Bulwark Takes - RFK Jr. Is Handling Things Just About as Bad as Imaginable

Episode Date: April 6, 2025

Sam Stein and Jonathan Cohn break down the alarming HHS layoffs, including massive cuts to Head Start and child care programs. What’s behind the chaos, and how anti-vax politics may be making it worse. Trump’s Next Target: Poverty-Stricken Kids https://www.thebulwark.com/p/trump-next-target-poverty-stricken-kids-hhs-head-start-early-childhood-child-care-education-programs-federal-cuts Second measles death reported in Texas, amid fast-growing outbreak https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/second-measles-death-texas-child-kennedy-rcna199882

Hey guys, it's me, Sam Stein, Managing Editor at The Bullwark. I'm joined by Jonathan Cohen, author of The Breakdown, one of our new newsletters. He's got a great new edition out this morning. Jonathan, thanks so much, man. So your edition this morning is about, we were watching it unfold throughout the week. HHS has this incredible across-the-board cut, 20% of its work for us. And like the predominant focus was on how it's going to affect scientific research and then how it's going to affect some of these programs like smoking cessation and other

programs that administers. A little attention and not enough, frankly, was on the effect that it's going to have on some of the initiatives that HHS oversees for children in poverty. Unwrap what you were, what you wrote about and how you ended up kind of stumbling upon these cuts. Yeah. Yeah. So there is a division inside HHS that deals with children and families. It's got its own menu of programs. There's two really substantial ones and a lot of people have heard of them. There's Head Start, which, you know, dates back to the Great Society. It's a program that sort of provides enriched, you know, carefully sort of, you know, designed curriculum, preschool and early childhood care for children growing up in poverty. It's free. And then there is a second program that gives the states money. And then the states can use that to provide subsidized child care for families that qualify based on their incomes.

And they're different programs, but they kind of serve a common purpose, which is this recognition that, first of all, low income families, you know, they're working. Child care is super expensive. So this is a way to provide a kind of quality child care to families that need it. But on top of that, we know that kids growing up in poverty, the conditions, the turmoil can really set them behind, can really make it, you know, you know. Right. I mean, like scientific research is basically that interventions age two to three, maybe four, are really critical for a child's development. And if you grow up in poverty, you're much more likely not to have those early interventions to stimulate your brain and your mind in ways that will benefit you in the long run. Yeah. Yeah. And so, you know, in talking to people in HHS, as we were reporting,

you know, we're talking about the CDC, we were talking about, you know, what's going on in the agency running Medicare. And people kept saying, hey, you should look at Head Start. You should look at the child care program because there's a lot of work being done. And those offices really got decimated. All right. What is decimated? Because everything got decimated. But what is decimated in this case?

Because the HHS, I just want to be clear for the people watching. HHS has put out the bare minimum on what they cut. They put out some fact sheets, I believe, but it wasn't really descriptive. They didn't list the positions. A lot of what we know is just because people internally have said, oh, my God, this entire department is gone. Oh, my God, this incredible leader at this place has been axed. And so it's not like they were saying, hey, we cut these Head Start programs. So how did you find out? Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, and, and, and keep in mind, there's been two separate rounds,

right? We had the layoffs in February, you know, the probationary. Right, right, right. Those are the probationary employees and these were the reduction in forces. Right. And, you know, and their courts have sort of ordered some people back, but then some people, some people actually did come back to work, but mostly they were put on it so just there's no like precise official which can we just tell you know viewers that's insane like this is the federal government they're supposed to tell us that like that's public information the idea this is like some secret we're trying you know it's not like you know we're trying to get the names of cia but it's also it's insane because the people internally don't really know everything like you talk i I've talked to a number of HHS employees who are like they're finding out this stuff because they're reading the Reddit, the Fed news page on Reddit.

And they're like this. No one told us this. And then the RIFs. This is another story. But the RIFs itself, like they're like some of this is just blatantly illegal. We have union contracts like they completely abandoned any idea that any, any principle around the contract that they were going to abide to buy it. Putting that aside. So you figured out through reporting basically that they're cutting what five of the 10 regional offices for Head Start.

