Bulwark Takes - LIVE REACTION: RFK JR. Faces HEATED Questioning in Senate Hearing

Episode Date: September 4, 2025

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before the Senate on Thursday—and, well, it was rocky. Under siege already for scaling back government support for vaccines, and for pushing out top leadership at his and other health agencies, Kennedy received a skeptical welcome from members of both parties. At times, it seemed to bother him, as he accused his detractors of being in the pocket of the pharmaceutical industry and rambled on incoherently about his views on the COVID vaccine, and Donald Trump’s handling of it. His explanation for why he fired now-ex CDC Director Susan Monarez left one Senator visibly confused. After three hours, Kennedy’s standing seemed as shaky as ever, with Republicans even expressing some alarm over the damage he was causing. Sam, Will and Jonathan broke down Kennedy’s testimony in front of the Senate Finance Committee, while answering two fundamental questions: what does it mean for his own future and for the future of public health in America.

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Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connix Ontario at 1866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. But MGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming Ontario. First of all, thanks for joining us. Conan and I just spent three hours watching the hearing that RFK had before the Senate Finance Committee. This morning, it's Thursday.

It comes in the wake of incredible controversies at the CDC and HHS. And it promised to be a pretty combustible hearing, a lot of fireworks. And frankly, I don't think it disappointed. I was talking in one of our Slack chats. And we're going to get into recaps of the hearing. So if you haven't seen it, don't worry.

I was talking to Slack Check, I can't recall a recent hearing, I suppose, where there was so much skepticism shared across the aisle for the person who was sitting there. And in this case, such a senior person in administration, he took a lot of very tough questions, not just from Democrats, but from some notable Republicans too. And, you know, I thought his performance was pretty shaky, honestly. I don't think it's going to doom him in the eyes of Donald Trump, which is what ultimately matters. But it's hard to see him coming out of this hearing with a better standing. If anything, he probably raised a number of very difficult follow-up questions that he's going to have to deal with going forward. Before we get into the specifics of it, what was your big picture takeaway, Jonathan? Yeah, so I had three. So first of all, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., still lying all the time about

relaxing safety, just repeating claims that have been discredited, shed a little bit more light on some of the people he's listening to and not listening to, some of his conversations with Susan Menares, the former CPC director who he pushed out, both confirming a lot of the reporting out there and also making very clear that what we've all suspected that the people he's listening to are largely fringe voices, peddling theories that just, most of the scientific community rejects. And then the third, along with what long you're saying, this is sort of political observation, was that he did take, I thought, a lot of heat from some Republicans. And it was very clear to me from the, and you really saw this with Cassidy,

you saw it with a few others also, this attempt to sort of say, warp speed is this great thing that Donald did, and you're against it, and it was so clear what they were trying to do. At least to me, I mean, I'm not the most sophisticated, political and and you're not so bad you know but i mean it seemed pretty clear to me what they were

really trying to do is to kind of drive a wedge there and for the infamous famous audience of one donald trump say hey this guy's trashing your legacy you really want this guy here so i mean that was my read on it um so yeah into that exchange uh because it seemed like so much it like so much of the republican uh inquiry fell around those lines um before we do though i think it's important to kind of set the stage here about what had happened prior to him coming before the committee. I mean, obviously, the most significant development has been the ousting of top people at the CDC, director herself, Susan Minara's three of her top deputies resigned. She had refused to fire them, and when she was pushed out, they left. So incredible disarray at that agency.

But it's not just that, right? Like we now have, this came up during the hearing, the polling of $500 million in funding for MRNA vaccines. And then on top of that, the stacking of the advisory panel for vaccines with notable skeptics. And on top of that, recommendations for the COVID booster that restricted or said they would not recommend, I should say, for people under 65 and children. So that's the backdrop here. And, you know, look, you talk to the people in the medical community more than I do.

But, you know, what is the sort of 30,000-foot view of what's going on in our health agencies as he stepped foot into the Senate today? Yeah. So, I mean, the 30,000-foot view is that he's destroying the CDC, at least not destroying the CDC, but he is turning it into an agency that no longer has the capabilities, just because they're losing so many staff and they're losing so much money. But only isn't that losing the sort of capabilities, but losing it's not losing the sort of losing his credibility.

Right. When you think about me, to me, it is, it is all, these are all part of the same story. And the resignations and the firing of Mnarez, what were those resignations over? What were the, what was that firing over? And he talked about it a little bit in the testimony today and he was pressed on this. It was because these experienced scientists would not stand by, would not put their name by, would not agree to in advance, or some version of that what Kennedy was pushing on in terms of his anti-vaccine agenda.

And, you know, he does this thing, and it came up constantly in, you know, in the hearings today where he'll say, I am, you know, for the science. And then he will pull out a scientist or two or a study or two. And if you don't, if you're not familiar with what he's talking about, it sounds plausible. And but if you dig into any one of these, at the end of the line, it's always the sort of same thing. It's, you know, it's one scientist who has a very kind of marginal view. Some cases, not all, they've been actually discredited for various reasons or the studies have been discredited. And so, you know, the scientists around the country, the doctors around the

country, whatever their politics, and this is pretty much, not universal, but the vast majority, whatever their politics, whatever their different judgment calls on different issue, because medicine does involve judgment calls. They are appalled. They are just appalled at the scientific health agency of the United States is out there putting out information that they all reject resoundingly yeah that's the thing and this is repeated first of all let me just stress for program purposes i'm watching the live channel uh comments uh and so if you have some questions i'll try my best to get to them uh if you want to pose them in the channel secondly is this is a thing that is and here's will the great will salleton is joining us uh which really ups our

again tremendously. Hey, Will. Thank you for doing this well. This is the thing about Kennedy. He's got this method where he throws around numbers. And, you know, it just comes at such a sort of gusher that you're like, what is he talking about? He'll have like a data point or a scientific study he'll point to.

