The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Lachlan Murdoch Is Even Scarier Than His Father Rupert

Episode Date: January 13, 2023

As 91-year-old Fox News mogul Rupert Murdoch carves his final deals before heading to the big newsroom in the sky, the world’s focus is beginning to turn to his son and heir apparent, Lachlan. And according to The Daily Beast’s Editor At Large Lachlan Cartwright, there’s more to Murdoch junior than meets the eye. He explains on this week’s episode of The New Abnormal: “It's important to note that Lachlan’s politics are far more conservative than his father’s.” Then, Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, tells podcast co-host Andy Levy his worries about the future of the House GOP and its “anti-science aggression” while “trying to create a witch hunt—not only against science, but against the scientists.” Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. Our goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. We have such an interesting show today.

Editor at large at the Daily Beast, Lockland Cardwright, will talk with us about Rebecca Brooks, who's the heir apparent to the Murdoch Media Empire. Then we have Dr. Peter Hottes, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children's Hospital and Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor. And he'll join us to talk about how a Kevin McCarthy-controlled Congress may already be putting us in danger for the next pandemic. But first, let's have some fun. Hi, and welcome to the Merrick Garland Fan Club podcast, where time is never of the essence, and speed is unnecessary. But that's not true, Danielle. That is simply not true.

And I won't have you saying bad things about the new abnormal's hero of this and every year, Merrick Garland, because he acted pretty damn quickly with regard to classified documents being found in two locations from Joe Biden. and he has already appointed a special counsel. So you tell me he can't act fast. You know, you're absolutely right. I am so remiss because not only, not only is our superhero Merrick Garland

working at the speed of light as it pertains to Joe Biden and documents, but lo and behold, he founded upon himself to appoint Robert Hur, a veteran prosecutor who worked in the Trump administration because what would be better? Nothing better than, both sides and shit that actually doesn't match up. But leave it to Merrick Garland to make us see

both sides. I have a couple of thoughts about this. And I think they're slightly different from yours, actually. I do have a problem with Joe Biden having these documents. I'm not saying you don't. But I do have a problem with him having these documents. I think actually is necessary to say that this is in no way the same as what Donald Trump had going on with his little classified document factory down at Mar-a-Lago. But this is still a problem. And we can't have former vice presidents and former presidents taking classified documents and just shoving them in a foot locker. Like, it's just we can't have it. And it's not the same. And Biden's group apparently found these documents and immediately turned them over and said, oh, shit, we fucked up here.

We need to turn these in, which is, could not be more night and day from Donald Trump. trying to keep the documents and obstructing the Justice Department from getting them back and the National Archives from getting the back, et cetera. Couldn't be more night and day. But it's still a problem. I don't want to just throw it out into the garbage and say, ah, he made a mistake. I do think ultimately, yes, he made a mistake. And Trump may have just made a mistake too. He just compounded it by then being a dick about it. But I do think there's a problem with Joe Biden having classified documents where he shouldn't. And that that's really it. So here are my thoughts. We do differ in our opinion, one, because here's the thing. Mainstream media once again is complicit in allowing Donald Trump

to always be able to claim the fucking victimhood. Here's the major difference between Joe Biden and Donald Trump besides one actually being a human being and the other one being a steaming pile of hot trash. Donald Trump, Donald Trump, stole documents from the White House. Donald Trump said, these are my documents. Donald Trump, when asked by the National Archives, very nicely to return said documents,

said no. Then lied and had his own lawyers not want to put their own names on paper to say that they've returned all the documents because they don't want to be held liable because they know that they work for a fucking liar. We also know that Donald Trump is in, oh, I don't know, significant fucking debt, and that the documents that he stole have to do with

nuclear secrets that are worth money to our adversaries. And so for him, it is just another, can you do me a favor, though? I have these documents you may be interested in. The fact that you have Joe Biden's lawyers who readily admitted, oh, we found something, and here you go, is completely and totally different and also open their own investigation, go through everything thoroughly, here are these pile of things, and they hand them over to the authorities

