Bulwark Takes - Sen. Cassidy Bends The Knee To Trump on RFK Jr.

Episode Date: February 4, 2025

Sam Stein, Mona Charen, and Joe Perticone talk RFK Jr.'s approval vote in the senate committee making him one step closer to becoming HHS Secretary, and the dangers that Sen. Cassidy, who ultimately voted yes, laid out with RFK's continued misinformation on public health.

Hey guys, me Sam Stein here on Tuesday, 1030. This is kind of an emergency video. We're gonna try and get this up pretty quick. I'm with Mona Charon, Joe Pertocone. The reason we are doing this is because in the last five minutes, two major developments on Capitol Hill, both printed to Trump's cabinet, both looking advantageous for Trump and his nominees. First one is Bill Cassidy, Senator from Louisiana, voted to push RFK Jr.'s nomination for Health and Human Service Secretary out of the Finance Committee. Bill Cassidy, former physician, had deep reservations, he said, about voting for Kennedy, but was on the fence. And right before he voted yes, he tweeted this. I've had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend, and right before he voted yes, he tweeted this.

I've had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend, and even this morning. I want to thank VP JD, that's JD Vance, specifically for his honest counsel, with the serious comments I've received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on issues we agree on, like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda. I will vote yes. No idea what the commitments are that he received blah blah blah and then secondarily todd young senator from indiana

who was on the fence about tulsi gabbard's nomination to be dni he announced that he too will vote yes he got some assurances that he put in writing from jd vance so yeah that's where we're at looks like trump will get his cabinet through. Mona? Oh, screwed are we. We are royally. So I ran into Cassidy in an elevator a few weeks ago, many weeks ago, actually. And reflecting on his vote to impeach Trump, I told him he was a hero. I would now like to retract that. This is, this is, look, this is a constitutional crisis because we only have two branches of government now. We have the executive and we have the judiciary and we don't have a legislative branch at all, which is supposed to be the first

and most powerful, uh, organ of government, but obviously they have no interest in governing, no interest in asserting their prerogatives, saving us from, um, these lunatic appointments. Um, and so, uh, yeah, we're going to get, we're getting it good and hard. It's remarkable because Cassidy, when he, last week during the hearing, read from a piece of paper saying, look, I am troubled deeply by your vaccine opposition and skepticism. Does a 70-year man, 71 year old man who spent decades criticizing vaccines and who's financially vested in finding fault with vaccines, can he change his attitudes and approach now that he'll have the most important position

influencing vaccine policy in the United States? He's like, and then he went a little further. He said, I also have an obligation as a politician to make sure that President Trump succeeds. And I don't think you're going to help him succeed because I'm worried there's going to be deadly measles outbreaks and it's going to reflect Portland and Trump. And you watched it and you're like, wow. Okay. So he's, he's clearly, you know, made up his mind or at least he's leaning towards opposing Kennedy, but clearly not. Joe, what do you think happened here? I'm just kind of blown away at the gullibility of someone like Cassidy. He was very clear.

You're a man in your 70s. I don't think you're going to suddenly reverse course on the most dangerous views you have that I've seen people die from like as a result. And he said he got these serious commitments on what planet are these serious commitments? Do they ever follow through? I mean, he, he did this for four years already. He's now doing it again, where he knows that the serious commitments aren't serious and they don't hold. And he, for whatever reason, said, oh, maybe this time they will. And that's just really not shocking. It's just very disconcerting. All right. So again, why do it? Why do it? I mean, Cassidy voted for Trump's impeachment. He's

already in the crosshairs of MAGA. I mean, he's up obviously in 2026. So clearly he wants to win. But is that it? Just like give yourself a chance, a fighting chance here? no, you are under immediate death threat all the time. Mitt Romney was paying millions to private security his entire time in Congress, probably still is now because of that. Same thing, I guess Mike Pence still has the Secret Service, but same thing applies. That's very difficult and that creates hell for you and for your family. Right. And if that's a factor, which you can't help, but think it would be, you know, some people decide what do I have to lose? And they realize maybe it's a lot.

Mona. We've got gangster government now, Sam. We've got gangster government. Mona, we've been writing about this a lot, but what, what does HHS look like if in fact, I mean, look, Kennedy, there's still the possibility, I suppose, of a full Senate vote where four Republicans there are, you know, you have Murkowski, Collins, McConnell, Curtis, I don't know. Let's just say for, you know, the sake of argument, he's going to get through. I

think we all sort of are inclined to believe that's the case. What does HHS look like under him, Mona? big corporations to poison us for their own profit, which sort of is more of a left-wing conspiracy theory. But for years, he was on the left. And he thinks 5G causes cancer. He thinks all that stuff. So he doesn't know how to think. He doesn't know how to evaluate evidence. And HHS has a huge role in approving vaccines and putting money toward research and CDC and all of that. Our entire public health approach is going to be controlled by a person who is a lunatic, utterly irresponsible person. And there will be pushback from within. And it could be that, you know, he will not be that efficient or effective as an executive. So there's that. But, you know, it's, I think we have to say, being realistic here, that if he gets confirmed, there will be many more deaths of innocent people, including innocent children, because of his influence. But we know for sure that the measles outbreaks that we've already seen are going to get worse because he's going to encourage vaccine denialism.

