Acosta. Now, I know that there's a lot of talk about Epstein, and I'm here to testify that the original sin in the Epstein case was the way it was initially brought by Mr. Acosta back in 2006. The original case involved a very limited search warrant or set of search warrants and didn't take as much investigatory material. It should have seized this deal as the original sin, as Keshe Patel puts it, effectively allowed Jeffrey Epstein to molest and rape more young girls until he was arrested on federal sex trafficking charges in 2019. Twelve years later, despite that, Oversight Committee Democrats told reporters that Alex Acosta defended his decision not to prosecute Jeffrey Epstein and showed a lack of remorse for his actions. The top Democrat on the committee, Congressman Robert Garcia, said that Alex Acosta claimed that he was, quote, not aware of claims that Epstein went on to abuse other women during his sentence.
- [04:36]
Congressman Raja Krishnamoorthi
It's very clear that Alex Acosta ran a deeply flawed investigation of the Epstein case. That's clear. He also would not admit that Mr. Epstein received a sweetheart deal, which has been widely reported and agreed upon since that deal was actually made by Mr. Acosta and his team. So he. He would not admit any extends by the decision to have given Mr. Epstein a sweetheart deal, which was only 18 months, and which during that time, he went on to abuse multiple women that he raped during that time, when he was supposed to, of course, have been in jail by the 18 by Acosta. We asked him directly if he actually understood that during the sentence that Jeffrey Epstein received that he went on to abuse other women, and he would not answer that question. He said he was not aware that that actually happened, that he could not confirm that that actually happened. That has been widely reported. And so he is completely not credible. And he's completely has been clearly involved in the broader cover up that is happening right now. Clearly being directed by the White House and the Attorney General.
- [05:56]
Ali Velshi
Yeah, to be clear, those of us reporting on this have known about this for several years. So the idea that this is news to Alex Acosta is kind of remarkable. Today, MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin, who will join us in a moment, shared some questions that she would ask Alex Acosta if she could, beginning with the 2019 DOJ investigation into possible misconduct by prosecutors involved involved in the deal, including Alex Acosta. Quote, I'd first ask Acosta whether he will voluntarily provide Congress with a transcript of those prior interviewed, especially given that the House Oversight Committee has received limited information that was already, that was not already in the public domain. I'd ask Acosta why the Feds played a role in negotiating victims ability to seek compensation, especially when they never involved the victims or their lawyers in negotiating the deal. And as Acosta understand now in retrospect, that by identifying individuals known to the U.S. attorney's office as victims, the the Justice Department only further enabled Epstein to manipulate, control and even threaten those who survived his heinous crimes. The non prosecution agreement specifically committed to the abrupt and premature end of the Florida based investigation and in any event it obligated the Feds to lay off any potential co conspirators. In retrospect, does Acosta regret not widening the aperture? End quote. After today's deposition, Chairman Comer released a statement that reads in part, Mr. Acosta expressed concerns that if the case had gone to trial and prosecutors lost, it would have sent the message that Epstein had escaped accountability and could continue committing offenses. Mr. Acosta stated his office received multiple assurances that Jeffrey Epstein would not be allowed on work release. Yet somehow Palm beach county allowed it to happen. Mr. Acosta later stated that had the US Attorneys known that the state would allow Epstein to go on work release and fail to address or prosecute the case, the U.S. attorney's office and Mr. Acosta would not have agreed to returning it to the state level. He expressed remorse and that the decision was on him, end quote. But Democrats on the committee, they all had a different take on what things, on how things went today.
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Ally Velshi
And what Mr. Acosta just told us is that based on his assessment of the case with his team that he did not see sufficient evidence to move forward with prosecuting the case, that there were weaknesses in the case. But when asked if he had directly reviewed the evidence itself in this case, he said that he had not actually read the statements of the victims. Unfortunately, I heard things that disturbed me. Such as? Well, back in 2006, it was a different time, and it seemed as if we were going back to a little bit of victim shaming and believing that, well, nobody's going to believe these girls or these women.
- [09:05]
Ali Velshi
Mr. Acosta, at least to us in this deposition, essentially said he didn't have faith in the victims, their stories, and their ability to tell their own story and their own testimony, which is deeply disturbing to all of us sitting in there. Not just that, but it seems like Mr. Acosta really had no idea about what was going on in his own office during this investigation. A few moments ago, my colleague Jen Psaki, spoke with a survivor of Jeffrey Epstein's crimes, Annie Farmer, about Alex Acosta's interview.