and then Merrick Garland wants to turn around and appoint a special fucking prosecutor to do what exactly? And how quickly this motherfucker can move when pressure comes down from Fox News, but we're waiting two fucking years since the insurrection, since the president of the United States

directed his army of fucking Trumpist to go storm the Capitol building and hang his vice president and Merrick Garland is sitting around twiddling his thumbs. But he thinks, oh, yes, let me appoint somebody from the Trump administration to investigate Biden so there seems to be some equanimity. I'm just so fucking tired of these people. Merritt Garland should have never been named, never been named attorney general. He is a fucking punk. And we have copycats that are happening all around the world now because they look at America and they say, well, none of their people are ever held accountable. So maybe we can get away with shit in our country too. He is a

fucking disgrace. And this is embarrassing. Okay, I'm done. Okay. So a couple of things. First of all, yes, I agree with, even though I'm a little harsher on Joe Biden for having these documents, I do agree with everything you said there. I'm also starting to think that maybe Merrick Garland wouldn't have been the best Supreme Court justice in the world either. I warned you before we started recording that I was going to pay you a compliment in this segment. So are you ready? Okay, I'm prepared. Okay. So I think when the Biden document story first came out, there was a lot of equating of this to Trump in the mainstream media. And I think that has kind of turned. And I think we are now starting to see a bunch of articles of places, at least like Washington Post,

New York Times, pointing out the differences, as you just did. And the compliment I am paying you is I think, and maybe I'm wrong here, but I think a lot of that is due to people like you who have been yelling about this from day one and saying that this shit is not the same. And you've been very loud and I mean that in a completely complimentary way. I don't mean that in any other way. You've been very loud and very strong on this, along with other people. I'm not going to give you all the credit for this, Danielle. Damn it.

Maybe 63% of the credit. But I do think that in some ways, I think the. Mainstream media, forget the right wing media because whatever. But I do think the mainstream media has now started to pop up with these articles saying, you know, here are the stark differences between what Trump did and what Biden did. And I do think that people like you are owed a compliment for that. So there you go. Deal with it.

Thank you, Andy. No, no, you deal with it. I will. It's so, you know, it's so hard to take 63% of the credit, but I will. I think that in all honesty, if people aren't yelling and aren't holding mainstream media accountable for the perpetuation of this both sides bullshit, they'll just continue along with it, unchecked. And I think that people look at this and all they need to see is the breaking news. Biden has documents. And then Fox News can run with it and say, oh, look, you know,

what are they so bent out of shape for? Right. So it's like, okay, so then if you're not going to be bent out of shape about Trump having nuclear documents that he stole and refused to give back to the National Archives, why are you even running stories on what Biden did? If it's not a big deal, so then just don't. So it's really, I do. I think that it's frustrating. I think that the mainstream media does us a disservice because they have no nuance whatsoever. They are just about clickbait. I agree. Although I do think it's more than that. I think they fear the right wing sort of media echo system. And they are constantly second guessing themselves or changing what they do because they don't want to be yelled at by Fox News and by people on the right and in general. And I think

they bend over backwards to try to show that they don't have quote unquote liberal bias. And I think that's become a huge problem in this country and one that's not getting any better. And what we're seeing here from the right is a lot of, where's the raid? Where's the raid? Like there was a Mar-a-lago. And again, well, there's no need for a quote-unquote raid, which it wasn't really a raid. But there's no need for a raid when the people who have the documents are like, oh shit, we have these documents here. We need to give them back to you. They don't even see the difference there. They don't or they pretend they don't. And it doesn't matter either way because that's now the talking point. And I've seen it a million times already online and elsewhere where it's just that's now the talking point. Where is the

raid? Where are the FBI agents and windbreakers? Deep down, you know what you're saying is just a crock of shit. But you also know that it works because the people who watch and listen to you are, I don't know a nice way to say this. So I'll just say they're not very bright. And you know that and you play to that. So you know you can get away with it. And it's so depressing and whatever. But again, I'm getting a far field from the actual subject here. I just want to say, and then I'll shut up about it. There's a couple things here. We have an over classification problem in terms of documents. That is, that is true. I think we've been, people have known that for a long time. none of that excuses. It certainly doesn't excuse what Trump did. It doesn't excuse what Biden did.

