Latest / Paging America / Mapping the MAHA Movement with The Bulwark's Will Sommer

Transcript

Mapping the MAHA Movement with The Bulwark's Will Sommer · Paging America

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Because I focus so much on the crazy people.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: People get into conspiracy theories.
0:03
SPEAKER_00: How do people get into this?
0:04
SPEAKER_00: But I will say,
0:04
SPEAKER_00: other times I'll talk to regular people,
0:06
SPEAKER_00: even Trump supporters,
0:07
SPEAKER_00: and they'll say this thing about vaccines, this stuff about Maha.
0:11
SPEAKER_00: This is just crazy stuff.
0:12
SPEAKER_00: And so people, like,
0:13
SPEAKER_00: sometimes I'll say, oh,
0:14
SPEAKER_00: actually,
0:14
SPEAKER_00: this person who I did not think would be tuned into this issue,
0:17
SPEAKER_00: they're saying, oh, that's crazy.
0:18
SPEAKER_00: That's crazy for me.
0:19
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we can overestimate,
0:20
SPEAKER_00: you know, the voters and their connection to experts in public health.
0:23
SPEAKER_00: But other times we underestimate.
0:25
SPEAKER_00: So that's good news.
0:30
SPEAKER_01: Rob, are you watching this Trumpetpalooza down in Dallas?
0:33
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I'm watching little bits and pieces.
0:35
SPEAKER_02: I'm trying not to consume too much of it.
0:36
SPEAKER_02: How about you?
0:37
SPEAKER_02: Are you glued to your screen?
0:38
SPEAKER_02: I'm not sure what it's playing on.
0:40
SPEAKER_01: No, I am a glutton for punishment, but not that much punishment.
0:43
SPEAKER_01: But I have been watching sections of it.
0:45
SPEAKER_01: Did you see that the L on the podium fell off?
0:48
SPEAKER_01: So it was D-A-F-S, Dallas.
0:51
SPEAKER_01: That sort of fits.
0:52
SPEAKER_01: That sort of fits.
0:53
SPEAKER_01: My friend said it was a metaphor for Latinos in Texas leaving the party.
0:58
SPEAKER_01: Leaving the party.
1:01
SPEAKER_02: And apparently,
1:02
SPEAKER_02: you know,
1:03
SPEAKER_02: if Elon Musk giving a million dollars in Wisconsin to people,
1:07
SPEAKER_02: or Pennsylvania,
1:08
SPEAKER_02: wherever he was,
1:08
SPEAKER_02: for people to vote in the last election,
1:11
SPEAKER_02: now Trump is saying,
1:13
SPEAKER_02: if Republicans retain control, I'll just send you all $5,000 $1.3 trillion.
1:17
SPEAKER_01: That's, like, wow.
1:18
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, promising a bribe to everyone is crazy.
1:21
SPEAKER_01: The other thing is that there's reporting that Elon is planning on spending $100
1:26
SPEAKER_01: to $200 million in that Senate rate.
1:28
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that will come to pass,
1:30
SPEAKER_01: but that is, like,
1:31
SPEAKER_01: a real signal that we gotta do something about money in politics in this country
1:34
SPEAKER_01: or we're in real trouble.
1:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
1:36
SPEAKER_01: Anyway, welcome back to Paging America, everybody.
1:40
SPEAKER_01: This is a show where we explore the power and profit shaping American healthcare
1:43
SPEAKER_01: and your home base for news and interviews from people building
1:45
SPEAKER_01: the universal healthcare movement.
1:47
SPEAKER_01: I'm your host, campaign strategist, Miles Baker.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: And I'm Dr.
1:50
SPEAKER_01: Rob Davidson.
1:51
SPEAKER_01: And we have a great show for you today.
1:53
SPEAKER_01: On the back half of the show, we have very special guests.
1:56
SPEAKER_01: We're joined by Will Sommer from The Bulwark,
1:58
SPEAKER_01: who's gonna help us take stock of the Maha movement and all the characters in
2:03
SPEAKER_01: the royal court of Kennedy.
2:05
SPEAKER_01: Who I sort of occupy in that space.
2:08
SPEAKER_01: It's a great interview, so please do stick around for that.
2:10
SPEAKER_01: In the main show today,
2:11
SPEAKER_01: we have a lot of topics to cover,
2:13
SPEAKER_01: including the ongoing measles drama in Pennsylvania,
2:16
SPEAKER_01: DOJ investigating scientists,
2:18
SPEAKER_01: the Pentagon raiding NIH, NIH funds, news on Medicare Advantage disenrollments.
2:25
SPEAKER_01: A lot to cover today, Rob.
2:26
SPEAKER_01: Big show.
2:27
SPEAKER_01: Why is the DOJ investigating scientists?
2:30
SPEAKER_01: Exclusive reporting by The New York Times pulls back the curtain on the Department
2:33
SPEAKER_01: of Justice's investigation of virus scientists that began under Dan Bongino in 2025.
2:40
SPEAKER_01: He called dozens of agents into the Bureau's Washington headquarters,
2:43
SPEAKER_01: demanding to know why a years-long inquiry into the origins of
2:46
SPEAKER_01: the COVID-19 pandemic had stalled.
2:49
SPEAKER_01: And why investigators had not more forcefully scrutinized the role of government scientists.
2:53
SPEAKER_01: For those of you who do not follow the weirdos, uh,
2:56
SPEAKER_01: all the weirdos in the Trump administration,
2:58
SPEAKER_01: Anba Gino was, uh,
3:00
SPEAKER_01: is a podcaster,
3:01
SPEAKER_01: a particularly unhinged podcaster,
3:03
SPEAKER_01: who became the number two at the FBI, who is now back Being a podcaster.
3:10
SPEAKER_01: As part of the effort,
3:10
SPEAKER_01: the FBI agents and federal prosecutors have sought evidence related to
3:13
SPEAKER_01: at least eight scientists,
3:15
SPEAKER_01: among them a Nobel laureate and influential former government researchers like Dr.
3:20
SPEAKER_01: Fauci.
3:21
SPEAKER_01: The investigation has had one casualty.
3:23
SPEAKER_01: Last month,
3:24
SPEAKER_01: former Fauci advisor Dr.
3:26
SPEAKER_01: David Morens pleaded guilty to conspiring to conceal federal records
3:30
SPEAKER_01: by steering government emails into a personal account.
3:32
SPEAKER_01: Emails discussed efforts to defend researchers who were under suspicion
3:36
SPEAKER_01: for collaborating with the Wuhan lab in China,
3:38
SPEAKER_01: Rand Paul and others believe this was the source of the virus.
3:40
SPEAKER_01: Dr. Moran says he was trying to protect researchers from what he described
3:44
SPEAKER_01: as baseless political charges of the lab leak.
3:47
SPEAKER_01: This seems bad, Rob.
3:48
SPEAKER_01: This seems bad, using the federal government to investigate scientists.
3:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think it's definitely concerning that you have the DOJ go after scientists.
3:56
SPEAKER_02: And I think the scientist who was concealing emails,
3:59
SPEAKER_02: it seems very founded that that person would be concerned
4:02
SPEAKER_02: about politically motivated investigations.
4:04
SPEAKER_02: I mean, we saw the Senate committee with Rand Paul going after Fauci.
4:08
SPEAKER_02: Clearly politically motivated.
4:09
SPEAKER_02: These guys,
4:09
SPEAKER_02: you know,
4:10
SPEAKER_02: Tommy Toberville saying, hey,
4:11
SPEAKER_02: if I'm governor of Alabama,
4:12
SPEAKER_02: we're gonna,
4:13
SPEAKER_02: you know, either have him in jail or in court every day of his life, you know?
4:16
SPEAKER_02: Like, this is where they're at.
4:18
SPEAKER_02: This is where our DOJ is focusing its attention on quashing science
4:23
SPEAKER_02: and intimidating people just,
4:24
SPEAKER_02: like, trying to get us answers about these important questions.
4:27
SPEAKER_01: Bongino had claimed that the government scientists had dismissed the lab leak theory
4:30
SPEAKER_01: for COVID because they wanted to undermine Trump, which I think Is a specious claim.
4:37
SPEAKER_01: He also claims that Dr.
4:38
SPEAKER_01: Fauci and other government scientists not only financed research that led to
4:42
SPEAKER_01: the pandemic,
4:43
SPEAKER_01: but also used the pandemic to push mail-in balloting provisions in 2020 for
4:47
SPEAKER_01: a single purpose, quote, to steal the election 100%, end quote.