And you have no clue who these people are unless you're like super in the weeds. And it sounds all professional and scientific. or he'll just simply deny things he said in the past, and you don't have the chance to look it up. There was at least three occasions during this hearing where he said something, he's like, I never said that, and I just went on Google and within five minutes found something that he had actually said. And the other thing that he does is that if you dare to push back on him, and this happened repeatedly today, we dare to push back on him in one of these settings, he'll call you a show for pharma. He'll just say, you are in farmer's pocket. And he has a thing,

that includes Brady Sanders, and it's very infuriating for the best. Bernie Sanders people. He says, well, you've got $300,000 in donations from pharma. What he's talking about is people who work for pharmaceutical companies, like low-level workers happen to donate to Bernie Sanders. Doesn't mean that Bernie Sanders is on the pharma payroll, but he uses this insinuation to diminish his critics. This happened time and time again. I want to talk, though, about the Monarist thing. We'll start there with the clips because this was one of the more surreal moments of the whole exchange, where he's being pressed about why he fired Susan Minores, a person who he had praised a month ago when she was confirmed as Donald Trump and his choice

to leave the agency by Republican Senate. He has turned on her, and this is what he had to say to warn, and this gives you a sense of how surreal this whole hearing was. Let's play the clip. Tell the head of the CDC that if she refused to sign off on your changes to the childhood vaccine schedule that she had to resign? No, I told her that she had to resign because I asked her, are you a trustworthy person? And she said no. So if you had an employee who told you they weren't trustworthy, would you ask them to resign, Senator? So I'm sorry that this is not what she has said publicly. She has said she was surprised about that. So you're saying she's line.

Yes. Every conversation I had with her there were witnesses. And let me get just straight. This is the same person that less than a month earlier, you stood next to her and described her as unimpeachable and you had full confidence in her and that you had full confidence in her scientific credentials. And in a month she became a liar. Yeah, you should ask her what changed.

And by the way, a month ago you were voting against her. All right, we can stop at that. We're going to stop that. So, first of all, the logic here doesn't really make sense. She's both a liar and admits that she's a liar. But anyways, I'm going to ask someone who also admits to not being trustworthy. The Will Salton for his, for his, who openly admits to not being tried? Who everyone would be like, yeah, you're right.

I'm not a trustworthy person. It makes no sense. I don't know where to start with this guy. Okay. So, as you guys were saying, it can be very confusing to watch Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., because he sounds like he knows what he's talking about. He can cite a bunch of studies and numbers. He makes you feel like everything's in doubt

because he seems to have stuff on his side. And as Jonathan said, you have to go research it yourself to find out that he's lying, delusional, come up with your explanation, just wrong about everything. So you guys were talking about Elizabeth Warren. I mean, some of what Kennedy said in this hearing just doesn't pass like a basic plausibility test.

Like what? Elizabeth Warren is in the pocket of industry. Can you, guys, if you listed 100 senators, where would she, she'd be number 100, I believe. She'd be at the bottom of the list of in the pocket. 99. Right, okay. Oh, Bernie. Bernie is right up there.

Bernie and then, yeah, that's right. Yeah. And this episode, like, okay, there's he said, she says about what happened in this meeting, right? Under no plausible scenario, did Susan Menares say, no, I am not trustworthy. That is literally what he's his version of events. So we just know his version is wrong. The other one that he said in this hearing, he said he fired her because we need new blood. She was the new blood.

He's like, we're putting in this person. Four weeks later, no, we need new blood. It's insane on its face. No, totally. And there's some stuff, though, that's like, I mean, I'm not going to call this comical because it's not comical. It's crazy. But, I mean, it was so ridiculous that you had to like.

laugh at it. But there are other places where, you know, I just was like, for instance, this one really got my goat. He accused the CDC of completely negligent on diabetes. He says, you know, you have failed on diabetes. No one is, I think his quote is, no one is doing anything about diabetes, which of course is ridiculous. He was saying, and we might actually have, yeah, it's clip number two. I'm going to play it in. New data that showed that infant mortality has increased in this country in 2024 the first time in 20 years we've diabetes has gone up 98% in 20 years nobody's doing anything about it CDC's job was to make sure that this didn't happen and what we're going to do is reorganize CDC but also we've already righted the ship at NIH at fda at CMS all right

Right at the ship at NIH, one of the things that has happened under NIH, under his leadership, is that they canceled a 30-year ongoing study into diabetes and pre-diabetes. I mean, it's just, it's like the world is upside down and flat and, you know, I just don't know how you can contend or push back against someone who spouts all that bullshit. Cohen. Yeah, I mean, I don't know if this is the most dangerous. It's not the most dangerous of his claims, but he's constantly saying this, you know, We've never addressed, you know, chronic disease.