- [09:38]
Ally Velshi
It was really disappointing, to be honest. I would not say it's shocking because, you know, we have not seen a lot of people take accountability and expressing remorse for the way that this all went so very wrong. But it was really disappointing. With all the information that's come out, what we know transpired, you know, even during the time that Epstein was allegedly being punished, that he was able to abuse more minors, it was pretty disappointing that he didn't change the narrative in any way.
- [10:11]
Ali Velshi
All right, leading off our discussion tonight is the Democratic Congressman Raja Krishnamurthy of Illinois. He's a member of both the House Oversight Committee and the House Intelligence Committee. Congressman, thank you for being with us tonight. Trying to get my head around two different parts of this, because no matter how you look at the Epstein situation, all roads lead through Alex Acosta. Right? Whether there was a prosecution or no prosecution or a deal, it all had to happen around Alex Acosta. He said a couple of interesting things. You know, times are different back in 2006. I'm trying to get my head around whether Alex Acosta did something wrong or he was truly incompetent, having not read the victim's statements, having not thought that this was a case worth pursuing because he felt it was too weak to win. What's your sense of it after hearing some of this testimony?
- [11:04]
Ted Danson
So, first of all, I think it was both. I think he did something wrong in terms of not really even looking at the victim's statements, examining the voluminous evidence. There were over 40 minors that were willing to testify. And so to say that somehow that evidence was flimsy or that case was weak kind of defies logic. I don't think there was a weak case. There was a weak prosecutor, Ali. And I think that at this point, I think that his defiant, unremorseful demeanor also just simply suggests that we need to do more digging. We need those Epstein files as well because I think they will also contain more information, maybe even with regard to this particular non prosecutorial agreement. Just as an example, there was a draft 50 page indictment as well as a 80 page kind of detailed report that was done by the line prosecutor that we still haven't seen and it apparently was done before this non prose agreement had been entered into.
- [12:18]
Ali Velshi
So let's talk about. Look, the defiance part seems to be de rigueur for anybody appointed by Donald Trump these days. But was there some sense? The lack of remorse is intriguing only because it doesn't have to be personal remorse. It needs to be an understanding of how is it that a case like this, it was sort of unbelievable to the public when this all came, you know, to the public eye in 2018, 2019, that something like this was allowed to happen. Seems odd that Acosta didn't have any sense of what Palm beach county was doing. And the fact that they put him on this work release program, it, it seems, it just, it beggars disbelief, right, that this was all allowed to happen to one of the worst sex offenders that we've come across in recent decades.
- [13:08]
Ted Danson
Well, look, I think one of the issues that we have to confront as well is that one of the claims that the survivors make is that somehow Jeffrey Epstein had ties to the intelligence community. And Acosta denies having made statements about this particular issue. Others claim that he has. So one of the things that's going to come out of this is I plan to ask for documents from the CIA and the intelligence community with regard to Epstein, because you're right, I think all the facts, they just don't add up. And Acosta continuing to claim that he had no knowledge of what was going on, he didn't assess the evidence, he didn't know how bad it was. Just raises the question of what other equities or what other issues or factors were at play here.
- [14:00]
Ali Velshi
Although this is the piece of testimony that I was most intrigued by because it's the person who could shed some light onto this whole thing. There are worlds colliding here, right? There's the conspiracy theory world, there's the Dan Bongino, Cash Patel world, the right wing world that says that this was all a cover up and there was a big promise to let it all go. Acosta's really the guy who could have told you from A to B. Here's how this unfolded. It sounds from your colleagues and you that that just didn't happen today, that you didn't get good new information that helps move this investigation forward.
- [14:34]
Ted Danson
No, I think what we need is a couple things. One, we need those documents. We need the rest of those files, the Epstein files, but we also need to be able to interview other witnesses and get those financial records. I think those financial records are really important in understand who was benefiting from this child sex trafficking ring and quite frankly, who would have stood to gain by covering up all this stuff at the time that Acosta decided to enter into this nonprofit agreement. Ron Wyden in the Senate has said that there was more than $1 billion in wire transaction activity related to this child sex trafficking ring, which is an astonishing amount. And we need to get to the bottom of who were receiving those wire transactions and who were making them.
- [15:26]
Ali Velshi
Yeah. These days, if you try and transfer $10,000 anywhere, you have to explain where that money's going.