4:52
SPEAKER_01: I was involved in some campaigns that were,
4:54
SPEAKER_01: you know,
4:54
SPEAKER_01: navigating the mail-in ballot rules during COVID that, Like,
5:00
SPEAKER_01: there was, like,
5:00
SPEAKER_01: real public interest in not going and standing in lines or being in,
5:05
SPEAKER_01: like, crowded gyms.
5:07
SPEAKER_01: There was, like,
5:07
SPEAKER_01: people re...
5:08
SPEAKER_01: You know,
5:08
SPEAKER_01: and there was a huge spike in mail-in validations,
5:10
SPEAKER_01: because people were not getting out there.
5:14
SPEAKER_01: Like, a lot of people were taking the pandemic seriously,
5:17
SPEAKER_01: and they were not going out in public if they did not need to be out in public.
5:21
SPEAKER_01: And so mail-in voting was a great option.
5:23
SPEAKER_01: And if those people just changed the way they voted, oh, is that stealing an election?
5:28
SPEAKER_01: It's the same vote.
5:29
SPEAKER_01: It's just cast in a different way.
5:31
SPEAKER_01: This is why this claim is so absolutely bananas and is,
5:36
SPEAKER_01: you know,
5:36
SPEAKER_01: is obviously for like an audience of Donald Trump,
5:38
SPEAKER_01: but also ginning up their base to...
5:41
SPEAKER_02: Who votes by mail, right?
5:42
SPEAKER_01: Who votes by mail?
5:43
SPEAKER_02: Who votes by mail?
5:44
SPEAKER_02: Jesus.
5:45
SPEAKER_02: The idea that quashing some lab theory of the disease is undermining Trump.
5:50
SPEAKER_02: No one claimed Trump was out in the wet markets getting the bats.
5:55
SPEAKER_02: No one ever made that claim.
5:57
SPEAKER_02: The claim for Trump was once it was here, he effed it up royally, right?
6:01
SPEAKER_02: Right.
6:02
SPEAKER_02: Many people died because of his mismanagement of the pandemic
6:06
SPEAKER_02: and his weird press conferences that he seemed to want to be a part of on
6:09
SPEAKER_02: a regular basis, bringing light and bringing bleach into the body and all this.
6:14
SPEAKER_02: Nothing to do with the origins of it.
6:15
SPEAKER_02: It had nothing to do with our concerns and issues
6:19
SPEAKER_02: with how then-President Trump 1.0 handled things.
6:23
SPEAKER_02: It's insane.
6:23
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad Bongino's back to podcasting.
6:25
SPEAKER_01: I'm glad he's not at the FBI anymore.
6:28
SPEAKER_01: But, uh, I'm gonna share a hope with you, Rob.
6:31
SPEAKER_01: That, you know, the polling in the midterms is looking great.
6:34
SPEAKER_01: Reading it every day, I'm fully riding the Polar Coaster right now.
6:38
SPEAKER_01: Strapped in, I'm screaming.
6:41
SPEAKER_01: On all the hills.
6:43
SPEAKER_01: And if the Democrats take back Congress, I do hope that...
6:47
SPEAKER_01: It's not like I'm a big FBI fan.
6:50
SPEAKER_01: You know,
6:51
SPEAKER_01: I'm not like a go-FBI guy,
6:53
SPEAKER_01: but like,
6:55
SPEAKER_01: the FBI being in the hands of Bongino,
6:59
SPEAKER_01: Earlier, and still Kash Patel today, is such a terrible thing for the country.
7:04
SPEAKER_01: Because it's just, like, all,
7:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
7:06
SPEAKER_01: it's just,
7:06
SPEAKER_01: it's the repurposing of a power ministry in the service of partisan politics,
7:11
SPEAKER_01: and it's spooky.
7:13
SPEAKER_01: It's pretty spooky.
7:14
SPEAKER_01: And I'm, I'm,
7:15
SPEAKER_01: but my hope is that,
7:17
SPEAKER_01: that that comes to, like, a grinding halt if the Democrats take the House.
7:21
SPEAKER_01: And that, like,
7:22
SPEAKER_01: the power ministry is particularly, like, FBI,
7:25
SPEAKER_01: defense,
7:26
SPEAKER_01: some of these other things that Congress will be able to rein that in using
7:28
SPEAKER_01: the power of the purse.
7:29
SPEAKER_01: I'm not convinced that they will, but it's my hope.
7:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:34
SPEAKER_02: And always use a low hopium.
7:35
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for that.
7:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
7:36
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
7:37
SPEAKER_01: Okay, let's move on to Pennsylvania.
7:40
SPEAKER_01: The measles drama in Pennsylvania continues.
7:42
SPEAKER_01: RFK Jr. admits to the measles death.
7:44
SPEAKER_01: So they have now...
7:46
SPEAKER_01: They said, yes, this was measles, but then he says, basically, it doesn't matter.
7:49
SPEAKER_01: So this past week,
7:50
SPEAKER_01: the Lancaster County Pennsylvania coroner acknowledged that the second person to die
7:54
SPEAKER_01: from measles-associated causes was another infant and that the child did die
7:58
SPEAKER_01: from measles.
7:59
SPEAKER_01: The child contracted measles and measles caused the death of the child, he said.
8:03
SPEAKER_01: Kennedy,
8:04
SPEAKER_01: who originally accused Governor Josh Shapiro of fabricating the deaths and taking,
8:08
SPEAKER_01: quote,
8:08
SPEAKER_01: giddy delight in announcing them,
8:10
SPEAKER_01: conceded in a tweet that the child had died from measles.
8:12
SPEAKER_01: However, he said that the infant had Amish lethal microcephaly...
8:20
SPEAKER_01: Microcephaly.
8:21
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Dr. Robert Davidson.
8:23
SPEAKER_01: A rare genetic condition in which infants typically live only about six months.
8:27
SPEAKER_01: So apparently, the death doesn't count because the baby would have died anyway.
8:30
SPEAKER_01: We shouldn't need to point out That efforts to stop measles outbreaks
8:33
SPEAKER_01: with vaccines is precisely because of situations like the one
8:36
SPEAKER_01: where compromised people like the child with this genetic condition are
8:40
SPEAKER_01: at serious risk of dying from a preventable disease.
8:42
SPEAKER_01: So what was it all for?
8:45
SPEAKER_01: What was the retraction at the CDC, the lying about Governor Josh Shapiro?
8:52
SPEAKER_01: To what end did we have to go through all this drama in Pennsylvania
8:57
SPEAKER_01: if we're just gonna eventually say, okay, yeah, no, it's measles.
9:00
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:00
SPEAKER_02: I mean, they get all the headlines of all the confusion.
9:03
SPEAKER_02: And it's almost like when you both sides,
9:05
SPEAKER_02: you know,
9:06
SPEAKER_02: even when you both sides corruption in this government,
9:09
SPEAKER_02: like there is one side that is like orders of magnitude more corrupt,
9:13
SPEAKER_02: you know, certainly in the current times.
9:16
SPEAKER_02: And so both sides.
9:17
SPEAKER_02: So this is like, well, you know, Shapiro did this and RK did that.
9:19
SPEAKER_02: And people just say, I don't know what, I don't know what.
9:21
SPEAKER_02: And like, the real answer is, yeah.
9:24
SPEAKER_02: There is a massive measles outbreak in Lancaster County.
9:27
SPEAKER_02: Two infants died.
9:28
SPEAKER_02: You're still never going to convince me that the infant who died of
9:31
SPEAKER_02: a ruptured spleen,
9:33
SPEAKER_02: who had measles in their lungs, who was born not breathing, didn't die.
9:38
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't related to measles.
9:40
SPEAKER_02: You're not going to convince me that that child wasn't born prematurely
9:43
SPEAKER_02: because mom
9:44
SPEAKER_00: had measles and then it had measles.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: But in this other one, this screams of what they told us during COVID.
9:49
SPEAKER_02: We heard it down in Texas,
9:50
SPEAKER_02: like, saying, oh, well, you know, these people who are dying, they're old people.
9:54
SPEAKER_02: Like, they're gonna die anyway at some point, you know?
9:56
SPEAKER_02: So we shouldn't really count them because, you know, that...
9:59
SPEAKER_02: I mean,
9:59
SPEAKER_02: we saw a lot of people come in with COVID And they maybe died of kidney failure or
10:03
SPEAKER_02: a blood clot, right?
10:04
SPEAKER_02: But it was because of COVID.