I'm the one who discovered this and we're going to save all. I mean, look, I've been covering health care for like, okay, well, a long time, you know, basically 25 years or more. Like the first day, I'm pretty sure there was some conference on what are we going to do about chronic disease. It's been an obsession for years. Now, we should probably, you know, we haven't figured it out yet. And it's a really complicated problem. But I promise you that slashing the budget for NIH, getting rid of all the people at first. CDC who know what they're doing and also you know cutting back on vaccines is not going to make

us healthier um and he says these things and and there's a there's a bit of a messionic is that the word i'm looking for kind of you know like i'm going to save us all i have all the wisdom you know i know all this all and i'm going to clean house and it's just you know if you heard somebody like this you know i've like this on you know you i mean i you have like your crazy uncle talks like this except your crazy uncle's now in charge of the biggest federal agency in charge of American health. I think Bernie kind of hit on that point where he was like, everyone's corrupt. I'll do my burner. Everyone's corrupt.

Everybody is corrupt. And so that's the thing. There is a messianic complex. This is, wait, so this is RFK's whole game. For people out there just understand this. His whole game is to create a false choice between dealing with chronic disease and dealing with infectious disease. right and his whole paradigm is everybody before me was only dealing with infectious disease which as you guys are pointing out is just BS right so he yes his thing is I'm the only one in this hearing he said that the CDC had failed to do anything about the disease itself COVID he said to Ron Wyden the senator you've sat here in this chair while chronic disease went up and you've said nothing I can assure you Ron Wyden has settled and done a lot he said that we're we're going to tell people the truth for, quote, the first time in the history of that agency, CDC.

And by his own admission, he had said to Monares, I think, that CDC was like the most corrupt agency in the government. But these are astonishing statements. And they speak to his degree of deception and self-deception about the extent of fault within the health agencies. Let's put the, so much of the hearing revolved, we talked about it a little bit, but so much of the hearing evolved around Operation Warp Speed.

I think rightly because it's a proxy for a few things. One is for RNA vaccine technology. The other is for just belief in vaccines in general. And the third is, of course, for whether Donald Trump can be, you know, brought back into believing that this was an achievement versus a, you know, a dark stain on his legacy. Oh, let's play the Mark Warner Exchange. And then from there, let's just have a conversation about how this played out in the hearing. So again, some basic facts.

Do you accept the fact? than a million Americans died from COVID? I don't know how many died. You're the Secretary of Health and Human Services. You don't have any idea how many Americans died from COVID? I don't think anybody knows that because there was so much data chaos coming out of the CDC and there was so many perverse incentives. You don't know the answer of how many Americans died from COVID.

This is the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Do you think the vaccine did anything to prevent additional deaths? Again, I would like to see the data and talk about the data. You had had this job for eight months, and you don't know the data about whether the vaccine — No, and the problem is that they didn't have the data. The data by the Biden administration absolutely dismal. So who is politicizing?

You're saying the Biden administration politicize all the data? Go back to what's fair? Dr. McIntyre Kempwell just said. They fired Dr. Grouch. They fired all the people who questioned the orthodoxy. They fired Dr. Gruber, Dr. Coward. Chairman, the Secretary of Health and Human Services doesn't know how many Americans died from COVID. They don't know if the vaccine helped prevent any deaths. And you are sitting as Secretary of Health and Human Services? How can you be that ignorant? All right. Cohn, let's talk about that. He was trying, he being Kennedy in this case,

was really trying to walk a weird tightrope here, simultaneously saying, yeah, Donald Trump should get the Nobel for Operation War's speed, but also I have no clue if it was actually an effective vaccine. Yeah, yeah. It's a bit of a tough tightrope rope to walk, right? He has been very critical of the COVID vaccine. And one of the problems here is that he said so many outrageous things unless you walk around with an encyclopedic brain to remember what exactly he said a year ago or six months ago or a month ago when he's standing in front of you and saying, I didn't say that. It gets really hard to do. Actually, my advice to Democratic senators, next time they have, I'm assuming there's a next time. Have the quotes, would you put them up on a sign? Because I actually think it's quite hard to kind of nail that down.

But this was such a classic case of how Kennedy does this. He's got two claims here, right? So his number one claim is, I don't know how many people died from COVID. And then I don't know if the vaccine saved lives. And the thing he does so well is he picks out like a little bit of truth, a true fact out there, and twists it. So it is true. We don't know exactly how many people died from COVID because the, you know, the measuring isn't perfect. And in fact, most likely deaths in this country were probably higher.

They were probably undercounted rather than overcounted. But, you know, he can say, well, we don't know exactly. Well, yeah, but, you know, the answer you want to hear from him, and what the normal answer would be is, we can't be precise because these numbers are never that precise. But we know at least a million Americans died from COVID, and it was a terrible. And on the vaccines, he then talked about this later.

He said, well, we don't know because all the estimates of how many people who died was based on modeling. Well, yeah, I mean, how else are you going to do it? I mean, we're going to take a checkbox and saying, you know, So there's just, you have to model to estimate it. He could have said, look, we can't be precise about how many. We're having to make some projections, but we have very good reason to believe. And he kind of hinted at this later that, in fact, it did save tons of life.