- [15:33]
Ted Danson
That's right. I mean, if I could just say one thing. I mean, what is just crazy is that everything was done in cash. It was $300 for each child to perform a quote, unquote massage, and then $300 to induce another child to also do the same. So it's just tons of cash. In a time when this is post 9 11, there's KYC requirements that would have required financial institutions to understand with more detail why so much cash was being dispersed. And so that's why we need to get the financial documents.
- [16:10]
Ali Velshi
Congressman, good to talk to you. Thank you for being with us. Congressman Raja Krishnamurti, a member of the House Oversight and House Intel Committees, Congressman from Illinois. Joining us now is MSNBC legal correspondent Lisa Rubin. Lisa, I have many, many, many, many questions for you. I'm sort of deeply disappointed because I thought Alex Acosta is truly the one guy who probably knows a lot of the moving parts here.
- [16:33]
Ally Velshi
That's interesting because first of all, Alex Acosta was interviewed by the Department of Justice, as I noted in the column that I wrote today in 2020. So to the extent that these folks were wanted to get more information from Alex Acosta, the best way to have done that was to obtain his earlier transcript and then try to follow up on loose threads and also to confirm some of the things that he said then were still the case. Without it, though, they don't know what Alex Acosta told his own Department of justice in 2020. So I am, yes, I share your disappointment, but I also had very low expectations for today. But the other Reason I think that Alex Acosta isn't necessarily the key to all of this is that I agree with Cash Patel that the original investigation was somewhat limited.
- [17:24]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [17:25]
Ally Velshi
And of course it was limited because Alex Acosta agreed to cut it off.
- [17:28]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [17:28]
Ally Velshi
When they entered into that non prosecution deal. There is a wealth of information that then was developed over the years after that non prosecution agreement, including with respect to people that Epstein allegedly abused while he was on that work release program on house arrest. And obviously all of the investigative threads that the Southern District of New York and the FBI's New York Field office explored leading up to Epstein's indictment in 2019 here in New York and the prosecution of Ghislaine Maxwell, there are years worth of material that Alex Acosta never had access to. Why? Because he prematurely cut off any investigation of those very facts.
- [18:08]
Ali Velshi
So let's talk about this because I think sometimes people don't understand that most prosecutions are settled. A deal is made, a plea agreement is made. Trials are harder to win than we non lawyers think they are. What's your evaluation of this? Because Acosta seemed to have determined this was possibly not winnable.
- [18:31]
Ally Velshi
I think embedded in that judgment is, as Jasmine Crockett was saying today, lots of value judgments about the victims and witnesses themselves as people. Let's just reflect for a second, Ali, if we can, on the fact that what Jeffrey Epstein pled to in this non prosecution agreement was a single state charge of solicitation of prosecution that tell. I'm sorry, of prostitution. That tells you everything that you need to know. The framing that they agreed to was to see underage trafficking victims as willing participants in their own abuse.
- [19:07]
Ali Velshi
Yes. That's a very different thing that we don't think about the same way. And I don't know how much has happened since 2007, but we don't think about that anymore. Now we know that trafficking is not a thing that people participate in willingly.
- [19:19]
Ally Velshi
I think that's true. And yet we still have a long way to go. I think the prosecution of Sean Diddy Combs is a good illustration of how far we have to come. It was hard for the jury in that case to wrap their head around the fact that somebody could seem to be an consensual romantic relationship with someone that was also coercing them and using the threat of physical violence to make them a trafficking victim. That was something that was easy to understand to the Southern District of New York prosecutors. They laid that theory out very well, and yet they couldn't get a conviction under the theory so the both end of it is something we're still struggling with societally.
- [19:55]
Ali Velshi
Well, I hope you get a chance to talk to Alex Acosta because I would like a little more detail than we got out of today's testimony, but.
- [20:01]
Ally Velshi
Boy, would I like to talk to him, too.
