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Trump Nominates a Zealot to Lead the FDA · Paging America

0:00
SPEAKER_00: It's like corruption just for the sake of it.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
0:02
SPEAKER_03: And addiction.
0:03
SPEAKER_03: They're addicted to corruption and they're addicted to gambling.
0:05
SPEAKER_03: They want the rest of us to be addicted to gambling,
0:08
SPEAKER_03: but the fact of the matter is the house always wins.
0:10
SPEAKER_03: And right now it's the Trump family that's the house and the rest
0:13
SPEAKER_03: of us are getting screwed over in this rigged gambling economy.
0:20
SPEAKER_02: Rob, did you hear that Bobby Kennedy travels with a cooler full of sauerkraut?
0:27
SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is the guy who said if he showed up at your Super Bowl party,
0:30
SPEAKER_00: he's going to bring ferments and meats.
0:31
SPEAKER_02: So apparently, apparently.
0:34
SPEAKER_02: Do not bring a cooler sauerkraut to my Super Bowl party.
0:37
SPEAKER_00: But he travels with it per Marco Rubio, right?
0:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
0:42
SPEAKER_00: Guy's been on the plane with him.
0:44
SPEAKER_00: The guy travels around with a cooler full of sauerkraut.
0:47
SPEAKER_00: I think he was asked, Rubio, well, are you going to take his diet?
0:50
SPEAKER_00: He's like, no, I'm not going to just eat sauerkraut.
0:53
SPEAKER_00: That's crazy.
0:54
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
0:55
SPEAKER_00: I guess he also pulled back the curtain on Trump.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: I think we knew this, but he just travels around with McDonald's in Air Force One.
1:04
SPEAKER_00: That's all he does because he's afraid of getting sick if he eats anything else.
1:07
SPEAKER_02: What is going on?
1:08
SPEAKER_02: All these people are in charge of American public health and they have
1:12
SPEAKER_02: the strangest diet and the strangest eating habit of anyone I've ever met.
1:17
SPEAKER_02: If you are a conservative and you kind of don't like vegans or vegetarians...
1:25
SPEAKER_02: What, but you're, are you good with the guy with the cooler of sauerkraut on the jet?
1:31
SPEAKER_02: Is that, that's your preference?
1:33
SPEAKER_00: Get out of here.
1:35
SPEAKER_00: God, this guy's not flying coach.
1:37
SPEAKER_00: Can you imagine if you're packed into your middle seat and the guy next
1:40
SPEAKER_00: to you opens up a container of sauerkraut and just starts shoveling that
1:44
SPEAKER_00: in his gullet?
1:44
SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
1:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:46
SPEAKER_02: Good thing.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: Could not handle it.
1:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, keep Bobby Kennedy flying private because if he gets on a plane with me in
1:51
SPEAKER_02: the cooler full of sauerkraut, I'm going to have to get off.
1:55
SPEAKER_00: I am getting kicked off that plane for a damn sure.
1:57
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, absolutely.
1:58
SPEAKER_02: All right,
1:59
SPEAKER_02: everyone,
1:59
SPEAKER_02: welcome back to Paging America where we explore the power
2:02
SPEAKER_02: and profit shaping American healthcare and your home base for news and viewpoints
2:05
SPEAKER_02: from people building the universal healthcare movement.
2:07
SPEAKER_02: I'm your host, Myles Baker.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: And I'm Dr.
2:09
SPEAKER_00: Rob Davidson.
2:11
SPEAKER_02: And we have a great show for you today.
2:13
SPEAKER_02: At the back half of the show,
2:14
SPEAKER_02: we'll be talking to congressional candidate William Lawrence,
2:17
SPEAKER_02: who's running in Congressional District 7th,
2:20
SPEAKER_02: a top-tier battleground from across the country, right in mid-Michigan.
2:24
SPEAKER_02: But before we get to the interview,
2:26
SPEAKER_02: we have a packed agenda with a lot of health care news happening in the last week,
2:31
SPEAKER_02: including Trump selecting an anti-abortion zealot,
2:33
SPEAKER_02: Heidi Overton,
2:34
SPEAKER_02: to lead the FDA,
2:35
SPEAKER_02: RFK continuing to make false Claims about vaccines in every corner of the internet
2:41
SPEAKER_02: that he possibly can.
2:43
SPEAKER_02: We got a new survey from the Commonwealth Fund and then some news
2:46
SPEAKER_02: and Trump spreading disinformation about COVID vaccines.
2:49
SPEAKER_02: So why don't we get right into it, Rob?
2:51
SPEAKER_02: We can just- Let's go.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: Jump right in.
2:52
SPEAKER_02: So the new FDA chief that is being nominated is an anti-abortion zealot
2:57
SPEAKER_02: and supports Trump on childhood vaccine reduction and altering the vaccine schedule.
3:04
SPEAKER_02: So following the resignation of Marty McCary last spring,
3:07
SPEAKER_02: Trump has nominated Dr.
3:08
SPEAKER_02: Heidi Overton,
3:09
SPEAKER_02: the Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy,
3:11
SPEAKER_02: to be the next Commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
3:14
SPEAKER_02: Overton is most notable for her pro-Maha anti-abortion and anti-vax views.
3:20
SPEAKER_02: She recently served four years as the Director of the Center for Healthy America at
3:24
SPEAKER_02: the America First Institute.
3:26
SPEAKER_02: Earlier this month,
3:27
SPEAKER_02: she was present during Trump's childhood vaccine executive order signing event.
3:31
SPEAKER_02: She spoke at the event,
3:32
SPEAKER_02: urging states to follow the Trump guidelines as opposed to the guidelines informed
3:36
SPEAKER_02: by Pediatricians and other public health experts.
3:41
SPEAKER_02: Why don't we meet Dr. Heidi Overton and roll a little clip so we get to know her.
3:45
SPEAKER_01: States are actually the place where school vaccination requirements are implemented.
3:50
SPEAKER_01: It's state laws and regulations.
3:53
SPEAKER_01: And the CDC would advise the states on those policies.
3:57
SPEAKER_01: Since January of 2026,
3:58
SPEAKER_01: 28, states have no longer agreed with the CDC and they recommend their own policies.
4:04
SPEAKER_01: A lot of those states are blue states,
4:06
SPEAKER_01: and they're working with outside entities like the American Academy of Pediatrics
4:09
SPEAKER_01: that still rely on recommendations that were in place in 2024 with the 72 injections
4:16
SPEAKER_01: by age 18.
4:17
SPEAKER_01: So you are saying,
4:18
SPEAKER_01: especially to states that are willing, take a look at this scientific assessment.
4:22
SPEAKER_01: These are the gold standard childhood vaccine recommendations,
4:25
SPEAKER_01: and you should put this into your state law so that when parents go
4:28
SPEAKER_01: to enroll their kids in school,
4:30
SPEAKER_01: They do not have to meet some of the requirements for the vaccines
4:33
SPEAKER_01: that are no longer recommended for all children.
4:36
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
4:37
SPEAKER_00: He couldn't look more disinterested in what was going on at that moment, too.
4:41
SPEAKER_00: The president is so boring.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: He's fidgeting, looking around.
4:46
SPEAKER_02: I was, so, well, he was sleeping before he was sitting.
4:50
SPEAKER_02: At the beginning of that clip, the president is dead asleep.
4:53
SPEAKER_02: You can tell that he's sleeping.
4:55
SPEAKER_02: Kennedy also looks super bored.
4:57
SPEAKER_02: He's standing there stiff in the background like he couldn't be more bored by this.
5:01
SPEAKER_02: But she seems like she is deeply engaged in a nonsense subject matter.
5:09
SPEAKER_02: And yeah, so I find this to be incredibly true.
5:13
SPEAKER_02: And the FDA has like extraordinary power and to put someone with this with such
5:19
SPEAKER_02: an ideological background At the head of the FDA seems like a pretty scary move.