But of course, he doesn't want to say that. He doesn't want to say lots of people died from COVID because in his world, the worldview he's advancing, COVID wasn't that bad and the vaccine was worse. Well, and he also, I mean, to your point of having those quotes readily available, I mean, he's on the record saying, and this is quote, that the COVID vaccine was, quote, the deadliest vaccine ever made. I mean, this is not like, you know, it wasn't even that long ago. It's on tape. We have it.

So to then go around and say, well, actually, it was worthy of the Nobel is important. Before I get to, you will, just on the science here, the decision to cut 500 million from N RNA research and funding, obviously the COVID vaccine was made with that technology. that also came up as a real area of concern. How big a setback is that for developing future vaccines and treatments? Cohn. Oh, me. Sorry. It's huge.

I don't try too much for science, Jonathan. So, I mean, it's huge. I mean, this platform, the great thing about it is you can make the vaccine so much quicker. And, you know, we don't know when the next. we don't know when the next bird flu, some other kind of outbreak is going to happen. Having that ability ready to go could make such a difference, right? It could be the difference between having a vaccine in three months versus nine months versus a year and a half. And that's to say nothing of the sort of spillover knowledge we might get because we're already finding

MRNA is a really useful platform potentially for treating things like cancer. So it's a huge loss. It's a huge loss of the American people and potentially for scientific knowledge as a whole. And one other element of it, which did come up kind of as an aside, but I always sort of think it's important to remember, which is that the companies that are going to sort of work on this, they're going to keep investing in this if they can. They're just going to go to countries that will support it. And so we're going to lose the business.

We're going to lose the innovation. And, you know, at some point, you know, best case scenario, they keep working on these vaccines overseas and they are ready. But guess what? now the next pandemic hits and we're going to be dependent on other countries for that technology. We're going to turn to China for help. Can I just point out, Mark Warner's question was, did the vaccine do anything to prevent

that, anything? And the answer, you know, this is just an illustration of his extremism. You know, an answer could be, oh, absolutely, we're just not sure how many. But no, he wouldn't even give that part of the answer because it's part of his religion that the vaccine is bad. And he said elsewhere, how does Trump get the Nobel for that? I feel like the standards for the Nobel Peace Prize are a little bit lower here. So when Cornyn, Senator Cornyn was interrogating Kennedy, Kennedy said we relied to about everything

about the vaccine. And he said, as part of that answer, we were told that the vaccine would prevent infections. And they knew that this wasn't true from the start. What the hell? I mean, there's tons of evidence on this, right? The original clinical trials, just loads of loads of evidence. He will not concede anything, and he just makes things up. So you guys correct me if you can remember this. I can't find it. He claimed that Joe Biden said that he would never take Trump's COVID vaccine. I don't find that anywhere. I find a statement from Joe Biden that he trusted vaccines and didn't trust Donald Trump. But this statement appears to be one of many of RFK's made up stories. I mean, he spent this whole hearing accusing the senators of making things up. He makes

things up all the time i vaguely recall not by then but i recall someone saying um Kamala harris kamala harris said and i forget what her exact quote and we'll have to look that up she says she will take a code 19 vaccine if doctors say to not if trump does right she was worried that trump was rushing it to market before the election right and so that's why there is no such statement from joe biden as far as i know in the record okay uh i want to So let's turn to the Republicans on this panel because everyone was waiting for Bill Cassidy, who, if people don't recall this, Bill Cassidy cast the most important vote for the confirmation of Kennedy to his current press, not from his perch on Senate finance, but from his approach as the chairman of the Senate help committee,

but Cassidy is also on finance. And so he was going to have a chance to talk to, or question Kennedy today. And everyone was waiting for this because they wanted to know what he was going to say, how angry he was going to be, so on and so forth. But before we even got to Cassidy, really, like the first real actual surprise for me and a real telltale sign of how this was going to go for Kennedy came from Senator Barrasso, who is the second ranking Republican in the Senate. And I would argue a dutiful soldier. I mean, I can't ever recall this guy doing anything that would suggest he's off the reservation. He is a Trump syncophan. He happens to be a doctor. Or was a doctor.

Anyways, let's play his clip because this was a real tell for how this was gone for Kennedy. Vaccines. I'm a doctor. Vaccines work. Secretary Kennedy in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I've grown deeply concerned. The public has seen measles outbreaks. Leadership of the National Institute of Health questioning the use of MRNA vaccines.

The recently confirmed director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fired. intervention fired. Americans don't know who to rely on. You know, recent polls at 89% of voters, 81% of Trump voters, a green vaccine recommendations should come from trained physicians, scientists, public health experts. So, you know, they believe, you know, Senator Marshall, Senator Cassidy, they believe me when it comes to vaccines. If we're going to make America healthy again, we can't allow public health to be undermined. Okay, so he's probably going to get primary. I'm just struck it.