10:06
SPEAKER_02: And they were just writing it off.
10:07
SPEAKER_02: Well, you know, they were 83, so their chance of dying was pretty high anyway.
10:11
SPEAKER_02: So this kid, well, this kid was going to die anyway in another four and a half months.
10:16
SPEAKER_02: Why are we even caring about this?
10:17
SPEAKER_02: It's so cruel to parents of children who are born with severe illnesses
10:22
SPEAKER_02: who aren't going to last a long time.
10:24
SPEAKER_02: Are you going to tell me that that family being with that child and mourning it
10:29
SPEAKER_02: after six months of living and having that time to absorb, it has no value?
10:34
SPEAKER_02: Dear God, what a monster.
10:36
SPEAKER_02: Just proving it time and again what a monster he is.
10:38
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
10:40
SPEAKER_01: Question from a non-doctor, non-scientist.
10:43
SPEAKER_01: What's the... Is the trajectory...
10:45
SPEAKER_01: If vaccination rates are going down,
10:48
SPEAKER_01: is the trajectory of the measles outbreak just, like, up and to the right?
10:54
SPEAKER_01: Is that, like, a foregone conclusion?
10:56
SPEAKER_01: We are, like,
10:57
SPEAKER_01: on a trajectory right now,
10:59
SPEAKER_01: if current trends of vaccination continue,
11:02
SPEAKER_01: that measles is back and is, like, here to stay for a while.
11:05
SPEAKER_01: Is that...
11:06
SPEAKER_02: It's almost impossible that that wouldn't be true.
11:09
SPEAKER_02: Sorry, I answered that and made a triple negative.
11:10
SPEAKER_02: But like it's who knows, right?
11:12
SPEAKER_02: Who knows, right?
11:13
SPEAKER_02: These things happen historically, right?
11:16
SPEAKER_02: When measles vaccination rates are high, there are cases here and there, right?
11:21
SPEAKER_02: There are cases here and there,
11:22
SPEAKER_02: but they kind of get quashed very early because so many people are protected.
11:25
SPEAKER_02: They create this invisible shield of no reservoir for the virus.
11:31
SPEAKER_02: So the virus spreads like wildfire, right?
11:33
SPEAKER_02: That's part of the problem.
11:34
SPEAKER_01: It spreads so fast.
11:36
SPEAKER_01: I think the average person can infect 13 people or 18 people.
11:39
SPEAKER_01: Whoa!
11:39
SPEAKER_01: Don't put
11:39
SPEAKER_02: me on the number.
11:40
SPEAKER_02: Like huge compared to COVID.
11:42
SPEAKER_02: Like an order of magnitude higher in how quickly it can spread
11:45
SPEAKER_02: and how
11:45
SPEAKER_01: many people it spreads to.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: But when all those people are vaccinated, it just has nowhere to go.
11:49
SPEAKER_02: So a couple people get it,
11:51
SPEAKER_02: maybe a little cluster of an unvaccinated neighborhood and wherever,
11:56
SPEAKER_02: but then it just goes away.
11:57
SPEAKER_02: And now the numbers are so high, unfortunately, of unvaccinated kids and potentially adults.
12:03
SPEAKER_02: It just has a reservoir and it can stick around and get more people and more people
12:07
SPEAKER_02: and more people.
12:07
SPEAKER_02: And I don't think anyone sees that going away until we reverse the trend.
12:11
SPEAKER_02: Yikes.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
12:12
SPEAKER_01: Well, that was an aside for public policy, but something I've been...
12:18
SPEAKER_01: Okay, on to the next topic.
12:20
SPEAKER_01: So, is the Pentagon raiding NIH funds?
12:25
SPEAKER_01: It's starting to look like that.
12:26
SPEAKER_01: It's starting to look like the Department of War is stealing from the scientists.
12:34
SPEAKER_01: So this is from the House Democrats.
12:36
SPEAKER_01: House Appropriations Committee ranking member Rosa DeLauro has learned
12:40
SPEAKER_01: that officials at the Department of Defense are working to divert billions
12:44
SPEAKER_01: of dollars to NIH to supplement the department's budget.
12:47
SPEAKER_01: Without notifying Congress and the American people DoD has signed
12:50
SPEAKER_01: an interagency agreement that could give the department access to billions
12:53
SPEAKER_01: of dollars that Congress provided to NIH for critical biomedical research.
12:57
SPEAKER_01: These funds were provided to support research to develop treatments or cures
13:01
SPEAKER_01: for infectious diseases such as influenza,
13:03
SPEAKER_01: malaria, tuberculosis, HIV, Ebola, and other dangerous pathogens.
13:08
SPEAKER_01: The secretive attempt to siphon research funds away from the NIH is outrageous.
13:13
SPEAKER_00: The interagency agreement needs to be terminated immediately, said ranking member DeLauro.
13:16
SPEAKER_01: So, the agreement would pull funds from the NIH and infectious diseases,
13:20
SPEAKER_01: its leading institute for infectious disease research.
13:24
SPEAKER_01: That's for those who aren't familiar with the NIH.
13:26
SPEAKER_01: And there's no press conference announcing the agreement and no announcement on
13:29
SPEAKER_01: the NIH's website, essentially stealing from research to pay for the military.
13:36
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
13:37
SPEAKER_02: I mean, the problem, right,
13:38
SPEAKER_02: when you have a whole of government approach to corruption,
13:41
SPEAKER_02: presumably someone at NIH or HHS or RFK Jr.,
13:44
SPEAKER_02: one of his minions is also signing this agreement, right?
13:47
SPEAKER_02: Like if it's an agreement between two parties, like one would assume that.
13:50
SPEAKER_02: I didn't see that in the reporting.
13:52
SPEAKER_02: But without any exposure and ability for oversight,
13:55
SPEAKER_02: not that the Republican Congress would provide oversight,
13:59
SPEAKER_02: but like without,
14:00
SPEAKER_02: you know,
14:00
SPEAKER_02: without having that available for public knowledge,
14:02
SPEAKER_02: yeah, this seems like Congress should be upset about this.
14:05
SPEAKER_02: We should be upset about this.
14:07
SPEAKER_02: But, you know, what could go wrong?
14:08
SPEAKER_02: You know, Secretary-elect Pete Hegseth, what could go wrong?
14:10
SPEAKER_02: Give him a couple more billion bucks.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: Jesus.
14:12
SPEAKER_01: When you start to see independent funding of the Department of Defense,
14:18
SPEAKER_01: Department of War,
14:20
SPEAKER_01: either in a scheme like this,
14:22
SPEAKER_01: there's also, like,
14:24
SPEAKER_01: this is not what we talk about,
14:26
SPEAKER_01: but there's this insane deal where there's a private company that the Pentagon has
14:30
SPEAKER_01: a...
14:31
SPEAKER_01: Staken in an offshore account in Barbados.
14:35
SPEAKER_01: And that is the deal with the Del C.
14:37
SPEAKER_01: Rodriguez government in Venezuela,
14:40
SPEAKER_01: is that we will make a bunch of money off of the oil revenues in Venezuela,
14:44
SPEAKER_01: and that will go directly to the Pentagon, which is...
14:48
SPEAKER_01: A crime.
14:48
SPEAKER_01: That is illegal.
14:50
SPEAKER_01: You are not allowed to do that.
14:51
SPEAKER_01: Congress appropriates funds for the Department of Defense.
14:55
SPEAKER_01: And so, if you start to see unappropriated funds going to the Department of Defense,
15:01
SPEAKER_01: that's when things go sideways in countries, folks.
15:06
SPEAKER_01: That is a recipe for just a true disaster when you have independent funding of
15:10
SPEAKER_01: the military, because that's when the military decides they're in charge.
15:14
SPEAKER_02: Wow.
15:15
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
15:16
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: That's too bad.
15:18
SPEAKER_01: I wish they weren't stealing.
15:20
SPEAKER_01: I wish they weren't stealing from the NIH.
15:23
SPEAKER_01: But I wish we were doing more cancer research, actually.
15:27
SPEAKER_01: And that was Jay Bhattacharya, who signed the agreement on behalf of the NIH.
15:32
SPEAKER_01: He says we'd dig up more on Jay Bhattacharya, who had this mixed record.
15:37
SPEAKER_01: He seems more and more just like a bootlicker.
15:41
SPEAKER_02: Oh, he's all in.
15:43
SPEAKER_02: Again, the veneer of respectability in people like him and even maybe Oz, so maybe less for Oz.