5:25
SPEAKER_02: And I think it also, Robin,
5:26
SPEAKER_02: I think it also signals that they're going to go for,
5:30
SPEAKER_02: given what a zealot she is on the abortion front,
5:33
SPEAKER_02: it signals the direction they're headed in using the FDA to curb the use
5:38
SPEAKER_02: of mifepristone in the future as a drug that's been long considered safe,
5:44
SPEAKER_02: whether they're going to politicize the use of mifepristone through the FDA.
5:48
SPEAKER_02: And I think this signals that that's where they're headed.
5:50
SPEAKER_02: What do you think, Rob?
5:51
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
5:52
SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's her most public moment, right, in the Oval about vaccines.
5:56
SPEAKER_00: But she has written extensively at the America First Policy,
6:00
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe I have to say that,
6:01
SPEAKER_00: America First Policy Institute, about her opposition to abortion.
6:06
SPEAKER_00: Celebrated the fall of Roe v. Wade in 2022 with the Dobbs decision.
6:11
SPEAKER_00: She falsely wrote about the dangers of medication abortion.
6:17
SPEAKER_00: She wrote op-eds and opinion pieces for them,
6:20
SPEAKER_00: claiming to protect women and children from abortion zealots.
6:24
SPEAKER_00: Who the hell?
6:25
SPEAKER_00: Like who the hell is an abortion zealot?
6:27
SPEAKER_00: Like this is the,
6:28
SPEAKER_00: we are the group of people who say medical decisions,
6:31
SPEAKER_00: doctor, patient, done, end of story.
6:34
SPEAKER_00: And this,
6:34
SPEAKER_00: you know, so she, yes,
6:36
SPEAKER_00: she having this person heading the FDA when they are undertaking a review
6:42
SPEAKER_00: of Mifpristone,
6:44
SPEAKER_00: when the new attorney general has said that the department of justice will work
6:48
SPEAKER_00: with federal health agencies and that it is his wish that
6:51
SPEAKER_00: the Dobbs decision becomes true in all Alluding to the fact that he would like it
6:58
SPEAKER_00: to be harder,
6:59
SPEAKER_00: significantly harder to get an abortion,
7:02
SPEAKER_00: even if you're in a state,
7:03
SPEAKER_00: even if you're in a state that you have protected status in your constitution,
7:07
SPEAKER_00: like we do here in Michigan.
7:10
SPEAKER_00: It's terrible.
7:11
SPEAKER_00: I think you have something there.
7:14
SPEAKER_00: Soon-to-be former Senator Dr.
7:15
SPEAKER_00: Bill Cassidy expressed concern about the appointment of Heidi Overton.
7:21
SPEAKER_02: Senator Bill Cassidy went on to say that her viewpoints are almost disqualifying,
7:26
SPEAKER_02: which is giving himself wiggle room to just be an absolute spineless creep again
7:31
SPEAKER_02: in her nomination process.
7:35
SPEAKER_02: Senator Cassidy is going to be Exclusively remembered for Robert Kennedy and Todd Blanche.
7:42
SPEAKER_02: And now maybe her.
7:46
SPEAKER_02: This seems like another tactic to try to exact some meaningless promise in
7:51
SPEAKER_02: a backroom conversation so he can go out and rubber stamp this absolute nut to lead
7:58
SPEAKER_02: the FDA.
7:59
SPEAKER_02: And then he can convince himself that he still belongs in polite society
8:05
SPEAKER_02: after betraying the American people.
8:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
8:08
SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's almost like rinse, repeat with every nomination of whom he has concerns, right?
8:13
SPEAKER_00: Express the concern openly, meet in private, then state publicly that you were given assurances.
8:20
SPEAKER_00: Then when that person gets there and it turns out they were lying to you,
8:23
SPEAKER_00: say, well, what was I supposed to do?
8:25
SPEAKER_00: Was I supposed to look in the future?
8:26
SPEAKER_00: They told me this.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: It's like, dude, look at their past.
8:29
SPEAKER_00: Like, look at her a week ago on vaccines.
8:31
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
8:32
SPEAKER_00: That was his objection, right?
8:34
SPEAKER_00: This guy,
8:34
SPEAKER_00: he's anti-choice and he's just fine with her views on abortion,
8:38
SPEAKER_00: but her views on tribal vaccinations
8:41
SPEAKER_00: and what she's calling gold standard science are what concerns him.
8:47
SPEAKER_00: Look at her statements.
8:48
SPEAKER_00: Just look at RFK Jr.'s decades of work before he became HHS secretary.
8:53
SPEAKER_00: Don't base it on one hour in your office where they're telling, oh, don't worry.
8:57
SPEAKER_00: No, no, we're all good.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: We're all good.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: We're on the same page.
8:59
SPEAKER_00: I just don't get it.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: There's something about a scorpion and a frog,
9:03
SPEAKER_00: or I don't know the metaphor, but there's something like that.
9:07
SPEAKER_00: But if they tell you who they are throughout their careers,
9:11
SPEAKER_00: just because they tell you in that one meeting,
9:13
SPEAKER_00: we're good,
9:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm with you on vaccines,
9:16
SPEAKER_00: that is not how this woman is going to be once she's the head of FDA.
9:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
9:20
SPEAKER_02: And so it seems clear that she's going to Tow the party line on the reduction of vaccines.
9:29
SPEAKER_02: I continue to believe that this is because he's going to get rid of Bobby Kennedy
9:35
SPEAKER_02: after the midterms.
9:37
SPEAKER_02: And so Trump is trying to shore up the anti-vax portion of the Maha coalition in his corner.
9:42
SPEAKER_02: So when he gets rid of Bobby, he retains those people.
9:45
SPEAKER_02: I think that's far-fetched.
9:46
SPEAKER_02: I think that's like he's playing a game that isn't real and won't work.
9:49
SPEAKER_02: But that seems like what maybe the motivation could be.
9:53
SPEAKER_02: I'd say there's going to be real and probably immediate consequences on
9:59
SPEAKER_02: the reproductive rights front.
10:00
SPEAKER_02: Just a couple examples of how radical this lady is.
10:04
SPEAKER_02: She's got a couple of quotes here.
10:05
SPEAKER_02: She said,
10:06
SPEAKER_02: today in six states plus the District of Columbia,
10:08
SPEAKER_02: there are absolutely no state level restrictions on when an abortion can take place,
10:11
SPEAKER_02: meaning that fully formed babies can be killed in the womb.
10:14
SPEAKER_02: That's not true.
10:15
SPEAKER_02: She said that though, but it's not.
10:17
SPEAKER_02: She's like making that up.
10:18
SPEAKER_02: Americans clearly align with the beliefs of the pro-life movement.
10:21
SPEAKER_02: Leftists relentlessly attack these views as extreme.
10:25
SPEAKER_02: The left's positions are furthest removed from the sentiments of the American people
10:28
SPEAKER_02: and are drastically more extreme.
10:30
SPEAKER_02: She's like,
10:45
SPEAKER_02: She's just like a real,
10:46
SPEAKER_02: and she's always reframing abortion pills as chemical abortions,
10:50
SPEAKER_02: using the pro-life movement's poll-tested talking points.
10:53
SPEAKER_02: So she's really like a, she's a real etiologue on this front.
10:57
SPEAKER_02: And putting her at the FDA seems like it is signaling the noise on
11:01
SPEAKER_02: where they're headed with the politicization of every single component part of HHS.
11:06
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
11:08
SPEAKER_00: Well, I mean, we're going to keep shining the spotlight on this.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure more to come.
11:12
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure more to come as this thing rolls forward.
11:14
SPEAKER_02: RFK had sort of an incredible moment this last week where he falsely claims
11:19
SPEAKER_02: that there's new evidence that supports splitting the MMR vaccine Is a good idea.
11:25
SPEAKER_02: During the executive order signing event that Dr.
11:27
SPEAKER_02: Overton spoke at,
11:28
SPEAKER_02: Trump claimed that the MMR vaccine is quite lethal and that breaking it up will have
11:32
SPEAKER_02: a huge impact on autism.
11:34
SPEAKER_02: Both things not true.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: The next day,
11:36
SPEAKER_02: he said that the combined shot is sort of like a nuclear weapon, according to some.
11:41
SPEAKER_02: Bill Cassidy called the comment a crazy stupid thing.
11:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, that's right.
11:46
SPEAKER_02: Thanks, Dr. Cassidy.
11:47
SPEAKER_02: That is crazy stupid and you enabled it.
11:50
SPEAKER_02: But when asked on CNN about the CDC's website saying that
11:53
SPEAKER_02: the combined MMR shot is perfectly safe,
11:56
SPEAKER_02: RFK Jr. said that the website is probably outdated.
11:59
SPEAKER_02: And then he said this.
11:59
SPEAKER_02: Let's roll the clip.
12:00
SPEAKER_01: There is a recent study that just came out that supports President Trump on that.
12:05
SPEAKER_01: It looks at the timeline for when the autism epidemic began.
12:11
SPEAKER_01: And it's a synthesis of essentially a matter of view.
12:18
SPEAKER_01: Of all the existing science, and it very strongly supports the president.
12:22
SPEAKER_02: That is...
12:23
SPEAKER_02: He's lying.
12:24
SPEAKER_02: ...Just fake.
12:25
SPEAKER_02: That's just a fake.
12:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, he's making that up.
12:27
SPEAKER_02: He's just making that up to follow Donald Trump and clean up whatever crazy thing he says.
12:34
SPEAKER_02: So that's the... Like,
12:37
SPEAKER_02: whatever madness comes out of the president's mouth,
12:40
SPEAKER_02: Bobby Kennedy is following behind him and trying to fix it and citing fake,
12:44
SPEAKER_02: fake brand-new science.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: What is a reporter to do?
12:49
SPEAKER_00: This kind of gets back to that crash and burn with Dana Bash on CNN
12:53
SPEAKER_00: that RFK exhibited a couple weeks ago.
12:57
SPEAKER_00: You're not prepared as an interviewer to respond.
13:01
SPEAKER_00: I mean, maybe you should be to anything they might make up to,
13:05
SPEAKER_00: to him just pulling something out of thin air that isn't true
13:08
SPEAKER_00: and tells you it's recent.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: Therefore,
13:10
SPEAKER_00: I'm not expecting you as an interviewer to know this,
13:13
SPEAKER_00: but this is like, I'm letting you in on this.
13:15
SPEAKER_00: And it's like absolute bullshit.
13:16
SPEAKER_00: Cause then after the fact, all the fact checkers and you go, look, it's all out there.
13:20
SPEAKER_00: Do the searches, go look, and like, wait, there is no new study.
13:23
SPEAKER_00: There's no meta-analysis.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: This is made up, but it's too late.
13:27
SPEAKER_00: The soundbite's out there, right?
13:28
SPEAKER_00: And that's now making its way across the parts of the internet,
13:31
SPEAKER_00: and people are seeing it pop up and saying, oh, maybe there's something there.
13:35
SPEAKER_02: I have a brand new study that's even newer that says you're wrong.
13:38
SPEAKER_02: You know what?
13:39
SPEAKER_02: I keep it in a box.
13:40
SPEAKER_02: Love it.
13:41
SPEAKER_02: It's a secret.
13:43
SPEAKER_00: Your study came out last week.
13:45
SPEAKER_00: Well, mine came out this morning right before you didn't see it.
13:48
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, that would be great.
13:50
SPEAKER_00: Oh, what a tactic.
13:51
SPEAKER_00: His brain would just like overload.
13:52
SPEAKER_00: The worm would not know how to handle that one.
13:55
SPEAKER_02: In news that is a real study and a real survey and real data,
13:59
SPEAKER_02: the Commonwealth Fund just surveyed 25,000 people age 19 and older
14:04
SPEAKER_02: about what they want fixed in our healthcare system.
14:07
SPEAKER_02: And it's a pretty exhaustive list.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: If you wanna take a look at the Commonwealth Fund survey, we're gonna put it in the show notes.
14:13
SPEAKER_02: Interesting new piece of data as we figure out,
14:16
SPEAKER_02: as those people who are interested in building universal healthcare
14:19
SPEAKER_02: in this country try to understand what's not working for people,
14:22
SPEAKER_02: what they found Isn't gonna be too much of a surprise,
14:25
SPEAKER_02: but it kind of reinforces some of the ways that we think about how
14:29
SPEAKER_02: the healthcare system is broken.
14:30
SPEAKER_02: First off,
14:30
SPEAKER_02: the cost of health insurance premiums and the cost of what you pay
14:33
SPEAKER_02: when you get medical care or fill prescriptions,
14:35
SPEAKER_02: including deductibles and co-pays, top the list.
14:37
SPEAKER_02: The top choices were not impacted by being a Republican or a Democrat,
14:41
SPEAKER_02: and so we know that rage at the healthcare system is sort of a bipartisan issue.
14:48
SPEAKER_02: 51% of respondents said the federal government is best able to solve the problem of
14:53
SPEAKER_02: the cost of premiums for health insurance.
14:55
SPEAKER_02: Republicans were an outlier.
14:56
SPEAKER_02: 40% said insurance companies are best able.
14:59
SPEAKER_02: 36% said the federal government, which is actually pretty...
15:02
SPEAKER_02: Close.
15:03
SPEAKER_02: Like the fact that the Republicans are like kind of 50-50 on private public.
15:07
SPEAKER_02: And then when it comes to the cost of prescriptions, again,
15:08
SPEAKER_02: the federal government was the top choice with 41% with insurance companies close
15:12
SPEAKER_02: behind at 36%.
15:13
SPEAKER_02: Here too,
15:14
SPEAKER_02: Republicans chose insurance companies over the federal government,
15:16
SPEAKER_02: but only 48% to 30%.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: And so my big takeaway from this is that the Democratic Party has always been
15:22
SPEAKER_02: the party that wanted big systemic health care reform.
15:25
SPEAKER_02: And the Republican Party has always been the party that wanted giveaways
15:29
SPEAKER_02: for insurance companies that probably don't provide a ton of value.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: But at the voter level, you're starting to see the parties sort of converge.
15:39
SPEAKER_02: And there are differences,
15:41
SPEAKER_02: but those differences are becoming less and less as the problems pile up in
15:45
SPEAKER_02: the American health care system.
15:46
SPEAKER_00: And the thing they didn't say they wanted was changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, right?
15:51
SPEAKER_00: They didn't say they wanted more measles or more explosive diarrhea.
15:54
SPEAKER_00: They did not say they wanted restrictions on medication abortion.
15:58
SPEAKER_00: They didn't say any of these things, right?
16:02
SPEAKER_00: Healthcare costs too much, insurance costs too much, drugs cost too much.
16:05
SPEAKER_00: And like whatever people think about,
16:08
SPEAKER_00: now I'm referring back maybe in the last month,
16:10
SPEAKER_00: a navigator poll that asked people,
16:13
SPEAKER_00: you know, kind of what they support as far as solutions to the healthcare crisis.
16:16
SPEAKER_00: And across all of the solutions,
16:18
SPEAKER_00: whether it be they pulled like public option,
16:21
SPEAKER_00: Medicare for all,
16:22
SPEAKER_00: they pulled single payer healthcare,
16:23
SPEAKER_00: they pulled Medicare at age 55,
16:26
SPEAKER_00: every single one of those enjoyed at least plurality and mostly majority,
16:30
SPEAKER_00: like more support than opposition.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: I
16:36
SPEAKER_00: think because it's been so coded with the left and Bernie and all that crowd
16:40
SPEAKER_00: that just that term they get like, ooh,
16:42
SPEAKER_00: they get,
16:43
SPEAKER_00: it's almost like the old pulling on Obamacare and the Affordable Care Act
16:46
SPEAKER_00: or Obamacare.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: Obamacare and the pieces of the Affordable Care Act that people like,
16:50
SPEAKER_00: you know, Republicans will say, oh, we don't like Obamacare.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: But then every single component of that bill that they enjoy,
16:56
SPEAKER_00: they're, oh, yeah, we want to have all these services covered.
16:58
SPEAKER_00: We want health care for our kids up until age 26, all of it.