Yeah. Now the regional office, they did say, but they didn't say how many people. And the way I, I found this out was, you know, just in talking to former officials, it turned out a number of them were like, we should try to make a tally. So they basically group sourced it on their own. And they're pretty confident because they've been able to check their numbers. They're pretty close. And so the agency that oversees all the sort of,

the children and family, which includes these two programs, about a 40% cut, it sounds like. And even within that, there's some variation. So one example I was given was the office that deals strictly with that child care program. So this is the one that gives money to the states. They've come down from about 120 people, roughly, to about 60 people. So half. Damn. Half, yeah. Okay. Even I can do that math. It's... You know, we can talk about administrative bloat. There's

redundancy or whatever. I mean, there's just not a... People told me there's just not a universe where you're cutting half the staff and you're not going to cut their ability to do their jobs. We could argue there was redundancy and not every position made sense, but you could just as easily argue that actually they were understaffed given what. Right, right, right. Well, and then on the Head Start front, so they cut these regional offices and as I understand it, correct me if I'm wrong, I mean, they're there to both communicate latest studies and

practices that have been studied to the people who are administering Head Start. And then they would also hear from local administrators the problems that they're having, the needs that they need to have, obviously the facilitation of finances and money to make sure that they're operational is important, you would imagine. I guess what strikes me about this all is that how quickly this all happened. And by that, I mean, you and I have talked about this, but conservatives have philosophical differences with Head Start. They believe that it doesn't produce the results, that studies show that you're not getting a bang for your buck, that it's basically subsidized child care. There's an argument, legitimate, if you're conservative,

to be made that the program needs to be reformed dramatically. But this is not a thoughtful reform process. This is an ax just being applied. And we know that because Kennedy's out there saying things like, well, you know, we're going to hire these people back. This was always the intention that we're going to do this. And then privately, administration officials are actually, no, no, no, this is actually what we're going to do, and so on and so forth. So I have been sort of like shocked a little bit about how quickly and how haphazardly this all felt. Quick and haphazard. And, you know, the best evidence of that, I think, something that I heard. And again, we've seen this in other parts of the best evidence of that, I think, something that I heard. And again, we've seen this in other

parts of the federal government as well. But, you know, it happened so quickly, you know, it was like the notices went out in the morning and they had like, you know, lost all their access to their files. And even like the sort of managers didn't know who in their like, you know, division getting fired. So as a result, you were just describing, right, this sort of important role of these regional offices, these like staff play in terms of having this sort of contacts with the individual Head Start providers. Right now, you know, these are the people, you know, if you're a Head Start provider, these are the people you go to if there's a payment problem. They're also the people you give feedback to, to sort of say, hey, this is working. This isn't. And, you know, if you want to get guidance on like, hey, what is the latest sort of best practices and how to design all of that?

Yeah. So every person in the in the regional office has like a kind of list. Right. They're kind of they're they're they're people. They're they're they're providers. Right. And there's this ongoing. Well, if you're going to fire half of them at the very least. Right. Aren't you going to want to make sure that who you know, the people, the right losing contacts are in place. Case case is closed. Make sure that this transition is smooth none of that happened you had an anecdote in your story that was like shocking to me uh can you explain that one because this actually really exemplifies yeah what we're talking about so i mean one of the responsibilities if you're a regional officer that you are you know if there's a if there's some kind of problem of there's a violation of a kind of safety conduct, whatever.

One of these programs does something, you know, is reported, there's a reported something bad happened. You're the one who's going to sort of, you know, take charge of sort of investigating what happened coming up. You know, what, what, what, what needs to be done in response, what kind of remedial action, et cetera. So there was a report in one of these programs that an instructor had actually struck a child to try to discipline them. Something that happens very rarely, by the way. I mean, you know, I mean, they document these things and and but there was a report. And so you had there was an ongoing inquiry into this. The person in charge of that inquiry was fired. Nobody knows what's going to happen with the case because there was no arrangement made for someone else to take over the file. And this, you know, this is this is what's going on there. And it's just, you know, like who plans things like that?