15:50
SPEAKER_02: But they don't sound as completely unhinged and nuts as RFK Jr.
15:55
SPEAKER_02: or Pete Hegseth or any of these others.
15:57
SPEAKER_02: But they are,
15:58
SPEAKER_02: and it's even a little scarier that they seem kind of normal
16:04
SPEAKER_02: and trustworthy maybe even to some people, and yet they're doing shit like this.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
16:09
SPEAKER_01: Okay, on to our...
16:11
SPEAKER_01: In election news, Rob, I don't think the Democrats can win Kansas.
16:16
SPEAKER_01: But there is some glimmers.
16:21
SPEAKER_01: You could, like, start to see the outlines of it.
16:24
SPEAKER_01: So, Roger...
16:25
SPEAKER_01: Senator Roger Marshall, now a senator from Kansas, is a former OB-GYN.
16:30
SPEAKER_01: He's seeking re-election this fall.
16:33
SPEAKER_01: He's gotten terrible press.
16:34
SPEAKER_01: He's a terrible campaigner.
16:36
SPEAKER_01: He's, like, a bad senator.
16:38
SPEAKER_01: But new reporting shows that he's filed lawsuits against more than 700
16:42
SPEAKER_01: of his patients with outstanding bills during his decades-long career.
16:46
SPEAKER_01: Patients were arrested in 81 of those cases for missing court dates, the records show.
16:51
SPEAKER_01: They sought warrants on 13 others.
16:53
SPEAKER_01: He also had patients' paychecks and bank accounts garnished,
16:55
SPEAKER_01: routinely charging patients an 18% annual interest rate.
16:59
SPEAKER_01: The unpaid bills ranged from several thousand dollars to as little as $101.
17:05
SPEAKER_01: And these are people who had, like, emergency C-sections.
17:09
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
17:10
SPEAKER_01: Like, this was, like,
17:11
SPEAKER_01: people giving birth,
17:12
SPEAKER_01: and he, like, went to the mat to get paid and punished these people.
17:16
SPEAKER_01: And it's a story that's really blown up.
17:19
SPEAKER_01: He seems like a caricature of a villain.
17:22
SPEAKER_01: And now the state of Kansas is just learning about it.
17:25
SPEAKER_01: What do you think, Rob?
17:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I mean,
17:26
SPEAKER_02: during this time,
17:27
SPEAKER_02: his salary was reported in at least two of the years over three quarters of
17:31
SPEAKER_02: a million dollars, you know, so like he's doing fine.
17:34
SPEAKER_02: He's doing fine, but got to squeeze that $101.
17:37
SPEAKER_02: If you read this story, it is so tragic.
17:40
SPEAKER_02: In one case, they said this one individual said, you know, could I just pay $25 a month?
17:46
SPEAKER_02: They said, well, you need to pay $250.
17:48
SPEAKER_02: And they said, well, I couldn't do that with like just food and rent.
17:52
SPEAKER_02: I couldn't do $250.
17:54
SPEAKER_02: I will tell you,
17:54
SPEAKER_02: as a former part owner of a medical group in emergency medicine,
17:59
SPEAKER_02: we were
18:00
SPEAKER_00: a democratic group, independently owned and all that, staffed hospitals.
18:03
SPEAKER_02: All the time, people would come and say, I can't.
18:05
SPEAKER_02: We get a bill.
18:06
SPEAKER_02: We issue bills.
18:07
SPEAKER_02: We provide a service.
18:09
SPEAKER_02: You send someone a bill.
18:10
SPEAKER_02: And people would come and to a person, we would say, can you do 25 bucks a month?
18:15
SPEAKER_02: Something.
18:16
SPEAKER_02: In a lot of cases, people could swing something like that, $10, $20, $30.
18:21
SPEAKER_02: In some cases, people would say, no, literally, here is my reality.
18:24
SPEAKER_02: I can't do that.
18:26
SPEAKER_02: And you just write off the debt.
18:28
SPEAKER_02: Because in an ER and maybe OBGYN in a rural county,
18:31
SPEAKER_02: but the part of the problem is when this guy first ran for Congress,
18:34
SPEAKER_02: he'd have pictures of him holding babies.
18:36
SPEAKER_02: Like he is the OBGYN of this rural county providing care to these poor people in rural Kansas.
18:42
SPEAKER_02: And meanwhile,
18:43
SPEAKER_02: he was like getting them thrown in jail and making three quarters
18:46
SPEAKER_02: a million bucks.
18:46
SPEAKER_02: Like, hey, Roger Marshall, make whatever you want to make.
18:48
SPEAKER_02: I guess, sure, it's a big country, you can make money.
18:51
SPEAKER_02: But to do it like that,
18:53
SPEAKER_02: and then to represent yourselves as the man of the people,
18:56
SPEAKER_02: delivering the babies of the poor, what a monster.
18:59
SPEAKER_02: Again, I use that word too much, but it applies.
19:02
SPEAKER_01: It applies.
19:05
SPEAKER_01: We live in the time of monsters.
19:06
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, he really is.
19:07
SPEAKER_01: He's a caricature.
19:10
SPEAKER_01: Just like a first order problem, why can you go to jail?
19:15
SPEAKER_01: Or medical debt.
19:16
SPEAKER_01: That seems crazy to me.
19:18
SPEAKER_01: Like, that should just be not available.
19:20
SPEAKER_02: I think the straight line, like, debtor's prison is illegal, right?
19:23
SPEAKER_02: I think the straight line is they had court dates and didn't appear for court dates.
19:26
SPEAKER_02: So based on the fact of missing a court date, then, like, it's a multi-step process.
19:31
SPEAKER_02: But it only happens when you have an aggressive process of debt collection going on, right?
19:37
SPEAKER_02: If you just, like, say, write it off, say, I don't even care.
19:40
SPEAKER_02: Some of them were debts of, like, $1,400.
19:41
SPEAKER_02: Like, Seriously, you're making that amount of money.
19:46
SPEAKER_02: God, how many times has this really happened and how does it affect your bottom line?
19:49
SPEAKER_01: I hope Kansas does the right thing.
19:52
SPEAKER_01: And punishes this man for being a wicked SOP.
19:54
SPEAKER_01: We'll see what happens.
20:00
SPEAKER_01: All right.
20:01
SPEAKER_01: Last up,
20:01
SPEAKER_01: before we get to the interview,
20:03
SPEAKER_01: forced Medicare Advantage disenrollments have surged during Trump 2.0.
20:07
SPEAKER_01: So, when a health insurance provider bails on offering a Medicare Advantage plan,
20:11
SPEAKER_01: it forces people to choose a new plan.
20:13
SPEAKER_01: From 2018 to 2024, the average rate of forced Medicare Advantage disenrollments was just 1%.
20:20
SPEAKER_01: In 2025, that number surged to 6.9% this year.
20:24
SPEAKER_01: It's jumped to 10% this year.
20:27
SPEAKER_01: In Vermont, it was staggering.
20:29
SPEAKER_01: It was 92%.
20:29
SPEAKER_01: And so why is this happening?
20:32
SPEAKER_01: Profits and greed,
20:33
SPEAKER_01: pure and simple,
20:33
SPEAKER_01: the National Committee to Preserve Social Security And Medicare explains,
20:36
SPEAKER_01: unsatisfied with profits,
20:38
SPEAKER_01: insurance giants like Humana,
20:39
SPEAKER_01: United Healthcare Group,
20:40
SPEAKER_01: and Aetna are pulling out of some markets entirely,
20:43
SPEAKER_01: leaving Medicare Advantage patients stranded.
20:46
SPEAKER_01: People enrolled in these plans will be forced to look elsewhere for their coverage in 2027.
20:50
SPEAKER_01: Increasingly,
20:51
SPEAKER_01: we're very much focused on the capital returns of the plan,
20:54
SPEAKER_01: said Humana CFO Celeste Mellet.
20:57
SPEAKER_01: An incredible bloodless way to say you can't get people out of insurance.
21:02
SPEAKER_01: This will be the second year in a row
21:03
SPEAKER_01: that Humana has downsized its Medicare Advantage offerings.
21:06
SPEAKER_01: Now, Humana has announced additional targeted plan exits,
21:09
SPEAKER_01: expected to affect approximately 600,000 enrollees in 2027,
21:14
SPEAKER_01: as it seeks to prioritize higher performing plans.
21:17
SPEAKER_01: Rob, Medicare Advantage, already not optimal.