- [20:02]
Ali Velshi
Al. Yeah. Good to see you, my friend. Thank you. Lisa Rubin. All right, coming up, this was the week that the Trump administration's war on the First Amendment got real. We're going to talk about that next. Donald Trump lost in court again today when a federal Judge dismissed his $15 billion defamation lawsuit against the New York Times, calling his 85 page filing, quote, decidedly impressive, improper and impermissible. Donald Trump's lawsuit accused the New York Times of harming his reputation and his 2024 campaign. The judge wrote, quote, a complaint is not a megaphone for public relations or a podium for a passionate oration at a political rally. End quote. Republicans, including Donald Trump, have complained about cancel culture for years. We're learning now just how wretchedly hollow those complaints were. And I'm neither shocked to nor surprised. From lawsuits to license threats, the Trump administration has pulled out all the stops to keep the media in check, including appointing Brendan Carr, this man, as the chairman of the fcc, the agency that regulates the broadcast television industry, to take on Donald Trump's media fight. Brendan Carr wrote the chapter on the FCC for Project 2025, the conservative blueprint that was written for Trump's 2024 campaign that begins this way. Quote, the FCC should promote freedom of speech. Apparently, he only meant a particular kind of freedom of speech. On Wednesday, hours after Brendan Carr appeared on a right wing podcast suggesting that Jimmy Kimmel should be suspended, Jimmy Kimmel Live was pulled off the air indefinitely. In a statement, the Federal Communications Commission's only Democratic appointee, Anna Gomez, said that the Trump administration seized, quote, on a late night comedian's inopportune joke as a pretext to punish speech. It disliked the that led to a shameful show of cowardly corporate capitulation by ABC that has put the foundation of the First Amendment in danger. When corporations surrender in the face of that pressure, they endanger not just themselves, but the right to free expression for everyone in this country. They endanger not just themselves, but the right to free expression for everyone in this country. Sit with that for a second. Yesterday, David Letterman, who created the Late show for cbs, said this. We all see where this is going, correct? It's managed media and it's no good. It's silly, it's ridiculous. And you can't go around firing somebody because you're fearful or trying to suck up to an authoritarian criminal administration in the Oval Office. That's. That's just not how this works. Late night hosts Jon Stewart, Seth Meyers, Jimmy Fallon and Stephen Colbert expressed solidarity with Jimmy Kimmel taking repeated satirical shots at Trump last night. Some naysayers may argue that this administration's speech concerns are merely a cynical ploy, a thin gruel of a ruse, a smokescreen to obscure an unprecedented consolidation of power and unitary intimidation principle less and coldly antithetical to any experiment in a constitutional republic. Governance. Some people would say that. Not me, though. I think it's great. I've always admired and respected Mr. Trump.
- [23:34]
Dr. Vin Gupta
I've always believed he was.
- [23:36]
Ali Velshi
No, no, no. A visionary, an innovator, a great president. And even. And if you've ever seen me say anything negative about him, that's just AI. This morning, I woke up to 100 text messages from my dad saying, I'm sorry they canceled your show. I go, that's not me. That's Jimmy Kimmel. But to be honest with you all, I don't know what's going on and no one does. But I do know Jimmy Kimmel, and he's a decent, funny and loving guy. And I hope he comes back. Thank you very much. With an autocrat, you cannot give an inch. And if ABC thinks, if ABC thinks that this is gonna satisfy the regime, they are woefully naive. And to Jimmy, just let me say, I stand with you and your staff 100%. And also, you couldn't let me enjoy this for like, one week. Just, just. Joining us now, Zach Beacham. He's a senior correspondent at Fox. His latest article is titled let's Be Clear about what Happened to Jimmy Kimmel. He's also the author of the Reactionary How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World. Zach, I just. I need to remind people about the timeline here. Donald Trump talked about this. Then Brendan Carr, who wrote the FCC part of Project 2025, which you have studied in great detail, said these types of things would happen. Then he went on a podcast and said not just that networks should pull these guys, but that the affiliates who own most of the local stations who are looking to merge with one another should say, we can't carry this stuff because the FCC won't allow us to merge if we do. So it was a gangster like interview. He sort of said the quiet parts out loud. He threatened media operations.
- [25:42]
Zach Beacham
Yeah, it was weird. It wasn't even like you know, nice stations. Be shame ashamed something happened to them. No, it was just straight up, I'm going beyond abc, Disney is what Carr said is I'm saying directly to the stations that if you don't do something about this Jimmy Kimmel guy, we're going to threaten you with fines and we're going to threaten you with pulling your licenses. And so now you alluded to this point about the, about the merger, but it's really important, right, because the first owner of stations, Nexstar, which came out here, Nextar, owns about 39% of the national market of stations, about 200 stations. That's the maximal amount that they're allowed by law. There's an FCC regulation, I should say FCC regulation rather than law. It's important here the distinction, because the FCC can lift this cap, they can allow them to buy more. And in fact, Nextar is looking to buy more. They have a 6.2 billion dollar bid to buy someone. And when they are, you know, getting a threat from Donald Trump that they might get their station pulled, well then that implies that their merger, their license is pulled. Excuse me, that implies their merger is not going to go through.