Will, how significant is that? Huge, huge. And Sam, I'm really glad you pointed that. I was going to flag it. We're 90 minutes into this hearing, and I'm waiting, because Cassidy, it's known that Cassidy is a critic of RFK. Barrasso is the number two Republican in the Senate. He is, as you said, he's the Trump guy,

for him to cross over and say, look, you're scaring people. you're scaring people. Nobody knows who to trust anymore. That is huge. Okay. So that's one sign. And I think you guys can correct me. Cassidy, Barrasso, Tillis, who else? Todd Young was sort of going there with Long COVID, but there were several Republicans signaling. Langford, a little signal, but he was mostly on other topics. But yeah, there was at least a handful of Republicans who were not comfortable. Yeah. And I thought the other thing that was super interesting to me as a partisan matter was the large number of Democrats on that committee who were all playing the same game of Trump

did this vaccine, you're against the vaccine, you're against Trump. Was it Warren, somebody went after him about the, you said he was weak. You said that Trump was weak for going along with industry on it. They're playing to Trump's ego trying to drive away. Who showed the tweet? It might have been Tina Smith, but or Hassan, I forget what Trump. Oh, let's, on that frame, let's play the Bill Cassidy clip because he also played that game. He's obviously. You're right. You're right, Sam. It was Hassan. Okay. All right, let's play the Bill Cassidy clip because he played that game that we was talking about. And we can get into his motivations soon on the other side of this. And I'm approaching this as a doctor, not as a senator. I am concerned about children's health, seniors health, all of our health. And I applaud you for joining the president and a call for radical transparency. Thank you for that. I said yesterday, I believe it, that President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation 1. warp speed. If he had been President Obama, he would have gotten it. But because of Operation Warp Speed, forcing the federal government to come to a vaccine development within 10 months when

others said it couldn't be done, we saved millions of lives globally, trillions of dollars, we reopened economies, an incredible accomplishment. Mr. Secretary, do you agree with me that the President, that the President deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed? Yeah, absolutely, Senator. So let me ask you. But you just told Senator Bennett that the COVID vaccine killed more people than COVID. Wait, that was a statement. I did not say that. Okay, then let me ask because you also are-

Senator, I just want to make clear, I could not say that. We'll check the record, that's a question of fact. You also said that you are also as lead attorney for the children's health defense, you engaged in multiple lawsuits attempting to restrict access to the COVID vaccine. Again, it surprises me that you think so highly of Operation Warp Speed when as an attorney you attempted to restrict access. I'm happy to explain why. I have three minutes and 30 seconds left.

Cohen, unpack the history here with RFK. I mean, my recollection is that he was vehemently opposed to Operation Warps in real time. In fact, it suggests that it might have been a Plandemic. For people that don't know, that's the government-planned pandemic. And yet, here he is trying to have it both ways. Yeah, I mean, I don't remember the details of where he was on Operation Warp Speed in real-time. I do remember him filing that lawsuit calling for withdrawal of the authorization, which is what Cassidy was referring to there.

I mean, he's clearly trying to have it both ways. Why do you think Cassidy went down this route? Well, Cassidy has a whole host of things he could have pushed him on. The advisory panel at the CDC, he's been talking about a lot of the firings at the CDC. He's been worried about a lot. But he used this question for this. Why? Yeah, well, I mean, I think it's what we were talking about at the top.

He's got a prime, you know, he's in Republican politics, right? You can't get on the other side of Trump. You want to drive a wedge. I mean, this is the way to get, this is the, you, if Kennedy is attached at the hip to Trump, and you attack Kennedy, then you're attacking. Trump. On the other hand, if you can separate the two and show Trump that Kennedy is not just separate, but is actually tarnishing Trump's legacy, you appeal to Trump to sort of, you know, to do something about it. And we know, we've all been speculating, and I think there's a little

bit of reporting to suggest that in the Trump White House, they are getting antsy. People do, most people believe in vaccines. Kennedy's really pushing the limits, I think, even, you know, within, maybe even within Republican politics of what you can say before it starts to really turn people against you. And, you know, I think the Republicans, you know, it would be nice if, you know, Cassidy, a doctor who has been very clear that he believes in vaccines and believes all of this stuff from Kennedy is just nonsense. We'd just come out and say that. He's not going to do that. Obviously, we've seen that. I mean, they got pretty close, man.

They got pretty close. I'm not going to say they didn't say it, but they were. the Cassidy in the Barrasso comments were about as close as I've ever seen them go to say you are like off the reservation they are and you know but I mean they could call for him to resign right when they're you know that's true Cassidy has could use his you know the help committee to sort of you know call his perch there to to do subpoe I mean he could be doing things and not just saying things when these these hearings come up and you know I think each I might be trying to move in that direction. But I'm sure a lot of this is politics in Louisiana, Republican politics.

It is for all of them. They're so petrified of the base, and they're petrified that attacking Kennedy ends up looking like attacking Trump. And we all know, rule number one in Republican politics, you cannot ever say anything critical of Donald Trump. And rule number two, you always must defend the Kennedy family. That's a longstanding tradition in Republican politics. It does create this weird imagery. Well, what do you have to say about that? A couple things. First of all, there was this lovely moment when Bernie Sanders said, every Republican member on this committee has received money from the farm. Are you saying they're all corrupt? So what Bernie is doing there is he's playing on this division in the party.

I mean, Kennedy is in this weird spot. He was a Democrat, independent, brought into the Trump administration, but he's got this whole anti-corporate thing going in a party that's all about corporations. So Bernie's just twisting the knife. Like all your Republicans, you had a nice coherent thing going, the party of industry, this guy's attacking all of you. So that's one which. But the other one is this very personal thing about Donald Trump. Recall what, I mean, Donald Trump never does the right thing for the right reasons. So there's an entire industry of Republicans who work on Donald Trump trying to get him to do the right thing for the wrong reasons.