But maybe this is because I'm like I had my little, you know, my time in the army or whatever. And I know what would have happened to me if I accidentally took classified documents back to my barracks room. Like, I would have been in deep shit. And if I'm going to be in deep shit for something, then I think no matter how high up the chain you are, then you got to be careful too. And whether it's accidental or on purpose, you just, you can't be messing. with that shit. That's my only caveat here. And that's why I started off by saying, like, I do think that what Joe Biden did was a problem, whether accidental or not. I really, I need the media to have more nuance. If you want to run stories on this, then I need you to elevate how it's different, right? How these two things are not the same, right? And how, you know,

we need to be holding people accountable. And to your point, we know that if anyone, regular people, take documents and they end up in federal prison for five plus years, right? And like we know that that happens all the time. And I'm just, like, let's just be honest about the fact that we have a multi-tiered injustice system in America. That's what it is. If you are rich, if you are white, if you are straight, if you are male and well-connected, you have a whole other form of a justice system where things just don't apply to you.

Case in point. Yeah, and speaking of justice systems and applying to different people differently, how about that George Santos? Oh, my God. You mean the champion volleyball player? I understand that he was a master of the set while at the college he didn't go to. But this story just every day, it's something new. And the only thing I'm trying to figure out with him, and I'm curious to your take on this. What happens first? Does he go to prison or is he unseated in Congress? I wish that I knew the order because I think that prison, the investigation into the mishandling of his campaign finances is going to be something that takes longer.

But here's a question that I actually have. Let's say that they do come back. The Nassau DA on Long Island and he's under federal investigation as well. say that they do come back with an indictment on Santos. Does that mean that he can still be, like he can still vote? Like, you know, is McCarthy holding on to him for dear life because it would take a trial and a guilty verdict to actually get him out of Congress? I'm so concerned about McCarthy's just entire non-take on George Santos as, oh, he's just

made a few mistakes. You know, he's an honest person because I need to have a four vote threshold and not a three vote in the House. It's just like if he's arrested, is he still considered like an active member of Congress? I believe the answer to that is yes, because I'm old enough to remember James Traffercant, who was a Democrat. And he was back in the early 2000s, he was convicted of a whole bunch of felony counts that included there was like bribery, tax, evasion, I think. After he was convicted, the House Ethics Committee then got together and decided to expel him from Congress. So that was after he was convicted. So he was in the House that whole time. And I think for like maybe two, three months after being convicted of felonies, he was still

a House member. So I think there's separate processes and like one doesn't affect the other. And he, if I remember correctly, he actually ran again for Congress from prison and lost. So if I'm remembering all of that correctly, then yeah, I think Santos could be convicted of felonies and still be in the house because it's two separate, it's two wholly separate things, which is bizarre. Yeah. We should note he only got 15% of the vote after he ran after his expulsion. He still got 15% of the vote? Yeah.

Hell yeah, he did. Also, his Wikipedia photo is the closest thing to a mugshot. That's not a mug shot I've ever seen in my entire life. Oh, James Trafficking. Look, he was a bad dude, whatever. He was a fucking blast, though. I mean, he looked a mess. He used to always say, beam me up, Scotty.

That was like his catchphrase when he thought something in a bill was completely insane. He was just a total character and also, you know, a felon. I just think that the entire Santos fiasco is just, it's an indictment on Republicans. It's an indictment on our governmental system, right? That there is no fall safe here. There's no break glass in case of grifting liar, right? Like we just continue on as if all is well. When he was caught running to his office and running away from reporters in recent clip that was shown on the news,

he's saying, you know, he's not going to leave office unless 142 people vote him out. I don't know what that number is or why. But he said the people put me here. The people put the other George Sandos there. The one who's fake-ass resume that you ran on. You know what I'm saying? Like, they didn't know who they were voting for. And I'm just like, the people, once this comes to light, should have the ability to call a special election.