- [26:44]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [26:44]
Zach Beacham
And they know what it means when Brendan Carr has so much power over them and he's going after them like this. They got the message and they spoke out hours. And by the way, it was like a day and a half after Kimmel had spoke. It's like all of a sudden they discovered that they had a principled ob. What Jimmy Kimmel said on Monday night, on Wednesday, I mean, come on.
- [27:02]
Ali Velshi
And he has since rented car in that interview, since named Comcast and NBC. Donald Trump has done that. Comcast, obviously, the Paris company of NBC. Important to note that ABC has about 260 stations of which ABC owns eight. Right. The rest are all owned by Nexstar, Tegna, Sinclair, these other groups, many of whom you point out want to merge. So it's, it's black and white for them. It is, it is, it is about their corporate existence. And I would love to see corporate America stand up to Donald Trump to say, I understand that you regulate us, we're still not going to bend the knee. Yeah.
- [27:45]
Zach Beacham
I mean, this is how this sort of thing works, right. In other countries where, you know, you start out democratic and then there's been move slowly towards autocracy. The way that corporations are targeted is one at a time, right. Each individual one doesn't have any rational interest in fighting the government because the government has a lot of resources. That's A big fight for them. And if they just give in, especially on something, you know, it's not core to their interest, like keeping Jimmy Kimmel on the air, it's ABC's problem, not Nexar's.
- [28:11]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [28:11]
Zach Beacham
Like, what's in it for them?
- [28:13]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [28:13]
Zach Beacham
And they want that merger, so they'll get it. But each individual act, each individual concession, right. Act of collaboration makes it easier for the next. What what Colbert said in the clip that you said that you said that you thought you played a second ago, that, you know, you can't give an inch. I mean, that's right. In this case, every time that you take a stand, you saw this with universities. Columbia capitulated, Harvard fought. And Harvard has been a standard bearer, one that has probably stood in the way of more actions against other universities.
- [28:43]
Ali Velshi
Right?
- [28:43]
Zach Beacham
And that's when nextar capitulates. That sets a signal to everybody else that there's not going to be any kind of collective action. So corporations need to realize that if it's not new now, it'll be you later.
- [28:55]
Ali Velshi
Bren Carr said, we can do this easy way or we can do it the hard way. Looks like folks chose to do it the easy way. Zach, good to see you as always. Thank you. I encourage folks. I will see you in the morning. I encourage people to read what you've written about this this week. Zach Beacham is the senior correspondent at Vox. He's the author of the Reactionary How America's Most Insidious Political Tradition Swept the World. All right, coming up, elections have consequences. And this week that means a hell of a lot of confusion in Washington over the proven not up for debate, hard science behind the safety and efficacy of vaccines, all thanks to Donald Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. That's next. What's poppin, listeners?
- [29:36]
Ally Velshi
I'm Laci Mosley, host of the podcast Scam Goddess. The show that's an ode to fraud and all those who practice it. Each week I talk with very special guests about the scammiest scammers of all time. Wanna know about the fake errors? We got em. What about a career con man?
- [29:51]
Ali Velshi
We've got them too.
- [29:53]
Ally Velshi
Guys that will wine and dine you and then steal all your coins. Oh, you know, they are represented because representation matters. I'm joined by guests like Nicole Byer, Ira Madison iii, Conan o' Brien and more. Join the congregation and listen to Scam Goddess wherever you get your podcasts.
- [30:11]
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- [31:11]
Ali Velshi
Americans are losing trust in our national health agencies and it's only getting worse under Donald Trump. New polling from the University of Pennsylvania shows an 8 to 12 point drop in confidence in the CDC, FDA and the National Institutes of Health from this time last year. The driving factor in that drop? Well, you need look no further than the man now in control of those three agencies, the Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The poll found just 39% of Americans have confidence that Robert Kennedy is providing trustworthy public health information. And that lack of confidence is sure to be tested even more as Kennedy's revamped CDC takes up changes to the childhood vaccine schedule. The Washington Post reports in an 8:3 vote with one member abstaining, the 12 member Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, hand picked by Kennedy, recommended skipping a combination of measles, mumps, rubella and chicken pox vaccine that's given to about 15% of children receiving their first dose of vaccination for those diseases until a child is at least four. Now the combination vaccine, which is different from the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine that children more commonly receive, has typically been administered to children between 12 and 15 months of age. Then today, that same panel made an unorthodox move postponing a vote on childhood hepatitis B vaccines. NBC News reports. The panel had been expected to recommend delaying the use of the vaccine in babies currently administered shortly after birth. But some members expressed frustration over a lack of evidence about side effects and said more discussion was needed. The CDC's former chief medical officer and fired CDC directors director testified to senators this week on this exact issue. Dr. Howery, do you believe that a change to that recommendation on hepatitis B vaccine at the advisory committee meeting this week would be based on an objective, comprehensive review of data.