And so they're like, it's true. So like in Ukraine, it's like you're never going to support Ukraine because you believe in protecting the victim country. and fellow democracy. We're going to get you to do this. We're going to make you think that Vladimir Putin is personally offending you and personally ignoring you. And he's in a front. And so we're going to get. So over here, it is all, we need to get, we need to get rid of RFK. So we can't persuade you that RFK is quack, which he is, but we can persuade you that he's undermined that he's, as you said, he's attacking your legacy. He's saying that this vaccine. And guys, as recently as within the last week, Trump repeated how much he, you know, he's, what a

great achievement operation warp speed is he has not let go of the idea that's his vaccine what was the tweet they're playing on his ego very effectively he'd have a weird post this week where he's like it was a great success but Pfizer needs to show me the data do you remember that one yeah yeah yeah somebody wrote they did they posted they posted look at all this because we have the data and you know there was speaking of the Bernie moment I forget who it was but they're you know they're doing the whole well you know who isn't that said you get a bunch of money or the people you put on the advisory, the ASIP advisory plan where they all are like, you know, plaintiffs on these, or lawyers for these plaintiffs on these trials against the vaccine makers. A couple of senators

pointed that out. Does that that maybe brought that out at one point? Yeah, she brought up during the confirmation hearing. Um, that by the way, I just got a flag. Did you guys talk about that before? Kennedy's answer was, oh, they may have a bias. These are paid witnesses. We haven't talked about this yet. But go ahead. What do you say? His, his answer was they, it's not a conflict of interest. He literally said it's not a conflict of interest. They're getting paid by the people. I mean, Kennedy has this whole conceit. It's the one Bernie talked about. Everyone else is corrupt, not me. What does Kennedy do? He goes on like Joe Merkel's podcast. Merkel has a whole industry of like putting out quack medicine. Like Kennedy, he makes, Kennedy has his whole industry

of making money off of lawsuits against pharma. And his expert witnesses, his people are getting paid by his anti-farmament industry. But somehow that's supposed to be insulated from inquiry and from interrogation. We're only supposed to talk about farming. They're the pure ones. Let's just play quickly Bernie Sanders. And then we can move on to a couple of the topics I want with you guys. But let's watch Bernie Sanders. It got a little bit interesting. Two old men just yaking at each other. Single Republican, I don't mean to be political here, Mr. Chairman, has to receive pack money from the pharmaceutical industry. Are they all corrupt as well? And I'm I'm telling you, the American Heart Association has been co-opted by the flu.

Everybody, but you, Senator, but you know what? When you ran for president, you know, we have a corrupt campaign finance system. Maybe you will agree with me or not. Okay, you were brought in the president, you got a billion amp behind it. You received $300,000 from people, not from the industry, people in it, as I did, from individuals. You corrupt. President Trump got $3 million. Every Republican got corporate pack money for the pharmaceutical industry.

well everybody is corrupt but you is not what we're looking at I don't think so and I think the issue I don't even know what you're talking about well I think you're doing all I don't know what you're talking about the issue is every time anyone are you saying with you saying the pharmaceutical industry was supporting my presidential no I'm saying no I'm not saying that I'm saying the pharmaceutical industry is a greedy institution which are charging us for highest prices in the world they are pervasive but to suggest that every institution, the AMA, the pediatrics people, is corrupt because they disagree with you.

It's an insult. It's not that people disagree with me all the time. I have arguments in my agency. Heated arguments every time. That's a lot of fun. I love how Bernie just points. I want to go on to the other topic that I think was on top of mind for Republicans, because beyond Cassie, Tillis and Brasso, the questions that they asked weren't necessarily all about

vaccines or the CDC for that matter a lot of times jonathan the questions centered around rural hospitals and this 50 billion dollar fund that they have included uh to support rural hospitals 10 billion dollars uh coming i think each year over the next five years it is a drop in the bucket compared to the medicate cuts that are going to be happening on this couple of one trillion um this came up repeatedly uh how did kennedy navigate this one yeah so um background for your readers, our viewers, our watchers, you can see, I used to write from magazines, readers, people still read, right?

I remember one big beautiful bill, took all this money out of Medicaid, about a trillion dollars, and Republicans continue to insist, we didn't actually cut Medicaid, or it was just waste and fraud. Big chunk of the money is going to come out of rural hospitals, which already were struggling. And the argument, the party line,

line from Republicans, which RFK Jr. absolutely, you know, peddled as well, is that, you know, this bill is great, actually. It's not going to do horrible things to rural hospitals because we're giving rural hospitals $50 billion. Look at that. They are, $50 billion. But if you break down the money and the cuts, the best estimates I've seen, suggest that rural hospitals are going to lose $150 billion in Medicaid cuts. So, you know, We'll do a little math here. So you lose 150. Here's where you started.

You'll lose 150. You come back 50. That's a cut, right? It's small. You're good at math, Jonathan. I am. I am. I'm really good in math.

You can tell. It is a drop in the bucket. And this is their effort to try to sell this thing as not cutting Medicaid. And the reason they're trying to sell it's because it's deeply unpopular. It's coming up all the time. We're seeing the town hall meetings.