Right? They should have the ability to do something to say, this man does not represent us. We were defrauded as his constituents. And so what's their fail safe? They have none. They're stuck with this guy. Yeah. And if you want to really, I was just thinking about this.

Like the perfect sort of summary of what the modern GOP is like is that Matt Gates was guest hosting Steve Bannon's radio show, I guess, or podcast. Because Steve Bannon was in court. And he had George Santos on his show and was defending him. And like if you can't sum up the Republican Party better than that right now, like, I don't know how you can. And the amazing thing is that Gates was like, they always do this where they have to downplay and lie. And he just kept saying, you know, well, everybody embellishes their resume. It's like that's not what George Santos did. He didn't embellish his resume.

He fucking made it up. Embelishing your resume is saying that you like, you know, you were in charge of a project when you were like the second in command of the project or just worked on the project. That's embellishing a resume. Saying you went to a college you didn't go to, saying you worked at places you didn't work at, saying your background and your family's background. is completely different from what it was. That's not embellishment.

That's lies. It's just, it's unbelievable to me. Matt, when he announced why he was hosting, said that Steve Bannon was on special assignment. Oh, God, I thought he said he was on vacation. Yeah, that's just. Special assignment as in federal prison? Like, where is the special assignment?

Leavenworth. I'm very excited to welcome back to the program, but my first time getting to chat with Lockland Cartwright, who is the editor at large of The Daily Beast. excited to talk to you about your latest piece, Lachlan, the woman set to take over Murdox Media Empire. So I am fascinated with the Murdox in the way that I was fascinated with Succession on HBO. And like, this must be what it's like to have dinner with these people. But Rebecca Brooks is, I think, an interesting character within the Murdoch Empire.

And she is the one that is set to take over. Give us the 50,000 foot view as to why this is not. news. Yes. Well, currently the Murdox have been exploring what potentially is going to be a blockbuster, $27 billion deal to reunite UseCorp with Fox. So a bit of the backstory there is about 10 years ago. At the height of the phone hacking scandal, they separated the two companies, News Corp, which owns and controls a number of newspapers throughout Australia, the UK and here in the US with Fox, which obviously controls Fox News and Fox Sports. And it was a way to sort of firewall off Fox from some of the scandal that was engulfing News Corp. Now, fast forward 10 years,

and Rupert and his son, Loughlin, have cooked up this deal to bring the two entities back together. They say because it'll be good for dealmaking and there's obviously synergies there. a number of the key shareholders pushing back on it. And so this is all sort of going on as we speak. There are these two special committees that have been exploring and analyzing the merits of bringing these two entities back together. But the big question in Murdoch land has been, well, who would run it? Who would run the reunited organization? And the name that I've been told by a number of key people close to the deal is it would be Rebecca Brooks. And she's a very significant figure in Murdoch land, a key lieutenant for both Rupert and Loughlin. She was a former editor of the News of the World,

a former editor of the Sun. She went on to run the company News International. It was then known, which controlled the British entities, then was forced to resign at the height of the phone hacking scandal. She was actually put on trial, found not guilty. and an incredible return came back to the company and now runs News UK out of London. Lachlan, remind us a bit about the 2013 phone hacking scandal that took place because I know, I mean, this is 10 years ago and folks are fuzzy around it, but this was major, major news and a trial ensued. So can you touch upon what exactly went down with the phone hacking scandal in 20?

that would push Rebecca Brooks out of the company and then now, 10 years later, welcome her back into the fold. Yeah, it's hard to understate how seismic that story was. It had been bubbling away for a number of years. One journalist with the news of the world, the royal correspondent, had been charged with hacking along with a gentleman who was accused of doing, carrying out the hacking. And at the time, News International, as it was then known, protested that this was one, quote-unquote rogue reporter, meaning that this reporter was acting on his own.