- [33:08]
Ally Velshi
So if the vote is to change it to age 4, then that would not be based on data.
- [33:14]
Ali Velshi
Do you agree with that, Dr. Linares?
- [33:16]
Ally Velshi
I haven't seen any evidence to suggest that that would be the appropriate thing to do.
- [33:21]
Ali Velshi
So. Yeah. So based on your interactions with Secretary Kennedy and his advisors, are Secretary Kennedy's beliefs in politics driving the change to vaccine recommendations, including hepatitis B vaccines instead of science and children's health?
- [33:38]
Ally Velshi
That is the concern.
- [33:41]
Ali Velshi
Joining us now is Dr. Vin Gupta, a practicing pulmonologist and affiliate professor at the Institute for health Metrics and Evaluation. He's on the national board of directors of the American Lung Association. He's an MSNBC medical contributor and a great friend. Vin, good to see you again. Can't believe we're having this discussion. Right. We had discussions during COVID about, I would argue, valid concerns about quickly developed vaccinations in a country where people worry about government mandated vaccinations. But they were, you know, there were valid discussions to be had and you and I had them. This isn't. And two health experts testified these are not actually valid concerns. And RFK Jr has financial interests in ginning up doubt about the efficacy and safety of vaccines. Golly.
- [34:29]
Dr. Vin Gupta
Good evening. Great to be with you, my friends. And this is an urgent topic. I'm glad we're talking about it. You're right. There is exactly. No, there isn't a problem. They are inventing a problem and then inventing solutions that they don't even know what they're voting on. I was stunned, as I know many of my peers were, that in your t up you talked about this combination vaccine for measles, mumps, rubella, varicella. We give it in certain cases. Ali. My wife's a pediatrician. She'll counsel her. Pat, get the separate doses MMR and Daricella in separate doses because there is a small risk of febrile seizures, which is a condition that's self limited results on its own. But for young infants, we recommend going with the separate doses, not the combined for a reason. And it's very clear. But sometimes some patients have poor access to medical care. Their kids don't want multiple needles. So in the right circumstances, we say, okay, let's do the combination shot. It's informed discussion with their pediatrician. They're taking that away. They're taking patient autonomy. They're taking away provider autonomy, Ali. And they don't have good reason to do it. No other country in the world is saying, hey, let's do the same thing. But again, inventing a solution for a problem that they are inventing. Same thing with hepatitis B. There's a reason we do birth dose for your audience here, there's a reason infants get a hepatitis B vaccine within the first 24 hours of birth. Because they want to take us back to a time where you screen everybody and then give a vaccine to somebody that might test positive.
- [36:00]
Ali Velshi
Right.
- [36:00]
Dr. Vin Gupta
That Ali missed a ton of people. And that's why we're doing the things that we do. No reason to be litigated.
- [36:05]
Ali Velshi
So, Vin, we do not have the highest life expectancy in the developed world. Part of that is because we have a lot of gun deaths in this country and a lot of people don't have access to health care, but it's pretty high. And when you go back to, let's say, 1900 or even 1930, about 100 years ago, the life expectancy rate was substantially lower than it is now. And a lot of that is because a lot of babies died, a lot of children died of infectious diseases. This idea of creating herd immunity and immunizing almost universally has literally increased life expectancy in the United States.