And we're seeing real impacts. We're seeing rural hospitals close. We are seeing, I just was reading this morning, I want to say it was Idaho. It might have been a different state announced they were going through their budget. And because they know the Medicaid money coming in, what they're going to do is they're going to start paying their doctors and hospitals less through Medicaid. That's going to make the problem even worse. And this is a big vulnerability for them because these are their voters. It's their constituents.

It's their states. And they got a midterm and then eventually a presidential election. And the other thing that kind of tickled me a little bit, so Langford brought this up when he was asking, he said, you know, thank you. He thanked him for putting together this hospital fund. So it's going to be so great for real hospitals to have this hospital. He thanked him for getting the NIH grant money back flowing. He's like, it's really helpful to have the cutter. It's like, why are you thanking him? These are two problems that they caused. I mean, the need for a real hospital fund is strictly because of the Medicaid cuts in the big, beautiful bill. The fact that the NH money wasn't flowing is because, It was organizational chaos, and they made a proactive decision to hold back the funds for reasons that still remains somewhat unclear to the people who are in receiving him. So thanking them for, you know, just not, you know, hitting you in the face is an act. And then the thing that Kennedy did when he was pressed on this by Democrats is he just denied reality. So let's play that Warner clip, I think it's clip seven, where Warner asks him about the Medicaid cuts, and he has the following to say. Absolutely. Well, then, how is that going to happen with the Medicaid cuts that are taking place?

There are no cuts to Medicaid. That is an absurd. There is not a single, some of my Republican college, but there is not a single study. It is not, and I can tell you, I was in Franklin, Virginia, a couple days ago, the rural hospital is going to close. The hospitals system were so afraid they wouldn't even let me have the meeting there. But that rural hospital is going to close. And they are looking for where those folks are going to go. I mean, you're supposed to be doing health care policy, not being the doctor in residence for all of America. I hope, I can say, I'm still going to trust my doctor rather than your health advice.

All right. Well, I mean, how do they just do that? Like, there are no cuts to Medicaid. It's absurd. How do they pay for the tax cuts? If there are no cuts to Medicaid. Right. I mean, look, part of RFK's job there is,

we've heard there are no cuts to Medicaid. We've heard her from every Republican in Congress. His job is to be a self-style progressive and say the same thing. It's a lie, but like he's doing, he's doing plaque protection for Trump from the left. That was his job all along on this stuff. And his opening statement, I mean, think about it. If you're a progressive person,

His opening statement, he talks about we're stopping child mutilation, a.k.a. against the trans, racist DEI, open borders. I mean, it's like Republican boilerplate. But because he is Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and he styles himself as a consumer protection advocate, people on the left are so. So I think that he is supposed to serve this political purpose for Trump. If the result of this hearing and subsequent hearings and events is that he no longer effectively can do this flack job for Trump on the left, And he's created this fear and uncertainty around what is the government recommending in terms of vaccinations and medicine. And they successfully drive this wedge that he is undermining Trump's legacy on Operation Warpsky. That's a pretty lethal combination in terms of his value to Trump. Well, I want to push you on that.

And we can probably close up around these topics and these questions. But when do we know we're at that point, right? i mean this really just comes down to trump feeling like it's no longer utility to have him around well what we do is we sit and wait for the truth social post that announces that rfk is we we thank him for his service and he's no longer and we were we found what what ambassad is he going to get no but seriously i mean is i don't know if there's evidence out there yet that he's in net negative i guess it's anecdotal i think republicans like barasso freaking out and openly talking about it is significant but um

I don't know. It strikes me that Trump likes the idea. And Bannon, for instance, has been openly talking about the incredible importance of Trump. I'm sorry, of RFK in this coalition. Stephen Miller, I think, called him the Crown Jewel. Right? I mean, like, I don't know. When do we start to see that?

Do we ever start to see it? I mean, we could see industry still has poll with Trump on various issues. And they may have, obviously they don't like him here. The medical establishment, you've got doctors talking to Barassas. who's saying like my colleagues are saying this. Cassidy, similar. So that could be a factor. But I do think there's going to have to be something in polling probably that's going to register to Trump doesn't like bad TV. And some of what he saw today was bad TV by RFK Jr. It was bad TV. It was bad TV. It was bad TV.

One other. I just say just one other piece. I mean, I agree with all of that. And we'll see if the polling starts to turn. And maybe we were talking before on Slack about this. you know, you feel like maybe we're close to a kind of critical mass where this, even people who have some questions about, you know, they're not 100% sure, but the COVID vaccine and whatever are going to start to recoil this news down in Florida, you know, where they're getting rid of the vaccine mandates, just, you know, there's going to be more and more people say, well, what are we doing here? This is going to alarm people. But the other little piece of this that I think could make a difference if it happens

would be some sort of internal strife. I mean, you remember when he announced he was pulling the MRI, And then after it was a very weird rollout and there was like, you know, they didn't put up the backing information for a while. And then they did. And it turned out later there was a real, it was a real mess behind the scenes. And there were people at the White House were upset because they hadn't been notified. Kennedy hadn't put it up there. And there's a sense that people around Kennedy there are not totally under the administration's control, that they're loyal to Kennedy. They have their own agendas. that he's got his own

the MAHA constituent. I mean, his constituency is a little different than the MAGA constituents. There's almost 2028 chatter, too. I don't know if you've been picking up on that where it's like, everyone's like, oh, he's going to run again. And he's going to use this as a springboard. So, I mean, maybe that gets the Trump and he isn't like that. Yeah, I mean, like, you could see it.