The problem wasn't throughout the newsroom. It was just this individual. And so they were convicted at the time. But then over the years, a number of journalists continued to sort of press into the story. And it really bubbled up through The Guardian and the journalist's by the name Nick Davies. and some revelations around Millie Dalla. And Millie Dalla was a girl who went missing in the UK was sadly murdered. Millie Dalla's phone, it emerged, had been targeted by the phone hackers.

When this revelation came to light, a couple of things went on. Firstly, Millie Della wasn't a royal figure. So why was her phone being targeted in the first place? Exactly. Why was her phone being targeted? it. Also, the country was just appalled that the family of someone that was, you know, going through the process of missing a loved one could be targeted in this fashion. And then during that week, a number of other revelations came out, such as military figures had been targeted. And within

the space of a week, the Murdox made the extraordinary decision to shut the news of the world down. And then this criminal investigation just engulfed the company with a number of journalists from the News of the World, arrested and charged with hacking. You know, and so Rebecca Brooks at that time, 10 years ago, was the head of News of the World. I'm just curious because it just seems that the Murdox can't get away from criminal behavior, whether it is, you know, one of the members of their company being charged with sexual assault or phone hacking or what have you.

They just can't seem to ever manage to live above board. And so in that trial, she's. found not guilty, meaning that they were saying that it was pervasive, right, that she was directing folks into this phone hacking as a part of quote-unquote research for these stories, correct? Yeah, she was charged with intercepting communications, and there were also subsequent charges of conspiring to revert the course of justice. Important to say that she's always pled innocent to those charges, and she was found not

guilty at quite an extraordinary trial, but other figures around her were found guilty. So now, she reenters the scene. And we know that the Murdoch company is very much tight-knit in terms of like their familiar structure. So how does a person like Rebecca Brooks, who, as you write, is seen as this like esteemed colleague is referred to as Murdoch's other daughter, how does she maneuver in this space? So she is much love. by both Rupert and by Lachlan, and she's an incredible operator, you know, very well connected into the worlds of politics and celebrity and power figures in the UK. And in 2015, after being found not guilty, she is reappointed as CEO of the company, which was then named News UK.

But she is incredibly tight-knit with Rupert. As you say, she is considered like the daughter he never had. And Robert Thompson, who currently heads up News Corp here, what I'm told is that Lachlan isn't a massive fan of his. And so this move is further to cement their own person running the entire company, someone that they trust inherently and has the industrial knowledge of the entire organization to be able to run it under one roof. Let me ask you this, because the British press, as we understand it here in the States, and I guess through the vantage point and lens of the way in which they are relentless in terms of their pursuit of any bit of gossip, trash as it pertains to the royal family.

We have learned more with regard to the treatment of Megan Markle and Prince Harry, whose book just came out, which even, you know, gives more information about the royals and kind of this trading that happens. What does it mean now in terms of the way that information and disinformation is disseminated through this empire? What does it mean that these two companies are now converging,

particularly at this time of heightened political unrest, globally, their reach being so immense? What do you see coming of this? It's difficult at this vantage point to really know, bearing in mind that, you know, some of these key shareholders are pushing back on the merger.

So it may happen, but just not in the fashion as has currently been presented. So for instance, they may spin off Dow Jones to be a separate entity before bringing News Corp and Fox together. But ultimately, it consolidates the Murdoch's power, particularly Loughlin's power as Rupert's anointed successor. There's always been speculation about whether James, would return to the fold in some regard. But this move, this deal, which is one of Rupert's last big ones before he, you know, moved to the big newsroom in the sky, really is about cementing

the family's power behind Loughlin. And it's important to note that Lachlan's politics are far more conservative than his father's. How is that possible, Lachlan? Well, it is possible. He is staunchly more conservative than his dad. And so I think, if anything, you may see some of that appear in some of the, you know, the titles throughout the empire. That's really interesting and also disturbing. What are the reasons why the shareholders would be pushing back against this? Is it not an opportunity for them to recoup more money? Would they do so as two separate companies? Like, what would be the ultimate pushback here because the reason it was split off, I'm assuming, is so that the other entity, the News Corp entity could recoup and rehab its brand and its image after this major