You know, that's already out there. Right. Well, actually, it's funny. Not funny. It's tragic. But like literally minutes before this vote, Trump posted on his Truth Social site, quote, 20 years ago, autism in children was one in 10,000. Now it's one in 34 wow something's really wrong we need bobby thank you djt so these assurances that bill cassidy got whatever they

are uh you know they're meaningless i mean trump's out there pushing widely debunked conspiracies about autism being caused by vaccines. And he has believed that for decades, Trump has. Yeah, it's like, is Bobby going to suddenly stop believing this stuff? The other thing that kind of I think is worth noting, and, Joe, I'll kick this one to you, is like in the hearing, the confirmation, it wasn't just the conspiracy theories that people were harping on. They were asking him very basic questions about how Medicaid and Medicare,

which are under the umbrella of HHS, how they operate. And Kennedy clearly did not know. He thought Medicaid was entirely state-run. He thought you had to pay premiums into it. He just didn't know. And these are massive government run institutions. Uh, Medicaid is the biggest insurer in the country. Um, why was that not more problematic to people? I guess people just don't care about the functionings of government, but that seemed to me like it would be one of those things that at least a cast or someone would be like, look, he just doesn't, he's not prepared. Yeah.

Kennedy's lack of preparation in the hearing. He obviously prepared like canned statements when he was asked about abortion. He was like, well, every abortion is tragedy, but he didn't prepare on like the details of the job. And for that to really just go glossed over by Cassidy. And then even in Cassidy's statement, he said, Oh, he's going to get healthy foods for Americans. Man, ultra processed food, obesity. We are, we're simpatico. We're completely aligned. That's not even in the wheelhouse. Like that's, that's a question for USDA and agriculture, which we should know. We should know that they hired a seed oil lobbyist to be the chief of

staff. So all this stuff about make america healthy again it's not really going god sorry well and it's just like that has been a very easy cop out for a lot of these republicans as they say well he's gonna make them healthy on food because kennedy likes to talk about that but it really has nothing to do with what they're considering what they're considering they all know and cassidy has even acknowledged, Kennedy is wholly unqualified for this. And the commitments or assurances, they're not in writing. We might not even ever know what they are. We're just going to find out when Kennedy does or doesn't do these things. And a lot of the anti-vaccine stuff, that's not going to be immediate in terms of the scope of it. That's years.

That's a generation will be affected by whatever he does. Oh, yeah. People are going to believe all the conspiracies because he's got a huge megaphone now, an even bigger one. Last question for you, Mona, because this ties in Tulsi. And I guess I'd push back a little bit on the premise that this was an avalanche of pressure to support these nominees. Because if you were online, if you followed with conservative voices, there were plenty of conservatives out there being like, these people are not

real conservatives. We should not confirm Kennedy. He's not pro-life. We should not confirm Tulsi. She doesn't believe in conservative foreign policy values. This is really about Trumpism. It's about fealty to, or fidelity to one man. And he basically runs this party with, you know, fear. And so I guess, Mona, I mean, speak to that, how this is just yet another instance of a political movement operating around a singular figure more than ideology. That's exactly right. And, you know, just a footnote to Joe's comments, I would say, you know, which I agree with completely, but I would just add, they aren't just these people, Tulsi and Kash Patel and RFK Jr. They aren't just unqualified.

They're anti-qualified. They are the worst possible people to put in charge. They are there to destroy the whole function of the agency or the entity that they're being put in charge of. And yes, it is all the cult in operation. Um, and, um, and so, you know, the, I do think the physical fear is part of it. And, uh, and also the fear of your wife being harassed online and all the rest of it. Um, but I would say that somebody eventually is going to call his bluff. And then a little bit of that fear, the air will go out of that balloon eventually. But it may be years.

I don't know. And so for now, he's destroying the country. And great. To Mona's point, that's why a lot of people in the tech sector love rfk and tulsi and trump is that they think disruption for disruption's sake is good right without really thinking about what exactly is being disrupted and then just the idea that like people who have framed themselves as institutionalists have now gone along with this disruption that they haven't really weighed the costs of is just i mean it's it's how congress relinquishes its authority yeah well that's the other story here is that congress has basically said do what you want and that's not just on

these nominees um all right well we will be following the developments uh like we said uh big big breaks for both rfk jr and Tulsi as they appear to be headed through committee to the Senate floor confirmation awaiting from a full Senate vote in what, days? Next week, Joe, what are we thinking? So they'll vote on him this week. The cloture vote adds a couple days to that. So it could be Friday. It could be this weekend, could be early next week at the latest. Can't wait. Going to make America healthy again. As always, subscribe

to the feed. We really appreciate it. Great to get Mona in her darkest moments. You can only get that at YouTube. And Joe, thanks so much. Appreciate it. We'll see you out on the hill. Take care, guys.