17:01
SPEAKER_00: And so the reality is, yes, they're identifying a problem.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: And then we have other good data showing.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Vast majorities of people across all of the political spectrum are open
17:10
SPEAKER_00: to many options available to Democrats and Republicans,
17:14
SPEAKER_00: frankly, but to the government should they decide to take the big swing.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: It's encouraging to me,
17:21
SPEAKER_00: and hopefully enough of this data piles up that anyone in government gets
17:24
SPEAKER_00: the message, but at least the Democrats.
17:27
SPEAKER_00: William Lawrence, who we talked to later, talked about this.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: We got to set the stage.
17:31
SPEAKER_00: We actually have to deliver for people.
17:34
SPEAKER_00: And when he's talking to real people in a mid-Michigan swing district, they want these changes.
17:40
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
17:41
SPEAKER_02: So stick around for that.
17:42
SPEAKER_02: We can get into his answer on that.
17:45
SPEAKER_02: And it's an insightful one.
17:47
SPEAKER_02: So evidence mounts that the Trump administration benefited from the botch response
17:53
SPEAKER_02: to the cyclospora outbreak.
17:57
SPEAKER_02: So cases of cyclosporiasis have topped 27,000 since May 1st,
18:03
SPEAKER_02: according to the CDC's latest report, which we know lags the actual number.
18:07
SPEAKER_02: Last week,
18:07
SPEAKER_02: the FDA finally visited the Mexican lettuce farm owned by Taylor Farms
18:12
SPEAKER_02: that is believed to be the source of many of the infections.
18:14
SPEAKER_02: The farm hadn't been inspected by the FDA for seven years,
18:17
SPEAKER_02: and it took the FDA a full month after the farm was discovered to be the source
18:21
SPEAKER_02: to go check it out.
18:22
SPEAKER_02: Giving them plenty of time to tidy the place up.
18:25
SPEAKER_02: CBS reported that about a third of FDA inspections of foreign firms
18:29
SPEAKER_02: for foodborne hazards over the last decade found violations.
18:33
SPEAKER_02: In some instances,
18:34
SPEAKER_02: inspectors have found toilet paper and human feces in growing fields in Mexico.
18:38
SPEAKER_02: Cyclosporiasis is spread by human feces.
18:40
SPEAKER_02: Senator Elizabeth Warren sent a letter to RFK Jr. last week about the issue.
18:44
SPEAKER_02: I write regarding the administration's calamitous response to the biggest outbreak
18:48
SPEAKER_02: of cyclosporiasis in U.S.
18:50
SPEAKER_02: history and to the extent at which the outbreak and bot's response may be the result
18:53
SPEAKER_02: of incompetence and corruption, she wrote.
18:55
SPEAKER_02: Moreover,
18:56
SPEAKER_02: Political contributions and direct White House lobbying
18:59
SPEAKER_02: from Taylor Farms raise urgent questions about the role of influence peddling.
19:03
SPEAKER_02: And this seems to be the story of this outbreak is that there is money back
19:09
SPEAKER_02: and forth from Taylor Farms into Trump's various and wide ranging set
19:14
SPEAKER_02: of bank accounts.
19:16
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean,
19:17
SPEAKER_00: remember there was supposedly a positive test from this that the day after the head
19:22
SPEAKER_00: of Taylor Farms went to the White House, the positive test was rescinded.
19:25
SPEAKER_00: Who knows, right?
19:26
SPEAKER_00: I don't trust any of them with this data.
19:28
SPEAKER_00: They still said, oh, we think this is the source.
19:30
SPEAKER_00: But, you know,
19:31
SPEAKER_00: like kind of putting a little shine on the news,
19:34
SPEAKER_00: the press release about the outbreak, making him look a little better.
19:37
SPEAKER_00: And then, yeah,
19:38
SPEAKER_00: the amount of money going into Trump and
19:40
SPEAKER_00: the entities he controls seems like it's table stakes at this point.
19:45
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, definitely.
19:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's sort of incredible that it's so many sick people.
19:52
SPEAKER_02: I mean, and this is not like a fun, right, Rob?
19:53
SPEAKER_02: It's like not a particularly mild illness.
20:00
SPEAKER_02: There are some deaths associated with it,
20:01
SPEAKER_02: although death is not like the normal outcome here,
20:04
SPEAKER_02: but it's like people don't work for weeks sometimes.
20:08
SPEAKER_02: Like they can't,
20:09
SPEAKER_02: like it really is life disruptive and to have it at such a scale and to think
20:13
SPEAKER_02: that like,
20:16
SPEAKER_02: If not the beginning of the outbreak,
20:19
SPEAKER_02: getting our arms around it and being able to contain it and be able
20:22
SPEAKER_02: to understand it better is sort of interrupted by the fact that they're handing cash
20:25
SPEAKER_02: to the Trump administration.
20:27
SPEAKER_02: Really pisses me off.
20:29
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to shine an uncomfortable light on cyclosporiasis relative
20:32
SPEAKER_00: to other diarrheal illnesses.
20:34
SPEAKER_00: I will tell you, and this is a truth I can back up with anecdotes.
20:39
SPEAKER_00: If someone comes to the ER complaining of diarrhea, 99% of the time they don't poop.
20:45
SPEAKER_00: They just can't go.
20:46
SPEAKER_00: You got to send them home with a little cup to give their sample.
20:48
SPEAKER_00: And you're like,
20:49
SPEAKER_00: you know,
20:49
SPEAKER_00: the cure to diarrhea apparently is just show up in the hospital and
20:52
SPEAKER_00: then you don't go.
20:53
SPEAKER_00: Not the case with cyclosporiasis.
20:55
SPEAKER_00: Like these are folks within a couple hours in the air, they're running to the bathroom.
20:59
SPEAKER_00: It's not a problem.
21:00
SPEAKER_00: So it is extremely uncomfortable.
21:03
SPEAKER_00: People don't want this.
21:05
SPEAKER_00: Yes, a couple of deaths in Michigan were reported.
21:07
SPEAKER_00: That is horrible.
21:08
SPEAKER_00: And yet,
21:08
SPEAKER_00: even if you don't die from this,
21:11
SPEAKER_00: all these people kind of look like they wish they were dead at times.
21:15
SPEAKER_00: It's pretty bad.
21:17
SPEAKER_02: It seems like this,
21:18
SPEAKER_02: like so many things that the government are involved in,
21:21
SPEAKER_02: it comes down to who's paying for the ballroom.
21:23
SPEAKER_02: Or who's paying for the Trump PAC accounts.
21:25
SPEAKER_02: And so we'll stay on top of this because it seems like Elizabeth Warren is on
21:31
SPEAKER_02: to something with how this got botched and the follow up.
21:35
SPEAKER_02: The other thing too is like this has been an education for me that
21:39
SPEAKER_02: the FDA's food inspector,
21:41
SPEAKER_02: like the amount of inspectors they have versus like even if FDA's inspectors We're
21:47
SPEAKER_02: under political pressure from the Trump administration and
21:49
SPEAKER_02: the government was running a OK,
21:51
SPEAKER_02: totally normal president, totally normal government.
21:55
SPEAKER_02: There's just like not enough inspectors to actually do the job of keeping
22:00
SPEAKER_02: the food system safe, which I've learned over the course of this.
22:03
SPEAKER_02: And it seems like it seems like in the.
22:06
SPEAKER_02: In not the rebuilding of the government,
22:08
SPEAKER_02: but in the creation of something new and better after the Trump administration,
22:13
SPEAKER_02: fortifying the ability to keep the food system safe seems like it could be
22:18
SPEAKER_02: a nice priority for people to take on.
22:20
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean,
22:21
SPEAKER_00: the public health infrastructure,
22:22
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how many orders of magnitude,
22:24
SPEAKER_00: but you can measure it in orders of magnitude and how they are funded relative to
22:29
SPEAKER_00: the military-industrial complex in this country.
22:32
SPEAKER_00: And it's shameful, and it has been under Republicans and Democrats, underfunded, underfunded.
22:39
SPEAKER_00: These guys just came in and figured out a way to just completely break it even more.
22:43
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, and make a little money off
22:44
SPEAKER_00: of it.
22:45
SPEAKER_02: All right.