news scandal 10 years ago. So now the coming back together, why is their pushback? Yeah. So some of these shareholders are raising concerns about the commercial rationale for the merger. They don't believe that bringing together News Corp and Fox will deliver them the same results as if the two companies were separate. They believe some of the assets are being undervalued. So there is a high level of pushback here. But as I noted in my reporting, the Murdox remained determined to get this deal through in one way or another. And based on their previous history of when people, regulators or or even shareholders tell them they can't do something. They always seem to find a creative way around it.

And considering that this is very much something that they both are Rupert and Lockham wants to see happening, you can see at some point, you know, maybe they're making some kind of concessions to get these shareholders on board. Now, Rupert Murdoch is 91 years old, as you said. And you're saying, you know, he's pushing through this deal before he heads off to his next chapter in life. What are the similarities outside of his conservative views? Is Lockland Murdoch? Is he as powerful? Will he be able to shoulder this empire that his father has created globally? And what are the relationships between Rebecca Brooks and Lockland,

who will take on, I guess, as you said, I believe the chief role, Lockland will have, what is their relationship. They're very close and Lachlan is a big fan of Rebecca's. He would sort of sit above this in terms of a sort of in an executive chairman role and let her run the company day to day. But there has always been questions about, you know, Lachlan's, I guess, you know, ability as an executive compared to his father. He's not as much of a political animal as Rupert, who's known to be, you know, darting in and out of 10 Downing Street or speaking to the PM of, Australia. So, you know, bringing in someone like Rebecca who is trusted, who is incredibly loyal, who can help with some of these day-to-day decisions. From what I hear is something that remains a

top priority for Lachlan and for Rupert. Is Fox their major money-making entity in all of what they're combining? Yeah, Fox is the big money spinner there, yes. And so if Fox is the big money Spender, does it then, I guess in turn, I'm just trying to think about the shareholders for a second. Does is that the one that kind of lifts all boats? Because the tabloids, I guess, the sons and the, and the other papers that they own in Britain are really largely like paper and they are, and online, but they are around kind of the swarming around the royals, whereas Fox News, you know, is all about politics. Yeah. And look, they've got some other assets here that are quite attractive. REA, which is an online real estate business run out of Australia, which is hugely profitable.

Dow Jones is another asset that performs incredibly well. But Fox is the one that really does bring in the big bucks. And I think from some of the other shareholders, there may be the feeling that they don't want to be associated with Fox due to the proximity of the politics there. Mm-hmm. And is Lachlan, you said he's more conservative? So is his viewpoint, Fox News's viewpoint? I think you got to remember Fox News is the cash cow. It's a business. So, you know, they're on side because the organization makes them a lot of money. But, you know, Lockland's close to Tucker Carlson. Tucker and Lockland speak often. And Lockland is a big advocate for Tucker. And he's very much on side with a lot of the politics that is presented on Fox News. I just think that these people are so dangerous. And having this size of this massive media empire, this merger, I just don't understand how in this country, in particular, in the States, that these types of mergers are not, I know that it's the holders of, it's the same people that are holding both of these big entities. But this kind of merger and this type of power grip over the globe, there's nothing that is comparable to it. To me, that's what makes them so dangerous. What is comparable to this in terms of other media?