- [36:42]
Dr. Vin Gupta
That's right. I mean, perfectly said. We've almost doubled it if not exceeded in many cases. And it's because we don't have to deal with polio. We don't have to deal with measles, mumps, rubella, big killers. Back when you just referenced over, you know, decades ago, we don't have to deal with that. And, you know, to the point you made, we're a victim of our own success to some degrees. Some porters don't realize that. And I'm stunned that one of the senior advisors for RFK is talking about revisiting polio. And I say this as a pulmonologist, Ali, back in the 1950s and 60s, you know, people remember, those that are watching might have loved ones who impacted by this. Paralytic cases of polio were very common, hundreds of thousands of cases. That's why we developed the iron lung. We have forgotten what that looks like. And it's created an opening for people like RFK Kately Means and his team.
- [37:34]
Ali Velshi
To misinform polio essentially eradicated. Google a picture of iron lung. And look at rows and rows of people in rooms being aided in there in their. In their breathing because of this come so long, there's no reason to take an inch back. Vin, good to see you as always. Dr. Vin Gupta joining us. He's a pulmonologist and an MSNBC medical contributor. All right, coming up, to endorse or not to endorse. That's the question some very prominent establishment members of the Democratic Party face when it comes to the progressive New York City candidate for mayor, Zoran Mamdani. But why is it, at least for some of those Democrats, proving to be such a difficult question? That's next. The Fantasy Footballers are on Sirius xm.
- [38:19]
Ted Danson
It's about time you won your league.
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Ali Velshi
And we're here to help.
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Ted Danson
Becoming a fantasy football champion begins now.
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Ali Velshi
And the biggest fantasy football podcast has the insight you need. Listen to the Fantasy Footballers Podcast right Now on the SiriusXM app. Fantasy football is fun. Winning is even more fun. And our listeners do both. Listen. Listen to the Fantasy Footballers podcast right now on the SiriusXM app. Just search Fantasy Footballers what is comfort? Comfort is a mattress that feels soft and supportive, made without harmful chemicals. Comfort is being able to invest in your well being and still having money left for the things you love. That's the Eco Organic Mattress from Avocado. Thoughtfully made, surprisingly affordable and trusted by families and with flexible financing from a firm, organic comfort is more accessible than ever. Shop the Eco Organic Mattress today@avocadomattress.com and save 10% avocado dream of better did.
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- [39:48]
Ali Velshi
A local election here in New York City is proving to be a political Rorschach test for the Democratic Party. Progressive New York mayoral candidate Zoran Mamdani surprised the political world with his decisive upset victory in the city's primary back in June. His win created a choice for more moderate establishment Democrats to endorse or not to endorse. And plenty of those moderate establishment Democrats are taking their time arriving at an answer to that question. It was just this week that New York Mayor New York Governor Kathy Hochul officially endorsed the mayoral candidate in a New York Times op ed detailing her conversations with Mamdani, Governor Hochul wrote, quote, in light of the abhorrent and destructive policies coming out of Washington every day, I needed to know that the next mayor will not be someone who would surrender one inch to President Trump. I didn't leave my conversations with Mr. Mamdani aligned with him on every issue. But I am confident that he has the courage, urgency and optimism New York City needs to lead it through the challenges of this moment. The chair of the New York State Democratic Party, Jay Jacobs, on the other hand, definitively said yesterday he will not endorse Zoran Mandani, citing fundamental disagreements over Israel and Democratic socialism. According to the New York Times, after breaking with the governor so publicly, Jay Jacobs told Politico today, quote, if the governor should ever ask any state chair to resign, they should resign, end quote. So he seems pretty locked in on that decision. But it's not like everyone's made up their mind here, at least not publicly. Two very notable New York Democrats are still on the fence as to whether to endorse Zoran Mamdani, New York State Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, and House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, both of them from the New York area. Again, New York Times reports, last week, Mr. Schumer met one on one with Mr. Mamdani for an hour in Manhattan, a meeting described as warm. Before that, the senator called to congratulate the mayoral candidate on his upset victory in the Democratic primary in June, and once more a few weeks later to check in about how the campaign was unfolding. But during a week when much of the Democratic establishment seemed to be slowly getting on board with Mr. Mamdani's candidacy, Mr. Schumer, people familiar with his thinking on the matter, said, still has not made up his mind, end quote. Joining us now is the former head of the New York Democratic Party, Basil Smichel. He's now an MSNBC political analyst. Chuck Schumer taking his time to decide on things has become the Chuck Schumer tagline these days. It's become very relevant because of the potential government shutdown coming around. But Basil, you and I have talked about a lot of this internal navel gazing amongst Democrats between being more progressive and more centrist and comes down to something different, I think, and maybe you agree with me, it is the fighters versus folders, right? It's people who will actually Kathy Hochul said, this guy's gonna fight for New York. Eric Adams not gonna fight for New York. Cuomo has pretty made it pretty clear he's ready to get chummy with Trump.