21:22
SPEAKER_01: And then to have the biggest insurance conglomerates booting people off them,
21:27
SPEAKER_01: leaving them stranded.
21:28
SPEAKER_01: What do you think?
21:30
SPEAKER_02: My un-nuanced position on Medicare Advantage is it should be illegal, right?
21:34
SPEAKER_02: Everyone talks about, well, this guy wants to privatize Medicare.
21:37
SPEAKER_02: We don't want to privatize Medicare.
21:39
SPEAKER_02: It's been privatized.
21:40
SPEAKER_02: More than half of individuals have Medicare Advantage.
21:43
SPEAKER_02: And I hate even using the word because it isn't...
21:45
SPEAKER_02: It's private Medicare.
21:47
SPEAKER_02: It's insurance companies administering Medicare getting way too much money,
21:50
SPEAKER_02: like billions of dollars going to these folks for overpayment.
21:55
SPEAKER_02: They're upcoding and they're overbilling and they're getting more from the government.
21:59
SPEAKER_02: Our Medicare tax money is going to Humana, Cigna,
22:04
SPEAKER_02: United Health Group,
22:05
SPEAKER_02: all these insurance companies to cover folks and they're extracting massive amounts
22:09
SPEAKER_02: of profit.
22:10
SPEAKER_02: And when the profit isn't enough,
22:12
SPEAKER_02: just like that individual said, they're just saying, screw it, you're on your own.
22:16
SPEAKER_02: The problem is.
22:17
SPEAKER_02: I read in a couple of pieces on this, you know, those letters look kind of anodyne.
22:21
SPEAKER_02: You see it in the mail.
22:22
SPEAKER_02: You might not, like,
22:23
SPEAKER_02: I don't know,
22:23
SPEAKER_02: I chuck about 80% of my mail without even opening it because you see what's up.
22:27
SPEAKER_02: Most people do, right?
22:28
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
22:28
SPEAKER_02: Barely check my mailbox.
22:29
SPEAKER_02: Another offer, another whatever.
22:30
SPEAKER_02: And so that might happen.
22:32
SPEAKER_02: Who doesn't realize they don't have it?
22:34
SPEAKER_02: Or then they're being steered into plans that cost more,
22:37
SPEAKER_02: have more out-of-pocket costs, might have a different network.
22:40
SPEAKER_02: So are they still able to go to their doctor or their specialist
22:43
SPEAKER_02: or their hospital they're used to going to?
22:45
SPEAKER_02: Who would have thought something could happen
22:47
SPEAKER_02: when you have insurance companies administering this kind of federal program
22:51
SPEAKER_02: to keep old people from eating cat food?
22:53
SPEAKER_02: Who would have thought this would be an issue?
22:55
SPEAKER_02: But there you go.
22:57
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I hope the Dems do something about...
22:59
SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking a lot about the future.
23:00
SPEAKER_01: The polling... Just to reiterate, the polling is looking great.
23:05
SPEAKER_01: And so, I'm doing all of this, like,
23:07
SPEAKER_01: thinking about a future in which it's not just, like, all of this Republican misery.
23:11
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
23:12
SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking, like,
23:13
SPEAKER_01: will the Democrats have the juice to do something about Medicare Advantage
23:17
SPEAKER_01: if they eventually take a trifecta?
23:19
SPEAKER_01: I sure hope so, man.
23:20
SPEAKER_01: I will tell you.
23:21
SPEAKER_01: It is such a scam.
23:23
SPEAKER_02: I mean, breaking news,
23:24
SPEAKER_02: not show name, but, like,
23:25
SPEAKER_02: in talking with staffers of folks in Congress who will look to be leaders
23:30
SPEAKER_02: in this kind of world, like, that is on the radar, for sure.
23:33
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, for sure.
23:34
SPEAKER_02: Like, it is being discussed as, like,
23:36
SPEAKER_02: we have to do something about this,
23:38
SPEAKER_02: Because it's a criminal enterprise by private companies taking tax money,
23:43
SPEAKER_02: making profit, and then screwing over old people.
23:46
SPEAKER_02: It's really terrible.
23:47
SPEAKER_01: It's just like what the DeVosses did with charter schools, right?
23:50
SPEAKER_01: Where we're gonna do private schools,
23:51
SPEAKER_01: so now we can take a piece of the public pie and make it our private profit.
23:56
SPEAKER_01: It's just what UnitedHealth Group is doing, just like at this extraordinary scale.
24:01
SPEAKER_02: And you, yeah, it's incredible.
24:03
SPEAKER_01: Democrats, let's go fix Medicare Advantage, please.
24:06
SPEAKER_01: So dear.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
24:08
SPEAKER_01: Why don't we go to the interview with Will Sommer from The Bulwark?
24:11
SPEAKER_01: It's a great one.
24:14
SPEAKER_01: Our guest today is Will Sommer.
24:15
SPEAKER_01: He is a senior reporter at The Bulwark, where he writes the False Flag newsletter.
24:19
SPEAKER_01: He's also author of Trust the Plan, The Rise of QAnon, and The Conspiracy That Unhinged America.
24:24
SPEAKER_01: I find his writing to be indispensable.
24:26
SPEAKER_01: Will Sommer, thanks so much for joining us.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: Hey, thanks for having me, and thanks for the nice intro.
24:30
SPEAKER_01: Will, what I was hoping to do today is to rely on a little bit of your expertise
24:35
SPEAKER_01: to take stock of Maha.
24:37
SPEAKER_01: In the beginning,
24:37
SPEAKER_01: Robert Kennedy Jr.
24:38
SPEAKER_01: seemed like the sun and the moon and everything sort of rotated around him.
24:42
SPEAKER_01: But since taking over HHS,
24:44
SPEAKER_01: the royal court of Maha has really filled out and kind of Kind
24:48
SPEAKER_01: of like Trump's orbit,
24:50
SPEAKER_01: you start to see all these additional characters filling out around him.
24:55
SPEAKER_01: And why that matters is they have very real power in our health infrastructure in
24:59
SPEAKER_01: the United States.
25:00
SPEAKER_01: So, a year and a half in,
25:01
SPEAKER_01: what do you make of the Maha power players that we now have to live with
25:05
SPEAKER_01: and know their names and have come to know?
25:08
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, I think that's a good way to describe it.
25:10
SPEAKER_00: I think, um,
25:11
SPEAKER_00: Maha obviously gained a lot of momentum,
25:14
SPEAKER_00: or, you know, essentially was created with the RFK campaign.
25:17
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then I think him now being at HHS has really legitimized it,
25:21
SPEAKER_00: and so it sort of allowed a lot of these characters to sort
25:24
SPEAKER_00: of flesh themselves out more.
25:25
SPEAKER_00: I feel like there's,
25:26
SPEAKER_00: there's the wearables guy,
25:28
SPEAKER_00: there's the glycophosate lady, you know, there's all these differences.
25:31
SPEAKER_00: There's obviously plenty of vaccine or anti-vaccine people.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: And so that world has really filled out,
25:36
SPEAKER_00: and I think,
25:37
SPEAKER_00: It has made as well, like,
25:39
SPEAKER_00: Maha more of a, like,
25:41
SPEAKER_00: a lifestyle that people don't feel insane to embrace and that it's like,
25:46
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:46
SPEAKER_00: you can have these suspicions about various food additives or what have you.
25:51
SPEAKER_00: And so to your point, I mean,
25:52
SPEAKER_00: I do think there's that whole universe and there's a lot of intrigues behind it,
25:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
25:57
SPEAKER_00: and a lot of rivalries and,
25:59
SPEAKER_00: you know, attempts to get policies, you know, who's going to get what they want.
26:03
SPEAKER_01: Some of the Maha leaders,
26:05
SPEAKER_01: you know,
26:05
SPEAKER_01: are out in the media ecosystem, and some of them are in the nonprofit firmament.
26:10
SPEAKER_01: Some of them have actually joined the administration.
26:11
SPEAKER_01: They've become, they've got their hands on, like, real power.
26:14
SPEAKER_01: For example,
26:15
SPEAKER_01: Callie Means,
26:15
SPEAKER_01: the brother of Casey Means,
26:17
SPEAKER_01: he's now a senior advisor to RFK Jr.,
26:19
SPEAKER_01: and has taken on the role of sort of chief bully in defense of Kennedy
26:23
SPEAKER_01: on social media.
26:24
SPEAKER_01: He's also raking in, like, tens of millions of dollars with a stake in TruMed.
26:28
SPEAKER_01: What do you make of the Means brother-sister duo in all of this?