I mean, no, you know, I'd like, you know, you always hear from the conservatives. Well, if the private sector, you know, ran this. Operated like this. Yeah. No, no private sector company. You know, no, they would know no good company would do this. Operated like this, yeah. No private sector company, you know. No, they would know. No good company would do this. Maybe Twitter.

Maybe Twitter. Well, let's, you know, let's be serious. I mean, this is how Twitter kind of did it. That's how they did it, yeah. Fire and then aim. Let's talk about RFK a little bit. He's, you know, I don't know how far in, but, you know, roughly two months. No, a little less than that.

We had pretty low expectations, I think it's fair to say. The optimistic version of RFK would have been that he would have been sequestered on the issue of health. He would have been checked on the issue of vaccines. And on the issue of administration, he would have had seasoned hands at the wheel. He has not been checked on the issue of vaccines. It appears as we just acknowledged that the seasoned hands aren't on a wheel with respect to administration, or if they are, they're not doing a very good job. The issue of health, TBD. I think it's probably been about as, you know, bad as the skeptics warned. What's your take? Yeah, I'd say as bad

as the skeptics warned, maybe worse. You know, I mean, worse. Yeah, I think worse. I think worse, because I think I expected Well, I don't know what I expected. But I mean, I could have imagined a world where if only for political appearances, right, there was a little bit, you know, they were a little he was a little more careful. careful. You wouldn't like firing and pushing out Peter Marx, who's this sort of, you know, revered figure in vaccine safety. You know, that's such an overt act to just sort of say, screw you. I am just going to go to empty vacs here, which is not like what most Americans want. Most Americans believe in vaccines, you know. But not him.

And he's dogmatic about it. And you cannot, the idea that he was ever going to sort of temper that impulse, I mean, it's so silly, but you don't, that's not what a, you know, someone who's dogmatic about an issue ever does. Like you're not going to like have a conversion overnight. So here we are.

Here we are. That brings us to the other story today, which is we have a second death from measles, the measles outbreak in West Texas. In this case, I believe, not sure if it's confirmed, but it's almost certainly going to be a child who is unvaccinated. The shocking thing though, and this is from NBC, and I have not seen a secondary confirmation, so grain of salt, but this is what they reported. RFK Jr. is going to go to the funeral, which, boy, it seems totally inappropriate, at least as I read it. And I'm really genuinely surprised that they're doing this because the problem is caused by anti-vaccine sentiment, plain and simple.

Yeah. I mean, you know, this is a guy who spent his career, you know, reinforcing and spreading anti-vaccine. And that's probably as responsible as any other single. Well, and then you, we were talking about this too. It's like, it's not just that he's spreading the anti-vaccine sentence probably as responsible as any other single well and then you we were talking about this too it's like it's not just that he's spreading the anti-vaccine sentiment he's actually actively worsening the situation because he's suggesting all these alternative remedies and therapies that are now getting people sick yeah yeah i mean we're seeing the hospitals in texas are saying they're seeing uh, kids included, showing up with liver problems and vitamin A poisoning because he's talked up vitamin A. And I saw this morning an account,

I think it was in the New York Times, that in addition to that, they are worried now that parents are delaying bringing their children in for medical attention because they believe in the alternative therapies that Kennedy has been talking up. So yes, not just not helping, he's making the problem worse. Yes. I just, if anyone is watching, I'm sure they're not watching the bulwark, but don't just get a vaccination. It's been proven by history. We eradicated measles basically now it's back it's don't do cod liver oil get the vaccination it's important all right well we'll be watching that uh i i i'm sure we'll be talking about it and um why don't we just make sure that you keep writing about it too because it's vital and uh thank you for doing this jonathan really appreciate that as always

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