22:46
SPEAKER_02: In other Trump administration news,
22:48
SPEAKER_02: Trump officials and other Republicans spread disinformation about
22:50
SPEAKER_02: the COVID vaccines causing miscarriages.
22:54
SPEAKER_02: This was like a throwback to the COVID era,
22:58
SPEAKER_02: and it has all the elements of conspiracy and ginning up.
23:03
SPEAKER_02: Hatred towards Dr. Fauci.
23:04
SPEAKER_02: So the New York Times reports that the Trump administration officials
23:06
SPEAKER_02: and other prominent Republicans falsely suggested this week
23:09
SPEAKER_02: that COVID-19 vaccines were linked to miscarriage.
23:12
SPEAKER_02: They misleadingly seized on old text messages of Dr.
23:15
SPEAKER_02: Anthony Fauci that were recently released by Rand Paul.
23:19
SPEAKER_02: Just to sum this up,
23:20
SPEAKER_02: I'm sure people are following in other places,
23:22
SPEAKER_02: there was a discussion between Dr.
23:25
SPEAKER_02: Fauci and two other officials Kind of going back and forth
23:31
SPEAKER_02: about what they should be looking into.
23:33
SPEAKER_02: And it was like incredibly distorted in the way that it was presented that Dr.
23:41
SPEAKER_02: Fauci knew that the COVID-19 vaccine caused miscarriages,
23:46
SPEAKER_02: which is not true and remains not true.
23:48
SPEAKER_02: And we have a lot of pregnant people who've gotten COVID-19 vaccines
23:52
SPEAKER_02: and there was not a We know that it doesn't.
23:59
SPEAKER_02: So it's just like a lie.
24:00
SPEAKER_02: It's like a lie about a lie.
24:01
SPEAKER_02: And I'll read this.
24:03
SPEAKER_02: Privately over text,
24:04
SPEAKER_02: Fauci admitted concerns about COVID vaccine side effects associated with miscarriage
24:07
SPEAKER_02: in the first The safety signals,
24:18
SPEAKER_02: the red flags were screaming of these people
24:21
SPEAKER_02: and you got Anthony Fauci lying bold face to the American public.
24:24
SPEAKER_02: That's Ron Johnson.
24:25
SPEAKER_02: We will never know how many babies were miscarried because of Fauci's lies.
24:28
SPEAKER_02: That's Johnson.
24:29
SPEAKER_02: That's the esteemed senator from Wisconsin said those things.
24:33
SPEAKER_02: All of that's not true.
24:34
SPEAKER_02: All of it's just like a fake story about a miscarriage outbreak that never happened
24:39
SPEAKER_02: because it's just a fake thing.
24:42
SPEAKER_02: Anyway, Rob, what was your take on their fake hate for Fauci?
24:47
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're just trying to find ways to justify holding him in contempt, right?
24:51
SPEAKER_00: To justify wanting to put him in jail.
24:54
SPEAKER_00: Tommy Tuberville said when he's governor of Alabama,
24:56
SPEAKER_00: he's going to either make sure he's in court or in jail the rest of his life.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: And the opposite is true, right?
25:04
SPEAKER_00: Getting COVID, particularly bad for pregnant women.
25:08
SPEAKER_00: Getting COVID, particularly bad for miscarriage rates, for getting blood clots.
25:13
SPEAKER_00: And I remember OBGYNs at my hospital pleading with us to talk to our patients.
25:19
SPEAKER_00: We had a period of time people were being put on blood thinners
25:21
SPEAKER_00: because we were concerned about it enough and the signals were saying,
25:24
SPEAKER_00: hey, yeah, the blood clots are out.
25:34
SPEAKER_00: Are really high risk in this group who get COVID.
25:38
SPEAKER_00: And they were just begging their patients, please get the vaccine, please.
25:42
SPEAKER_00: So you don't get COVID because we know that's bad for you, bad for the fetus.
25:46
SPEAKER_00: And these guys are just like, as always saying the opposite, purely for political points.
25:52
SPEAKER_00: It is shameful.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: It's those shocking, but not surprising parts of we're just going to get used to every day.
25:57
SPEAKER_02: All right, Rob.
25:58
SPEAKER_02: Well, I think now it's time to go to our interview with William Lawrence,
26:02
SPEAKER_02: the congressional candidate.
26:03
SPEAKER_02: We'll throw to that now.
26:06
SPEAKER_02: William Lawrence is the Democratic nominee
26:08
SPEAKER_02: for Michigan's 7th Congressional District,
26:09
SPEAKER_02: running to unseat Republican incumbent Tom Barrett in one of
26:13
SPEAKER_02: the most critical swing districts in the country.
26:15
SPEAKER_02: Will has spent his career building coalitions to take on corporate power
26:18
SPEAKER_02: and win change for working families.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: He's helped get big oil money out of politics,
26:21
SPEAKER_02: taking on corporate landlords who are raising our rent,
26:24
SPEAKER_02: and most recently is standing with residents fighting data center developers trying
26:28
SPEAKER_02: to bulldoze Michigan's small towns.
26:29
SPEAKER_02: William Lawrence, welcome to Paging America.
26:31
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for being here.
26:32
SPEAKER_03: Thank you, guys.
26:33
SPEAKER_03: It's a pleasure.
26:34
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
26:35
SPEAKER_02: Well, let's jump in.
26:36
SPEAKER_02: Congratulations on your primary win.
26:38
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
26:39
SPEAKER_02: It made a big splash.
26:41
SPEAKER_02: And, you know,
26:42
SPEAKER_02: I think there was a critique that you were running sort of a different kind
26:46
SPEAKER_02: of campaign, and that was meant as a pejorative.
26:48
SPEAKER_02: But I was looking this morning,
26:50
SPEAKER_02: and there's a fresh poll off the presses from Senate Majority PAC
26:53
SPEAKER_02: that shows you up two points.
26:55
SPEAKER_02: How are we feeling in the wake of the primary outcome?
26:59
SPEAKER_03: We're feeling really good.
27:00
SPEAKER_03: I mean, obviously excited about the new poll showing that I'm up
27:04
SPEAKER_03: on our Republican incumbent,
27:06
SPEAKER_03: Tom Barrett,
27:07
SPEAKER_03: who has done nothing but carry water for the big insurance companies and vote
27:12
SPEAKER_03: to cause all of our health care to increase in cost over his term in office.
27:17
SPEAKER_03: And I'm really proud of the movement that we built to win the primary,
27:20
SPEAKER_03: which Observers have called unprecedented in at least 30 years
27:24
SPEAKER_03: of mid-Michigan politics, specifically the grassroots ground game that we've built.
27:30
SPEAKER_03: I'm an organizer by training.
27:31
SPEAKER_03: I have been my whole adult life.
27:33
SPEAKER_03: And we built an unprecedented grassroots campaign with
27:37
SPEAKER_03: over 1,000 real volunteers putting in real work.
27:40
SPEAKER_03: We knocked on over 100,000 doors.
27:42
SPEAKER_03: And I've prioritized accessibility and showing up around the district and answering
27:47
SPEAKER_03: for My positions,
27:48
SPEAKER_03: my record,
27:49
SPEAKER_03: getting to listen to people and hear their concerns,
27:52
SPEAKER_03: because we know the one thing that Tom Barrett will never,
27:55
SPEAKER_03: ever do is actually answer for his record in an unscripted environment.
28:00
SPEAKER_02: We have been no friends of Tom Barrett over the years here on this show, and we know that.
28:06
SPEAKER_02: That's exactly true.
28:07
SPEAKER_02: He doesn't show up to anything.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: Before I get into the general election and talking a little bit about healthcare,
28:15
SPEAKER_02: in the primary,
28:16
SPEAKER_02: I think it's fair to say you sort of pioneered some of the campaign tactics
28:21
SPEAKER_02: and messaging and genuine concerns around data centers.
28:25
SPEAKER_02: How has that played?
28:27
SPEAKER_02: That's not exactly what we cover here,
28:29
SPEAKER_02: but it is really dominating the discourse in terms of some of these primaries.