- [42:42]
Basil Smichel
And you used in the tease for the story, her op ed, and she used those words, courage, optimism, and urgency. And frankly, isn't that what Democrats have been asking about for their leaders for quite some. I absolutely think that what Kathy Hochul has seen in Mamdani is what a lot of voters have seen, which is why he won the primary. And, you know, in terms of her calculus, look, she understands that she's got a race next year. And if you want to bring more voters into the party, you want to bring young voters into the party, you, this is the Mandani is the kind of person that you, you endorse. I do understand the position of the moderates because they do fall into a couple of those categories. People who may have concerns about ISRA Israel and Mandani's position on Israel. They may have concerns about crime and quality of life, something that the governor got attacked, used, was attacked with a lot in her race in 2022. It's what Cuomo talked a lot about when he announced during the Democratic primary season. And there might be other moderates that are concerned about his position on taxation and, you know, and Wall street and big business, but I think he can assuage those concerns over time. He has to moderate because a lot of what he wants, he has to go to the governor to get anyway. So I think there, I think, you know, the folks that are holding out can work with him. They just need to get on board.
- [44:14]
Ali Velshi
No, he seems to, he seems to have that going for him. He goes into all the lions dens. He has meetings. And generally speaking, you hear people come out of those meetings saying, don't think I agree with him, might not even support him, but I could probably work with him, which is in a big city like New York, how you actually have to move forward, right? It's not about liking everybody's politics. It's about can you, can you move forward on those issues of, of personal safety, of affordability of the things that Mamdani's done. But he's a bit Trumpian or Barack Obama, like, in that he's bringing people in who otherwise were not concentrated on municipal politics in a place like New York.
- [44:51]
Basil Smichel
I mean, that's absolutely right. And, you know, there was a concern that when he won the primary, there were a lot of older voters, particularly older African American voters that he had not been able to convince to support him. And by appearances, it looks like he's been able to do that work over the course of the last few months, through the Summer winning their support. And I think it's good to talk about this as that Rorschach test, as you said, for Democrats across the country, because New York is such an important state, state, it's an important city. As much as 45% of the state's revenue comes from the city of New York. So you can imagine how important it is to govern a city like this. But if you're Chuck Schumer or Hakeem Jeffries, the other issues that you have to be concerned about are your ability to is your ability to be able to raise money in New York for candidates across the country. So I totally understand that conversation and how that might be difficult. And for Jake Jacobs, who represents Nassau County, Laura Gillen and Tom Suozzi, he's got to protect them as well. There are a lot of difficult conversations that are taking place. But I think what a lot of voters are also saying is someone's got to move the party forward, right? Regardless of what's happening here, the party's got to move forward and it's got to move forward with some younger, more vibrant leadership.
- [46:14]
Ali Velshi
And it sounds like Mamdani knows what you're saying, that he's got to get out there to different constituencies and, and at least make a full throated effort to win them over. Basil, always good to see you, my friend. Thank you, Michael. We'll be right back. About 30 pages into George Orwell's 1984, our protagonist Winston Smith explains one of the ways Big Brother gave it was quite simple. All that was needed was an unending series of victories over your own memory. Reality, control, they called it in Newspeak Doublethink. Never has it been more critical for Americans to read 1984. And tomorrow we will remind you why. At 10am Eastern, the Velshi Band Book Club, we will be revisiting 1984, not just with any author, but with Veronica Roth, whose young adult dystopian mega hit Divergent explores social structure, identity and the power of fear. Do not miss this meeting of the she banned book club. That is tonight's last word.
- [47:12]
Kelly Ripa
Hey there, it's Kelly Ripa. And if you've been listening to my podcast, we are knee deep in season three. And if you haven't heard it, it's time to get on board. After years of interviewing celebs on camera, I finally get to bring you the real conversations that take place when the cameras aren't rolling. Where else are you going to hear Michelle Obama talk about keeping her girls out of page Six? Hilaria Baldwin's hilarious reaction to Alec running for office or Jeremy Renner's lucid hallucinations about Jamie Foxx box. Nowhere else. It's raw, it's honest, and best of all, it's off camera. And believe me, that's where you get the good stuff. So download. Let's talk off camera with Kelly Rippa now. Wherever you get your podcasts.