26:32
SPEAKER_00: I think they're very strange.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: Needless to say,
26:38
SPEAKER_00: they are an interesting pair because, yeah,
26:41
SPEAKER_00: as you said,
26:43
SPEAKER_00: they have this kind of like,
26:46
SPEAKER_00: you know,
26:46
SPEAKER_00: this seems very simple,
26:47
SPEAKER_00: but I think having two prominent people who are very allied with each other
26:51
SPEAKER_00: and can echo one another and can kind of co-sign for one another,
26:54
SPEAKER_00: I think is very effective in what is a very social media-driven administration.
26:58
SPEAKER_00: In this administration, it's like, obviously, there are so many conflicts of interest.
27:03
SPEAKER_00: But in this case,
27:03
SPEAKER_00: you have someone who's very invested in health wearables,
27:06
SPEAKER_00: and you have RFK come out and say,
27:08
SPEAKER_00: we need more wearables,
27:09
SPEAKER_00: which obviously enraged a fraction of the Maha base,
27:13
SPEAKER_00: which understandably is, you know, I think wary.
27:18
SPEAKER_00: Let me retract the understandably there.
27:20
SPEAKER_00: Some of these people are saying,
27:21
SPEAKER_00: well, wait, I thought we were trying to live this crunchy lifestyle.
27:25
SPEAKER_00: And then some are afraid of the electric transmissions or whatever.
27:29
SPEAKER_00: And so there are these various factions.
27:31
SPEAKER_00: The Means are definitely one of them.
27:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think the Casey Means was an interesting one, her bid for, I believe, Surgeon General.
27:36
SPEAKER_00: You saw, I think, Her, that nomination run into some sort of intra-MAGA drama.
27:43
SPEAKER_00: Um, because you had,
27:44
SPEAKER_00: I think RFK was getting a lot of blank checks from, you know, other Republicans.
27:49
SPEAKER_00: People were saying, yeah, whatever, you know, Trump wants him, let him do what he wants.
27:52
SPEAKER_00: But she was really occasionally It was a case where they ran into some resistance.
27:56
SPEAKER_00: And part of that came from someone I follow very closely,
27:58
SPEAKER_00: which is right-wing activist Laura Loomer,
28:00
SPEAKER_00: who suddenly,
28:01
SPEAKER_00: people were scouring her blog posts,
28:04
SPEAKER_00: and they were saying, well, here,
28:05
SPEAKER_00: and the one that fascinated me was her blog post about how she Put herself in
28:10
SPEAKER_00: a position to meet her husband and sort of a mindset.
28:13
SPEAKER_00: I will say, I'll cut people a lot of slack on that, whatever.
28:16
SPEAKER_00: You know,
28:16
SPEAKER_00: she did some,
28:17
SPEAKER_00: like, moon ceremonies, some, like, kind of Pinterest paganism, you could call it.
28:22
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, maybe she, like, saged I
28:24
SPEAKER_01: believe she said she fell in love on mushrooms.
28:27
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's probably the most
28:29
SPEAKER_00: interesting one.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: And so suddenly, suddenly you have Laura Loomer.
28:32
SPEAKER_00: So she's doing all these kind of like woo-woo things.
28:35
SPEAKER_00: And then suddenly you have Laura Loomer being like,
28:37
SPEAKER_00: they want to make a witch, the Surgeon General.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then you say, well, why does she care about this?
28:42
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is someone Trump, I guess, wants.
28:44
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then,
28:45
SPEAKER_00: you know,
28:45
SPEAKER_00: this is,
28:45
SPEAKER_00: turns out,
28:46
SPEAKER_00: Laura Loomer is possibly,
28:47
SPEAKER_00: you know,
28:47
SPEAKER_00: I think in other cases,
28:48
SPEAKER_00: kind of open to taking money from other interests to essentially lobby
28:52
SPEAKER_00: or do some kind of payola.
28:53
SPEAKER_00: And so you can see You see,
28:54
SPEAKER_00: you know, people,
28:55
SPEAKER_00: obviously,
28:55
SPEAKER_00: this is something we run into over and over with Maha,
28:57
SPEAKER_00: is they're getting attacked,
28:58
SPEAKER_00: and then the accusation is that big pharma interests are
29:02
SPEAKER_00: behind some other right-wing influencer attacking them.
29:04
SPEAKER_00: So I think after the Kennedy campaign,
29:06
SPEAKER_00: after he becomes part of the administration,
29:09
SPEAKER_00: They're really in the firmament and in kind of the tumult of MAGA and kind of like
29:13
SPEAKER_00: the knives are out.
29:14
SPEAKER_01: Totally.
29:15
SPEAKER_01: That's so fascinating because you think of people who are in this ecosystem
29:19
SPEAKER_01: who are competing for power and that being the reason why they might have friction,
29:24
SPEAKER_01: but they're also competing for different types of profiteering.
29:28
SPEAKER_01: And those different schemes to profiteer can run into one another.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
29:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, because,
29:33
SPEAKER_00: you know,
29:33
SPEAKER_00: and to the point of the means,
29:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're both invested in wearables, I believe.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: But then,
29:37
SPEAKER_00: as you said, I mean,
29:38
SPEAKER_00: there are,
29:38
SPEAKER_00: there's a whole faction of Maha that is supposed to be about running barefoot
29:43
SPEAKER_00: and wearing linen dresses and, you know, never being off the grid, right?
29:47
SPEAKER_00: And so where does that, you know, how do you square that?
29:50
SPEAKER_01: A lot of medical professionals listen to this podcast,
29:53
SPEAKER_01: and I think a thing that is very strange for some of our listeners is that normally
29:58
SPEAKER_01: the public health infrastructure of this country is occupied by Physicians or people
30:02
SPEAKER_01: who are classically trained in science.
30:04
SPEAKER_01: But it seems like,
30:05
SPEAKER_01: almost exclusively,
30:07
SPEAKER_01: people are coming out of sort of for-profit, healthcare-adjacent corporations.
30:12
SPEAKER_01: They are not necessarily healthcare corporations.
30:15
SPEAKER_01: They're like healthcare-adjacent, or they're just plainly non-profit.
30:19
SPEAKER_01: The grifting seems really extraordinary.
30:21
SPEAKER_01: I'm wondering if you have any examples,
30:23
SPEAKER_01: things that you think are particularly emblematic or particularly egregious in terms
30:28
SPEAKER_01: of the schemes that people are making, with which people are making money and money.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: I think you're exactly right.
30:32
SPEAKER_00: I mean, there are these people who are,
30:35
SPEAKER_00: you know,
30:36
SPEAKER_00: one that recurs over and over is,
30:38
SPEAKER_00: you know,
30:39
SPEAKER_00: people who are somehow advising or on vaccine commissions or kind of these various,
30:44
SPEAKER_00: there's kind of this sort of constellation of different Ways
30:47
SPEAKER_00: that Maha people have been brought in as advisors on boards or whatever.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: And then they'll be,
30:51
SPEAKER_00: you know,
30:51
SPEAKER_00: they'll say,
30:52
SPEAKER_00: you know,
30:52
SPEAKER_00: we gotta get back into, um,
30:54
SPEAKER_00: hydroxychloroquine or these various,
30:56
SPEAKER_00: these kind of like these COVID weird, these COVID era, you know, uh, remedies.
31:02
SPEAKER_00: Or we have to make it easier to do telehealth.
31:04
SPEAKER_00: And they're invested in something that's doing hydroxychloroquine or telehealth.
31:08
SPEAKER_00: And so, I mean,
31:09
SPEAKER_00: obviously,
31:09
SPEAKER_00: that kind of plays across this whole administration down to,
31:12
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:12
SPEAKER_00: Trump and his sons,
31:13
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:14
SPEAKER_00: just ripping the wiring out,
31:16
SPEAKER_00: cutting these deals with the Gulf just to take all this money.
31:20
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's no surprise that then it's reflected all the way down into Maha.
31:24
SPEAKER_01: In terms of your reporting,
31:25
SPEAKER_01: I've been reading your reporting for a while,
31:27
SPEAKER_01: and I've always been shocked at how you sort of ID'd some of these right-wingers
31:32
SPEAKER_01: before they were on a lot of people's radar who then end up in positions of power.
31:36
SPEAKER_01: Is there anyone that you're worried about that's like on the move or like,
31:42
SPEAKER_01: or headed for a place of power or has landed there already that we were sort
31:46
SPEAKER_01: of watching before and it's sort of surprising in the place that they've landed?