28:33
SPEAKER_02: How did that play out in your primary campaign and how do you see it working out in general?
28:37
SPEAKER_03: Well, it's been such a fast breaking issue.
28:39
SPEAKER_03: It wasn't something that I expected to be talking about
28:42
SPEAKER_03: when I entered this race last August because it's not something anybody was talking
28:45
SPEAKER_03: about.
28:45
SPEAKER_03: But then as I was on the campaign trail,
28:48
SPEAKER_03: I started to hear first from one,
28:50
SPEAKER_03: then two,
28:51
SPEAKER_03: then three and four communities across my district
28:54
SPEAKER_03: that were facing data center development,
28:57
SPEAKER_03: including three so-called hyperscalers, which are just these behemoth data centers.
29:01
SPEAKER_03: And the themes were the same.
29:03
SPEAKER_03: The township officials are being signed to non-disclosure agreements.
29:06
SPEAKER_03: The PR agents from California are coming in and telling everybody, just trust us, trust us.
29:11
SPEAKER_03: This is going to be a great deal.
29:13
SPEAKER_03: We've got so much money.
29:14
SPEAKER_03: You're going to get some of it.
29:17
SPEAKER_03: And people said, why should we trust you?
29:20
SPEAKER_03: Why should we trust you?
29:22
SPEAKER_03: You signed these people to an NDAs.
29:24
SPEAKER_03: And we've seen so many broken promises over the years.
29:27
SPEAKER_03: And so I've spent my life fighting back against corporate bullies who are trying
29:31
SPEAKER_03: to take advantage of people,
29:32
SPEAKER_03: whether that's Wall Street landlords trying to evict people here in mid-Michigan
29:37
SPEAKER_03: or Polluting corporations trying to pollute our air and water.
29:41
SPEAKER_03: And so it was a no brainer for me to stand alongside the residents
29:45
SPEAKER_03: across our district who are working to assert their right to self-determination
29:50
SPEAKER_03: against these behemoth corporations that are trying to take advantage of us.
29:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
29:56
SPEAKER_02: Now onto the general,
29:58
SPEAKER_02: one of the things that I was just incredibly impressed by your campaign is even into
30:03
SPEAKER_02: the evening of the primary,
30:05
SPEAKER_02: usually people are sitting around watching TV, tabulating votes.
30:09
SPEAKER_02: Members of your team were out there organizing for a healthcare event
30:12
SPEAKER_02: the very next day to highlight some of Tom Barrett's cuts.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: How did you decide to make sort of that your very first message coming out of
30:21
SPEAKER_02: the gate once you're in the general election?
30:23
SPEAKER_02: And why is that important to your district?
30:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Barrett voted for the big ugly bill,
30:28
SPEAKER_03: which is we haven't seen nothing yet,
30:31
SPEAKER_03: by the way,
30:32
SPEAKER_03: because people are just now starting to get their letters of their work requirements
30:37
SPEAKER_03: for Medicaid that have been instituted.
30:38
SPEAKER_03: We know that thousands upon thousands of people are going to lose their care.
30:43
SPEAKER_03: So many more will be inconvenience and the administrative burden and having
30:46
SPEAKER_03: to certify these work requirements that is coming out is just outrageous
30:50
SPEAKER_03: and it's going to increase costs throughout the system.
30:52
SPEAKER_03: He also voted to Make the Affordable Care Act unaffordable by cutting out
30:57
SPEAKER_03: the premium subsidies.
30:58
SPEAKER_03: And we saw in January that one man I met, he's 61 years old.
31:03
SPEAKER_03: He's a mechanic.
31:05
SPEAKER_03: And his premium, it went up to around $2,000 a month.
31:11
SPEAKER_03: You might not be surprised to know he's now uninsured.
31:14
SPEAKER_03: He's just hoping that he can get through the next four years until he can qualify
31:17
SPEAKER_03: for Medicare and nothing bad is going to happen that might bankrupt him.
31:21
SPEAKER_03: If he has a bad fall or, you know, ends up in a misfortune.
31:24
SPEAKER_03: So that is unacceptable.
31:26
SPEAKER_03: That is what Tom Barrett is responsible for.
31:28
SPEAKER_03: There are thousands of stories like that across the district and tens
31:32
SPEAKER_03: of thousands more to come as the impact of his cruelty sets in.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: Hey, well,
31:38
SPEAKER_00: I will say,
31:38
SPEAKER_00: as a doc and talking to other docs,
31:41
SPEAKER_00: the stories you hear from people just hanging on to a job
31:44
SPEAKER_00: that their bodies can't handle,
31:47
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:47
SPEAKER_00: for a few,
31:48
SPEAKER_00: you said four more years and make it to Medicare,
31:50
SPEAKER_00: like how many people They do that on a regular basis,
31:54
SPEAKER_00: just sitting there at age 60, 61, 62,
31:57
SPEAKER_00: particularly in manual labor jobs,
31:59
SPEAKER_00: breaking their backs,
32:00
SPEAKER_00: doing jobs that I maybe would have given up in my 30s because of the abuse
32:06
SPEAKER_00: the body takes.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: Purely for healthcare,
32:08
SPEAKER_00: because they know if they come off of that,
32:10
SPEAKER_00: they're looking at,
32:11
SPEAKER_00: you know, two, three thousand bucks a month, something like that.
32:14
SPEAKER_00: And worse, you know, since Barrett and Republicans did what they did.
32:17
SPEAKER_00: You talk on your website about like guaranteed healthcare for all is kind of like that.
32:20
SPEAKER_00: That's a position you have related to healthcare.
32:23
SPEAKER_00: I guess I'm wondering,
32:24
SPEAKER_00: specifically in your district,
32:26
SPEAKER_00: there's a clinic,
32:27
SPEAKER_00: Carefree Medical Clinic,
32:29
SPEAKER_00: that serves Medicaid and uninsured patients,
32:32
SPEAKER_00: and it's faced a lot of stress related to all the cuts that have been happening.
32:37
SPEAKER_00: It's going to face more stress, more uninsured people.
32:40
SPEAKER_00: So how do you think about those hyper-local issues with clinics like that,
32:43
SPEAKER_00: and then the appetite in your district for healthcare for all,
32:46
SPEAKER_00: and I guess, what does that mean to you?
32:48
SPEAKER_00: Maybe a three-part question, but just however you want to answer that.
32:51
SPEAKER_03: Well, I'm glad you mentioned Carefree Medical because Dr.
32:54
SPEAKER_03: Bhatti, who runs the clinic, is an amazing guy and a strong advocate.
32:58
SPEAKER_03: And I'm thrilled to be a friend of his.
33:01
SPEAKER_03: And this is, you know, he's doing this for all the right reasons.
33:05
SPEAKER_03: I mean, this is the thing.
33:06
SPEAKER_03: Our doctors, our nurses, all of our medical professionals, our researchers put in so much work.
33:13
SPEAKER_03: You care so much.
33:14
SPEAKER_03: You work so hard.
33:16
SPEAKER_03: You put in all the years of training.
33:18
SPEAKER_03: And then you make incredible discoveries and breakthroughs in the research side of things.
33:22
SPEAKER_03: And our medical field is incredible.
33:25
SPEAKER_03: I mean, it's a testament to what people are capable of with our ingenuity.
33:29
SPEAKER_03: And we have daily miracles, daily miracles.
33:33
SPEAKER_03: I mean, my mother got her knees replaced, you know, and she was walking the next day.
33:37
SPEAKER_03: The fact that we can do these knee or hip replacements as an outpatient procedure, it's painful.
33:42
SPEAKER_03: There's some rehab, but I mean, It is extraordinary.
33:45
SPEAKER_03: The advances in cancer treatment have been extraordinary.
33:48
SPEAKER_03: And so as somebody who loves people and believes that I'm inspired
33:54
SPEAKER_03: by people every day, our medical professionals inspire me so much.
33:58
SPEAKER_03: And then the way that we ration care through the insurance system for the sake
34:04
SPEAKER_03: of Making some investors and CEOs that much richer
34:08
SPEAKER_03: who already have generational wealth and will be cared for for their children
34:12
SPEAKER_03: and grandchildren's lives.