I mean, I think that there's a little bit of a wildcard element there that even the Trump White House has got to be a little bit nervous about. And I just think that makes them a little bit more amenable to arguments, if the poll number start to sync, like we were saying before, they start hearing it from industry. It becomes a little easier to push around because maybe the people

inside the White House, Susie Wilds, whoever, are less eager to defend him, if only because he's become such a headache. Let's close on this. This is for Cohn. So this was obviously an important inflection point. Having him on a hell getting grid like that matters.

But there's a huge number of forthcoming issues before both the Senate and before HHS, for instance, filling the CDC vacancy. This apparently autism study that's coming in September, the advisory committee that is meeting, you know, what we're going to get for MMR vaccine guidance, things like that. So what are you watching? What are the big benchmark moments in the New York Term horizon here? Well, I'm absolutely watching for this autism report, see what they say. I am looking for the next ASIP meeting to see if they change any recommendations for the hepatitis vaccine, things like that. He just literally in the last 24 hours, put seven, you know, he filled out the rest of the spots

on the committee. People sort of don't know who a lot of them are, but one or two of them have records of being critical of vaccines in one way or another. So I'm watching that. And, you know, we will see what happens. happens if there's any more moves to pull back permissions on NADMRNA vaccines that are out there that already have approval. You know, I will say that like in general, I have been constantly surprised at how willing

openly he is pursuing his agenda. I kind of figured it would be more subtle and more gradual. So, you know. No, I've been surprised with that too, where it's like he's just going for it. And I think he feels like he has the liberty to do it, which gets the the point about leash and then will for you what are you watching from the senate i mean i guess there's going to be a help committee hearing they probably will have susa minares uh it was hinted at during today saying that they will have susan minares up there uh since she apparently has admitted

that she's not a trustworthy person i don't know why they would do that well look kidding but what are you looking for it's so weird that literally have a he said she said that's what's going to yeah i you know they'll try that whatever democrats can do within these chambers they don't control to arrange that they will do. So there will be things going on in Congress. I'm actually watching external events. I want to see because something's going to happen. These guys are thinning out the Trump administration, including RFK, they're thinning out the government, they're cutting research. Something's going to happen. My original models for this, remember what happened in 2020. A thing happened. COVID came in and Trump, who lied about everything,

couldn't lie his way out of it. It was an external event that was just too real and was sitting people. So I thought, you know, tariffs are going to be the thing that's, you know, there's going to be, the prices are going to go out. FEMA, they thinned out FEMA. There's going to be a natural disaster that they can't explain or deal with. Here's one, infectious disease. It's not going away. These viruses come in and we have a health secretary who openly said we're going to give infectious disease a break for eight years. An infectious disease will come in. We will be totally unprepared for it and there will be this obvious track record of him having abandoned it. And I think it will not be until something like that affects millions of people will they turn

against the health secretary and Trump will dump him just got to take your rheumectum man that's it we're going to be good i'm joking it's also gloomy and awful um but it's critically important that you see the stuff happening in florida too and you're like wow how much will the populace tolerate here i i don't know man kane i just felt like at some point people want their vaccines they want to like feel safe they want to feel like their kids are protected from diseases that had been dormant for decades, I just don't see how, and maybe I'm crazy, but I don't see how this goes over that well, where you're threatening people's access to vaccines that they felt they had access to. You're denying them a sense of security that they had taken for granted.

How does that play? I mean, there's two ways I can see it playing aside, you know, obviously we get an outbreak so that I've got for sure. Two others, I mean, we are now seeing people get upset that it's harder to get the vaccines at the drugstore. You know, Eric Erickson, the conservative... Came up in the hearing. Yeah, yeah. So I do think that's like touching people, you know,

that's a very real thing that people will see. And, you know, it's always in politics, right, it's always the people who are upset about saying who can't get something or have had something taken away that are most angry. And so far, like, it's all been hypothetical. And now, you know, first, you know, lots of people don't want to get COVID. Or if they get COVID, they don't want to be in the hospital.

They actually like to get the booster. So, you know, people are going to notice that. And then obviously it's a political question. We do have the midterms coming up. Can the Democrats prosecute this case? I mean, it's there. Our colleague, Lauren Egan, wrote that newsletter the other day, and Bill Crystal's written about this.

I mean, it's kind of sitting right there. We kind of saw it on display in this hearing. You got cutting Medicaid, cutting access to healthcare, cutting research, cutting CDC, taking away vaccines. I mean, it's not that, shouldn't be that hard to put that into a kind of clear set of ads. and arguments that should be, you would think, be effective in the midterms. But, you know, I guess we'll see.

All right. Will, Jonathan, thank you guys so much. Really appreciate it. Fun hearing, a little bit scary, too. To the people who have watched this live show with us, thank you so much. I said we would get to some of your questions. But then I kept reading the comments, and there were no questions. Just comments, so I can't answer.

The sheet. Will is going away. How bad will this get before there was a serious outcry? It says, well, I feel like we addressed that. We don't need to go on. But thank you guys for watching. Thank you guys for participating in this. Subscribe to our YouTube feed.

Become Bullwark subscribers, too. We've got great written content that can get in your inbox all the time. Will, Jonathan, thanks so much. Everyone else. Talk to you soon. Take care, guys.