31:49
SPEAKER_00: Well, yeah, like, you know, let me talk about, like, a couple people.
31:51
SPEAKER_00: Fortunately, I mean,
31:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't think some of these people are really,
31:53
SPEAKER_00: even in RFK's administration or HHS,
31:57
SPEAKER_00: are not necessarily gonna be in power,
31:58
SPEAKER_00: but I think people, like, with growing amounts of influence and sort of trends.
32:02
SPEAKER_00: So, you know,
32:02
SPEAKER_00: something that I think is growing In Maha that alarms me is the trend
32:07
SPEAKER_00: of not giving children a vitamin K booster after they're born.
32:12
SPEAKER_00: And I believe ProPublica has done a lot of reporting about this.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: That, you know,
32:16
SPEAKER_00: just how damaged,
32:17
SPEAKER_00: like this suddenly healthy children,
32:19
SPEAKER_00: children who would have been totally fine if they had received it
32:21
SPEAKER_00: because their parents,
32:22
SPEAKER_00: you know, watched the wrong podcast or whatever, they don't get it.
32:25
SPEAKER_00: And then suddenly a few weeks later, they're dead.
32:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, and this is something that's really been promoted by Candace Owens, uh,
32:31
SPEAKER_00: someone who is, like,
32:32
SPEAKER_00: a hugely influential podcaster,
32:34
SPEAKER_00: former Charlie Kirk associate,
32:36
SPEAKER_00: who now has not only a sort of right-wing base of-of fans,
32:42
SPEAKER_00: but also because she covers things like the Blake Lively trial and all these things,
32:46
SPEAKER_00: has expanded out into sort of apolitical people as well.
32:49
SPEAKER_00: And so the idea that just, like,
32:52
SPEAKER_00: Even these,
32:53
SPEAKER_00: what we think of,
32:54
SPEAKER_00: I think,
32:54
SPEAKER_00: as sort of like whether it's MMR or the COVID vaccine,
32:57
SPEAKER_00: these kind of traditional battleground vaccines that we're expanding beyond
33:01
SPEAKER_00: into just like sort of basic neonatal care.
33:04
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it is just crazy to me.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: And that is killing me.
33:08
SPEAKER_00: On a more, I think, less serious note, more fun one.
33:12
SPEAKER_00: You know,
33:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm very interested in the character,
33:15
SPEAKER_00: sort of Turning Point USA's appointed Maha podcaster, this woman named Alex Clark.
33:21
SPEAKER_00: And so she's someone who was like on a reality show,
33:23
SPEAKER_00: like a dating reality show,
33:24
SPEAKER_00: kind of like One of these characters who's kind of like, how am I gonna be famous?
33:28
SPEAKER_00: I'll be famous someday.
33:29
SPEAKER_00: I'll try these various things.
33:31
SPEAKER_00: Um, and so she made this,
33:32
SPEAKER_00: she was doing like celebrity gossip for them,
33:34
SPEAKER_00: and then she made this pivot to being Maha,
33:36
SPEAKER_00: and suddenly, you know, the neutral tones come out.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: And the-the podcast is renamed Culture Apothecary.
33:42
SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
33:43
SPEAKER_00: it's kind of a fascinating thing to watch,
33:45
SPEAKER_00: sort of as a, um,
33:46
SPEAKER_00: it's always interesting to me when influencers,
33:48
SPEAKER_00: you can see them do the pivot,
33:49
SPEAKER_00: because that suggests that they're recognizing a swell on the right.
33:53
SPEAKER_00: And like,
33:54
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna kind of try to lead this And in her case,
33:57
SPEAKER_00: and I know these are formatted in a way to get my attention,
34:00
SPEAKER_00: get the viewer's attention,
34:01
SPEAKER_00: but these things where she'll have a guest on and say,
34:03
SPEAKER_00: so it turns out sunscreen is really what's causing skin cancer.
34:06
SPEAKER_00: And he goes, oh, absolutely.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Sunscreen is the worst thing you could do.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's such crazy stuff that is just being blasted out there.
34:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and they get these megaphones that it's sort of like,
34:15
SPEAKER_01: you know,
34:16
SPEAKER_01: the vast majority of people here might not believe it,
34:18
SPEAKER_01: but it's gonna land on someone that's susceptible.
34:20
SPEAKER_01: Will, one other topic I wanted to pick your brain about.
34:24
SPEAKER_01: Trump seems to be making a play for the Maha base, pushing expanded access to peptides.
34:31
SPEAKER_01: He's been staying almost to Kennedy's right, if that's a...
34:35
SPEAKER_01: I don't know if that's a term, like, on vaccines.
34:37
SPEAKER_01: Like,
34:37
SPEAKER_01: he's been staying extreme on vaccines despite his pollster Tony Fabrizio telling him
34:43
SPEAKER_01: to moderate on vaccines.
34:45
SPEAKER_01: Some of us who've been watching the Royal Court of Maha for a while think
34:48
SPEAKER_01: that this might be a play Voters,
34:52
SPEAKER_01: or like the adherents with rumors that he's going to push out Kennedy.
34:56
SPEAKER_01: One, do you have any tea on that?
34:58
SPEAKER_01: And two,
35:00
SPEAKER_01: but more to the point,
35:01
SPEAKER_01: like, what's the viability of this movement if sort of Kennedy's on the way out?
35:05
SPEAKER_01: Do they stick with Trump?
35:07
SPEAKER_01: If there's, you know, like, do the incentive structures of the Greff let them stay together?
35:12
SPEAKER_01: It seems like it's fracturing pretty rapidly, but I'd love your take on it.
35:16
SPEAKER_00: I think Kennedy's pretty secure if he wants to be.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: You know, I mean,
35:19
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if he wants to start laying the groundwork to run in 2028,
35:22
SPEAKER_00: you know, to sort of extract more concessions from J.D.
35:25
SPEAKER_00: Vance or whoever.
35:26
SPEAKER_00: I think, unfortunately, I think his rule at HHS has been really poor.
35:31
SPEAKER_00: It's fair to say it's caused a lot of suffering that we didn't need to have.
35:35
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately, I think some of these issues are relatively diffuse to the American voter.
35:42
SPEAKER_00: And so, you know, it's not like gas prices are high.
35:45
SPEAKER_00: Like, people are not saying, oh, sure, a lot of more measles outbreaks than there used to be.
35:50
SPEAKER_00: You know, and so in that way, I think the heat is not really on him.
35:54
SPEAKER_00: And, you know, and again, I mean, people barely ever get fired in this administration.
35:57
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is a mess.
35:59
SPEAKER_01: Especially, men almost never
36:04
SPEAKER_00: get fired.
36:04
SPEAKER_00: And that's a great point, too.
36:06
SPEAKER_00: And I think particularly like heinous men.
36:09
SPEAKER_00: I think like bad guys, I think Trump likes that even more.
36:13
SPEAKER_00: And so, I think that he's probably pretty safe.
36:17
SPEAKER_00: I do think Maha as a movement seems to me pretty healthy.
36:22
SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm not seeing like a ton of defections.
36:24
SPEAKER_00: I mean, I think if anything, we're seeing Democrats try to make accommodations with them.
36:28
SPEAKER_00: We know AOC is doing kind of Maha outreach.
36:31
SPEAKER_00: And I think in a way they've been able to,
36:34
SPEAKER_00: there's a lot of this stuff that happens where people say,
36:37
SPEAKER_00: oh, you don't think people should do 10,000 steps a day?
36:39
SPEAKER_00: You don't think we should, you know, get a couple, red dye number five out?
36:42
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, well, I guess, but that's not really what Maha was about, is it?
36:46
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's about vaccines.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: You know,
36:49
SPEAKER_00: there's a lot of kind of like cloaking it in this like,
36:51
SPEAKER_00: well, I just don't think kids should drink, you know, three liters of Coke a day.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: But then once you're in, then they're like, okay, here's really what's going on.
36:59
SPEAKER_00: And so, nevertheless,
37:00
SPEAKER_00: I think it seems to be relatively effective as a movement,
37:04
SPEAKER_00: and I think one that Democrats are gonna try to peel people away from.
37:08
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:08
SPEAKER_01: I've heard it described, my favorite way I've heard it described is two truths and a lie.
37:13
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, good way to put it.
37:14
SPEAKER_01: But the lie's really big.
37:17
SPEAKER_01: After you get through the two truths.