34:15
SPEAKER_03: That makes me disgust and despair.
34:18
SPEAKER_03: At the other side of what people are capable of, which is such cruelty and greed.
34:23
SPEAKER_03: And to have these two sitting side by side with each other,
34:25
SPEAKER_03: I think is why healthcare, I mean, we all need it.
34:29
SPEAKER_03: And for me,
34:30
SPEAKER_03: it just really reflects what we're capable of,
34:33
SPEAKER_03: but also the levels that we stoop to for the sake of greed and profit.
34:39
SPEAKER_03: And I believe that we need Medicare for all because it would take
34:41
SPEAKER_03: the Profit motive out of many aspects of this system and allow us to focus
34:47
SPEAKER_03: on doing what we do best, which is to care for each other.
34:50
SPEAKER_03: And you mentioned the instance of people who are hanging on to a job at the end
34:53
SPEAKER_03: of their career to maintain their care.
34:55
SPEAKER_03: We shouldn't have that happening,
34:57
SPEAKER_03: but we should also not have young people or mid-career people who are thinking about
35:01
SPEAKER_03: a career change,
35:02
SPEAKER_03: but They just can't even contemplate that because they have employer
35:06
SPEAKER_03: to offer insurance and they can't afford to let that go for the sake of themselves
35:09
SPEAKER_03: or their families.
35:10
SPEAKER_03: We shouldn't have young parents who are having to choose between spending time
35:15
SPEAKER_03: with their families or people who are dealing with aging parents and are having
35:19
SPEAKER_03: to You're not able to spend time wanting to spend time with them in the later years
35:23
SPEAKER_03: of their lives,
35:24
SPEAKER_03: but you're not able to do that because that would cause you to lose the insurance
35:28
SPEAKER_03: that your children actually depend on.
35:30
SPEAKER_03: And so we're put into impossible decisions.
35:32
SPEAKER_03: We should be able to care for each other at the most vulnerable times of our lives.
35:36
SPEAKER_03: That's when we're sick, when our children are young and when our parents are old.
35:39
SPEAKER_03: But right now,
35:40
SPEAKER_03: the system is set up to try to squeeze every dime out of us
35:43
SPEAKER_03: in precisely those moments.
35:45
SPEAKER_03: The incentives are all wrong and we've got to set them straight.
35:49
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
35:49
SPEAKER_02: Can I also ask, because, and sorry, we were really taking a look at the district.
35:54
SPEAKER_03: I can tell you guys are, you like healthcare, you like politics.
35:58
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, the Planned Parenthood in your district closed.
36:03
SPEAKER_02: And I, you know,
36:04
SPEAKER_02: we think about,
36:05
SPEAKER_02: I think unfairly a lot of times Planned Parenthood is simply associated
36:10
SPEAKER_02: with abortion care.
36:12
SPEAKER_02: And in some cases that's true,
36:14
SPEAKER_02: but it also serves Young people,
36:17
SPEAKER_02: men and women,
36:18
SPEAKER_02: it's mostly focused on women's reproductive health, but also STI testing.
36:23
SPEAKER_02: And there's a giant student population in your district.
36:27
SPEAKER_02: The Michigan State University, for those who aren't familiar, is in the district.
36:30
SPEAKER_02: And it seems like having clinics like these closed down because
36:34
SPEAKER_02: of Republican cuts is like,
36:36
SPEAKER_02: Is that just not looking,
36:38
SPEAKER_02: under Tom Barrett, just like not just looking, not looking after your district.
36:42
SPEAKER_02: It's like actively undermining population health in your district.
36:45
SPEAKER_02: And it's really,
36:46
SPEAKER_02: it seems like something that could penalize him in his reelection bid
36:51
SPEAKER_02: because it shows sort of a cravenness or an ideological,
36:55
SPEAKER_02: being sort of driven by ideology over the health and welfare of the people
36:58
SPEAKER_02: in your district.
36:58
SPEAKER_02: I'm wondering if you have thoughts on the closing of the Planned Parenthood clinic.
37:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, let's be very clear.
37:03
SPEAKER_03: Tom Barrett wants people here in the Lansing area to have to drive 90 miles
37:10
SPEAKER_03: to Detroit to receive care rather than be able to receive it directly at
37:15
SPEAKER_03: a clinic here in Lansing.
37:17
SPEAKER_03: That is what he is responsible for.
37:19
SPEAKER_03: Thanks to his votes for the federal cuts that have now resulted
37:22
SPEAKER_03: in Planned Parenthood clinic closure here.
37:25
SPEAKER_03: And that is inhibiting Over 60,000 people from being able
37:31
SPEAKER_03: to access reproductive health care,
37:34
SPEAKER_03: family planning and other essential care that they were previously accessing.
37:40
SPEAKER_03: And many of those people are low income,
37:43
SPEAKER_03: but other, like you said, many of them are students and it's a huge problem.
37:47
SPEAKER_03: It's less than a quarter mile from our office here,
37:50
SPEAKER_03: actually,
37:50
SPEAKER_03: the former location of the clinic, which is now shuttered and it's inexcusable.
37:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
37:56
SPEAKER_00: Hey, Will.
37:58
SPEAKER_00: So we think,
37:59
SPEAKER_00: and I think a lot of people talk about future democratic trifecta,
38:02
SPEAKER_00: 2029, all the great things we can do.
38:04
SPEAKER_00: There's like two years in there in your first term that we think,
38:10
SPEAKER_00: if we're reading the tea leaves, Democrats will...
38:13
SPEAKER_00: Likely control the House, maybe the Senate, right?
38:15
SPEAKER_00: But the body that you're going to be entering, you likely would be in the majority.
38:20
SPEAKER_00: What do you think you as a member of Congress and then sort of the caucus,
38:25
SPEAKER_00: the party writ large, can do in those cheers?
38:29
SPEAKER_00: We understand Donald Trump will still be president, right?
38:31
SPEAKER_00: Or some Republican.
38:32
SPEAKER_00: But Donald Trump will almost certainly be the president throughout that time.
38:35
SPEAKER_00: What do you think you all can do?
38:37
SPEAKER_00: To relieve stress on folks,
38:38
SPEAKER_00: or at least to kind of set the table and prepare for that trifecta and
38:44
SPEAKER_00: the big swings we got to take.
38:45
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, it's critically important.
38:47
SPEAKER_03: So if we control the Senate,
38:48
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I think we should, there's no excuses if we control the Senate.
38:52
SPEAKER_03: For not passing a bunch of bills to increase access to health care,
38:57
SPEAKER_03: lower costs,
38:57
SPEAKER_03: lower the cost of housing,
38:59
SPEAKER_03: stop these stupid wars around the world and bring our money home to invest
39:02
SPEAKER_03: in housing and health care for the American people while lowering the cost of gas
39:07
SPEAKER_03: and groceries.
39:07
SPEAKER_03: We should be putting those bills on the president's desk.
39:10
SPEAKER_03: And we also need to be introducing and passing legislation to clean up
39:15
SPEAKER_03: the outrageous corruption that's taking place.
39:17
SPEAKER_03: The president has gotten $2 billion wealthier in the last year.
39:21
SPEAKER_03: His sons are openly trying to rig the UFC fights on the Capitol lawn.
39:27
SPEAKER_03: We know that he's selling access to his lies on social media an hour in advance so
39:31
SPEAKER_03: that people can bet on them on the prediction markets.
39:34
SPEAKER_03: It is obscene.
39:35
SPEAKER_03: His personal lawyer is now the Attorney General.
39:38
SPEAKER_03: Where do you stop?
39:39
SPEAKER_03: This all has to get cleaned up.
39:41
SPEAKER_03: Heretofore unseen levels of corruption that must be is already illegal in
39:47
SPEAKER_03: so many ways, but needs to be made that much more illegal.
39:50
SPEAKER_03: And we need to act as Congress to provide oversight,
39:53
SPEAKER_03: accountability and consequences for the executive branch.
39:57
SPEAKER_03: But then there's also an important job over the next two years,
39:59
SPEAKER_03: as you said, to set the stage for the 2029 moment.
40:04
SPEAKER_03: And this is work I have experience doing because when I was in my prior role at
40:08
SPEAKER_03: the Sunrise Movement and we were big supporters of Senator Sanders in 2016 and 2020,
40:17
SPEAKER_03: we were able to play a part in the forming Biden coalition in the aftermath of
40:21
SPEAKER_03: the 2020 primary.
40:23
SPEAKER_03: To really set the stage for a bold and ambitious agenda,
40:26
SPEAKER_03: Biden's Build Back Better agenda,
40:28
SPEAKER_03: which was the most ambitious investment in American jobs and manufacturing,
40:34
SPEAKER_03: as well as investments in care through things like the child tax credit
40:38
SPEAKER_03: in Generations and much of that we were able to pass that much more of it.
40:44
SPEAKER_03: We were unable to pass unfortunately because of corporate operation opposition in the Senate.
40:48
SPEAKER_03: The point is that those two years we had in the last time under
40:53
SPEAKER_03: the last Trump presidency,
40:55
SPEAKER_03: the tail days of those presidency are critically important for aligning on
40:59
SPEAKER_03: a coherent agenda for governance in 2029.
41:03
SPEAKER_03: Once we elect a democratic president,
41:05
SPEAKER_03: Because we know we don't have any time to waste and we have to be just as ambitious
41:09
SPEAKER_03: with our project 2029 in caring for the American people as project 2025 was
41:15
SPEAKER_03: in exploiting people and eliminating our freedoms.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, thanks.
41:20
SPEAKER_00: I got to say,
41:20
SPEAKER_00: of all of the corruption talk,
41:22
SPEAKER_00: just talking about the betting on the UFC fights and rigging them,
41:27
SPEAKER_00: I don't hear many people talking about that.
41:28
SPEAKER_00: That just seems like something.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: When you hear all the other things that maybe don't make a lot of sense,
41:33
SPEAKER_00: the crypto schemes and becoming a bank, that one hits home.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: I think it would hit home with people.
41:38
SPEAKER_00: I don't know if you talk about it a lot or what.
41:39
SPEAKER_03: Trump is sliding into the DMs of the UFC fighters.
41:43
SPEAKER_03: That's crazy.
41:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: And how much were they gonna gain off of something like that compared to
41:48
SPEAKER_00: the billions they're getting with the cryptos games and all that?
41:51
SPEAKER_00: It's like corruption just for the sake of it.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
41:54
SPEAKER_03: And addiction.
41:55
SPEAKER_03: Addiction.
41:56
SPEAKER_03: They're addicted to corruption and they're addicted to gambling.
42:00
SPEAKER_03: The rest of us to be addicted to gambling.
42:02
SPEAKER_03: But the fact of the matter is that the house always wins.
42:06
SPEAKER_03: And right now it's the Trump family that's the house and the rest
42:09
SPEAKER_03: of us are getting screwed over in this rigged gambling economy.
42:13
SPEAKER_02: That might be a good place to leave it, Will.
42:15
SPEAKER_02: Will, I just would like to say,
42:17
SPEAKER_02: I think we've asked a lot of people this question about if we find ourselves
42:21
SPEAKER_02: in split government in the next round.
42:22
SPEAKER_02: That is one of the better answers I've heard.
42:23
SPEAKER_02: And I appreciate that you're doing deep thinking about it because it really,
42:27
SPEAKER_02: it's going to take leadership in Congress for us to get ready for how to dig out
42:31
SPEAKER_02: of this mess.
42:32
SPEAKER_03: So campaigning is fun and I've loved getting to meet so many people over
42:35
SPEAKER_03: the district and I look forward to You know,
42:37
SPEAKER_03: campaigning for the next 10 years,
42:40
SPEAKER_03: should I win this race and then keep running for reelection?
42:42
SPEAKER_03: But the goal is to govern and to solve problems on behalf of the people of MidMichigan.
42:47
SPEAKER_03: And that's what I'm excited to do.
42:49
SPEAKER_03: That's great.
42:50
SPEAKER_02: All right, everyone.
42:52
SPEAKER_02: William Lawrence is running in the general election for
42:54
SPEAKER_02: the seventh congressional district in MidMichigan.
42:57
SPEAKER_02: Will, before we let you go, where can people find you?
43:00
SPEAKER_03: Great question.
43:02
SPEAKER_03: WeWill2026.com because we will get the cost of healthcare down
43:07
SPEAKER_03: And hold these insurance CEOs accountable and have housing and healthcare
43:11
SPEAKER_03: that we can actually all afford.
43:12
SPEAKER_03: So wewill2026.com.
43:14
SPEAKER_03: We'll get it done.
43:14
SPEAKER_03: You can donate there.
43:15
SPEAKER_03: You can sign up to knock doors,
43:17
SPEAKER_03: make phone calls,
43:18
SPEAKER_03: and send me an email if you want to the email on the website if you'd like to talk
43:24
SPEAKER_03: about anything specific.
43:25
SPEAKER_03: Great.
43:25
SPEAKER_02: We'll put the URL in the show notes.
43:27
SPEAKER_02: William Lawrence, thanks so much for joining us at Paging America.
43:30
SPEAKER_03: Thank you, guys.
43:32
SPEAKER_02: That was great.
43:33
SPEAKER_02: I think it's, when you get to know Will, it's clear why he's the nominee.
43:37
SPEAKER_02: And I think people,
43:39
SPEAKER_02: despite being him sort of a non-traditional candidate,
43:41
SPEAKER_02: I think he's going to thump Tom Barrett.
43:43
SPEAKER_02: I think he's going to beat Tom Barrett and be the next
43:46
SPEAKER_00: rep for MidMichigan.
43:47
SPEAKER_00: As much as we talk about all the polls,
43:49
SPEAKER_00: what people want,
43:50
SPEAKER_00: people want healthcare, people don't want data centers, people want this, want that.
43:53
SPEAKER_00: You know what people want?
43:54
SPEAKER_00: They want like a real person.
43:56
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:57
SPEAKER_00: The overwhelming of the entire interview that we found even before and
44:00
SPEAKER_00: after just talking to him,
44:02
SPEAKER_00: he's just like a real person who people experience in their everyday lives.
44:05
SPEAKER_00: And what a breath of fresh air for someone running for Congress.
44:08
SPEAKER_00: I just like going out and campaigning and talking to people.
44:12
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, good luck.
44:13
SPEAKER_00: I agree with you.
44:14
SPEAKER_00: I think the results in 11 weeks are going to surprise people that he's going to take
44:20
SPEAKER_00: that one pretty easily.
44:21
SPEAKER_00: We'll see.
44:23
SPEAKER_02: I think so.
44:23
SPEAKER_02: All right.
44:25
SPEAKER_02: Today's episode was written by Chris Savage, Dr.
44:27
SPEAKER_02: Rob Davidson, and me, Miles Baker.
44:29
SPEAKER_02: Paging America,
44:30
SPEAKER_02: The Situation Womb,
44:31
SPEAKER_02: and all of our on-call segments this week were produced by Peter Ogburn
44:35
SPEAKER_02: and Chris Savage.
44:36
SPEAKER_02: All shows were edited by Peter Ogburn and April Stewie.
44:38
SPEAKER_02: Our music is by Annette Somerset at Duneflower Productions.
44:41
SPEAKER_02: And if you enjoyed today's show,
44:42
SPEAKER_02: please subscribe and leave us a rating on YouTube,
44:44
SPEAKER_02: Spotify, and Apple Podcasts or wherever you visit.
44:46
SPEAKER_02: Your support helps others discover the podcast.
44:48
SPEAKER_02: We're particularly trying to grow our YouTube audience now.
44:51
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44:53
SPEAKER_02: it's free and it helps us boost our programming in the algorithm
44:56
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45:00
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45:03
SPEAKER_02: So please hit that subscribe button and share it with a friend.
45:06
SPEAKER_02: And all right, Rob, today was a great conversation.
45:08
SPEAKER_02: Thanks for hanging out.
45:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you too.
45:10
SPEAKER_00: See you next week.