37:19
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
37:19
SPEAKER_01: I think there's this thought that maybe this is like a groundswell,
37:23
SPEAKER_01: The Maha movement is like a groundswell
37:25
SPEAKER_01: of these various issues being knitted together,
37:27
SPEAKER_01: but I've always thought of it as like nodes.
37:30
SPEAKER_01: We're wish casting sometimes,
37:31
SPEAKER_01: I think,
37:32
SPEAKER_01: when we're talking about glyphosate or these different fissures inside of Maha,
37:37
SPEAKER_01: because the nodes aren't going The influencers and the leaders,
37:41
SPEAKER_01: because they are making money.
37:43
SPEAKER_01: Largely, they're either making money or having access to power, in a lot of cases, both.
37:48
SPEAKER_01: And it just doesn't seem like a lot of us on this podcast are really interested in
37:53
SPEAKER_01: the breakup of Maha, but I think I agree with you.
37:55
SPEAKER_01: I don't think it's happening anytime soon, unfortunately.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: I think that's right.
38:00
SPEAKER_00: People often ask me about someone like Alex Jones.
38:02
SPEAKER_00: How much does he believe this stuff?
38:03
SPEAKER_00: Is it fake?
38:05
SPEAKER_00: Whatever.
38:05
SPEAKER_00: And I think with a lot of these characters,
38:08
SPEAKER_00: There is something that organically draws them to it,
38:10
SPEAKER_00: and they're also very economically incentivized to keep doing that.
38:13
SPEAKER_00: I mean, and to sort of, you know, latch onto issues.
38:16
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they wouldn't, if they were just a regular person, care about.
38:18
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, this is what's gonna get the clicks.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: On the other hand,
38:21
SPEAKER_00: the one thing that I think typically takes people Often people drawn
38:24
SPEAKER_00: to their right-wing media influencer sphere are somewhat unhinged.
38:30
SPEAKER_00: And they may end up in legal situations.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: They may kind of burn out.
38:34
SPEAKER_00: These various things happen that kind of end up with them going off the board.
38:38
SPEAKER_00: But for the most part, they keep going.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: And let's say, for whatever reason, Maha ends, which again, I think is unlikely.
38:45
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
38:47
SPEAKER_00: If that were to happen, I mean, I think they'd pivot to something else.
38:49
SPEAKER_00: But I do think that the challenge that we're facing with this Kennedy stuff
38:53
SPEAKER_00: and Maha is that so many issues,
38:55
SPEAKER_00: public health issues,
38:57
SPEAKER_00: that were not really seen as political,
38:59
SPEAKER_00: that were not seen as a left or right issue or something that there was even
39:02
SPEAKER_00: a debate about or you should be able to have a choice about,
39:05
SPEAKER_00: that have become now politicized.
39:07
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I think that's, yeah,
39:09
SPEAKER_01: that has been one of their special sauces, right,
39:12
SPEAKER_01: is taking things that are apolitical and getting people in,
39:15
SPEAKER_01: and now they're part of, now they're ideological sort of projects.
39:19
SPEAKER_01: Any thoughts about the future?
39:22
SPEAKER_01: As we head towards the midterms,
39:24
SPEAKER_01: especially if, like,
39:25
SPEAKER_01: the Democrats get power this November,
39:27
SPEAKER_01: I think some of us are thinking, like,
39:29
SPEAKER_01: oversight,
39:29
SPEAKER_01: you know,
39:30
SPEAKER_01: for those of us who are healthcare advocates,
39:32
SPEAKER_01: oversight at HHS CDC seems, like, so important.
39:37
SPEAKER_01: Do you have any thoughts on whether the Dems will pursue that,
39:41
SPEAKER_01: whether that's a good course of action,
39:43
SPEAKER_01: or where do you think this is all headed after the elections?
39:46
SPEAKER_00: You know, I think Democrats probably will pursue oversight at CDC.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: Number one,
39:49
SPEAKER_00: it's a way to whack RFK, who's sort of like a I mean, a major villain for Democrats.
39:54
SPEAKER_00: Um, in a way that I think if there was a quieter HHS secretary, they might care less about.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: But, you know,
40:00
SPEAKER_00: it's always striking to me,
40:02
SPEAKER_00: if I were Trump,
40:03
SPEAKER_00: and I had seen my first term derailed by COVID,
40:05
SPEAKER_00: I would say the most important thing to me in second term This is the CDC and HHS
40:09
SPEAKER_00: and disease control.
40:10
SPEAKER_00: And obviously, that has not been the case.
40:12
SPEAKER_00: Unfortunately,
40:13
SPEAKER_00: I think at a larger point of view,
40:15
SPEAKER_00: I think we can expect this kind of like health foolishness,
40:18
SPEAKER_00: these conspiracy theories, this kind of stuff.
40:22
SPEAKER_00: Trump leaves office, you know, whatever.
40:25
SPEAKER_00: This to persist.
40:26
SPEAKER_00: And I think, obviously, a lot of this is social media driven.
40:29
SPEAKER_00: But it's sort of like once you kind of inject this into the body politic,
40:33
SPEAKER_00: it's very difficult to get out.
40:34
SPEAKER_00: I mean, absent some just like titanic change in our political structure.
40:38
SPEAKER_01: Sort of a generational problem.
40:42
SPEAKER_01: Well, Will, on that positive note, maybe that's a good place to leave it.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: If I could actually just,
40:46
SPEAKER_00: you know, because often people say, oh, you left us with such a down note, right?
40:50
SPEAKER_00: And I get it.
40:51
SPEAKER_00: But I will say, the one thing is like, and I focus so much on the crazy people.
40:54
SPEAKER_00: If people get into conspiracy theories, how do people get into conspiracy theories?
40:57
SPEAKER_00: But I will say,
40:58
SPEAKER_00: other times,
40:59
SPEAKER_00: I'll talk to regular people,
41:00
SPEAKER_00: even Trump supporters,
41:02
SPEAKER_00: and they'll say,
41:03
SPEAKER_00: this thing about vaccines,
41:05
SPEAKER_00: this stuff about Maha, certain aspects of it, this is just crazy stuff.
41:09
SPEAKER_00: You know, like, they'll say, I mean, look, this is a pretty low bar.
41:12
SPEAKER_00: The injecting bleach or whatever.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: And so people,
41:16
SPEAKER_00: sometimes I'll say, oh,
41:17
SPEAKER_00: actually,
41:17
SPEAKER_00: this sort of person who I did not think would be tuned into this issue,
41:21
SPEAKER_00: they're saying, oh, that's crazy.
41:23
SPEAKER_00: That's crazy for me.
41:25
SPEAKER_00: And so I do think sometimes we can overestimate the voters and their connection
41:32
SPEAKER_00: to experts and public health.
41:34
SPEAKER_00: But other times we underestimate.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: So that's good news.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: That is good news.
41:37
SPEAKER_01: All right, that's a good place to leave it.
41:39
SPEAKER_01: Folks, if you want to follow Will,
41:41
SPEAKER_01: head over to The Bulwark, and you can check out his newsletter, The False Flag.
41:46
SPEAKER_01: It's a great read.
41:47
SPEAKER_01: Will, thanks so much for joining us.
41:49
SPEAKER_00: Thanks for having me.
41:51
SPEAKER_00: Great interview.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: Great interview.
41:53
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, Will's a great...
41:56
SPEAKER_02: Great guy to chat with.
41:57
SPEAKER_01: All right, Rob, anything before we call it a day?
42:00
SPEAKER_02: I tell you what, keep an eye on Trumpapalooza down in Dallas.
42:03
SPEAKER_02: RFK Jr. is slated to speak,
42:04
SPEAKER_02: and who the hell knows what's gonna come in his mouth,
42:07
SPEAKER_02: but I'm sure we'll be hearing about it on this channel for sure.
42:11
SPEAKER_01: Yep, we'll be watching it tonight so you don't have to.
42:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, there you go.
42:16
SPEAKER_01: All right, today's episode was written by Chris Savage, Dr.
42:19
SPEAKER_01: Rob Davidson, and me,
42:20
SPEAKER_01: Miles Baker,
42:20
SPEAKER_01: Paging America,
42:21
SPEAKER_01: The Situation Womb,
42:22
SPEAKER_01: and all of our On Call segments this week were produced by Peter Ogburn
42:25
SPEAKER_01: and Chris Savage.
42:27
SPEAKER_01: All shows were edited by Peter Ogburn and April Stewie, and our music is by Annette Somerset.
42:31
SPEAKER_01: Rob, as always, it's a great job with you.