You know, they're uniquely positioned in having such a power base in Australia with titles in pretty much every capital city and Sky News Australia, which is, you know, their major news network that presents a, you know, what's been nicknamed Sky News After Dark, which is a lot of conservative commentary in the evenings. Then you move across the UK where you've got the sun and you've got the Times, plus you've got now there fledgling television network talk TV presented, or their main presenter is Pierce Morgan, and then here in the US, it's Fox and then titles like the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal. It's hard to find a comparison of that scale. What do you think is next in terms of your investigation and covering of this merger? Well, what I was tipped off about,

while I was reporting this story out, is that there's another deal in the works that a couple of sources whispered to me is potentially Rupert's last deal. And that's the one I'm very keen to find out about. And I'm trying to sort of unravel that as we speak. What would be Rupert Murdoch's last deal before he goes to the big newsroom in the sky? Interesting. Well, we'll have to have you back as you unravel that story to see what happens next. Lucklin Cartwright, appreciate you joining the new abnormal. Cheers. Thanks for having me. With Kevin McCarthy now firmly in control, the House Republicans have set

their focus on the single-minded pursuit of legislating for the good of the American people. I'm kidding, of course. And among the things they won't be doing is taking a hard look at what might lie ahead for our country with regards to COVID. Joining me now to explain is Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of Texas Children's Hospital Center for Vaccine Development and Dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine. Dr. Hotes, thank you so much for being here. Oh, thanks for having me, Andy. Absolutely. In a daily beast piece that was titled, Kevin McCarthy is already inviting the next pandemic mess. You write that McCarthy and his fellow Republicans have a disturbing set of plans for so-called oversight of the coronavirus that could

divert precious resources from what must be our main goal in the coming years, preventing the next pandemic. Explain yourself, sir. What are these plans? It's coming from three sources. It's coming from public statements made by Representative Jim Jordan from Ohio, Representative Comer from Kentucky. I mean, obviously I'm not a legislative government affairs person, so I only know what the public statements are. And then from Congressman McCarthy himself. And it sounds like they plan on doing some heavy-duty investigative hearings around COVID origins and vaccines. And from previous statements coming out of the House Freedom Caucus, to me, it does not sound like good news. It sounds like what they're going to do is heavily focus on their assertions that COVID was originated. in the lab, which goes against what the mainstream scientific community says. They're claiming

it's done through National Institutes of Health NIH-funded what's called gain-of-function research, which we can talk about, or that there was a cover-up or on a lab leak, and none of those things are supported by the mainstream scientific community and community virologists. And that's in the context of all of the anti-vaccine statements and anti-vaccine activities that the House Freedom caucus engaged in in 2021 and 2022 that led to so much loss of life because people refused a COVID vaccination. So I'm worried that what the House GOP has in mind is a full on slate of what I sometimes call anti-science aggression and trying to create a witch hunt not only against science, but against the scientists. And then I'll say one more thing and then stop, which is that among

the reasons that I'm concerned is we've known for a long time that, coronavirus epidemic slash pandemics are, unfortunately, the new abnormal that we've had SARS in 2002, severe acute respiratory syndrome, Mears, Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome in 2012, now COVID-19, which we predicted was going to come. And now we're going to have a fourth one. And so rather than get ready for the next big fourth major coronavirus pandemic slash epidemic, we're going to focus on the phony bologna stuff and keep our eyes off the prize. And that's going to make our country more vulnerable when we should be shoring up our virologic research, not creating the switch on against virologists. Yeah, there was something you said in the piece when you talked about

those three major SARS-related coronaviruses, and you said that nature is not being coy about any of this. Like basically nature is telling us, this is what I'm doing right now, guys, and I ain't stopping anytime soon. That's right. I mean, we now know that we are seeing a major coronavirus epidemic pandemic every seven to nine years. Again, we had SARS that came out of Southern China 2002 and shut down the city of Toronto in 2003. It took a Rolling Stones concert finally to bring back the economic life of Toronto. I don't know that we can count on the Rolling Stones in perpetuity. Then we had Mayors, a Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome that also not only it rose out of the Arabian insula, but really did a number on South Korea in 2012, 2013, and for a few years after

that. Now COVID-19. So, you know, the studies coming by the virologists and the ecologists, because these viruses arise out of bats, suggests that coronaviruses are jumping from animals to humans, from bats to humans, either directly or through a second intermediate animal host every day and thousands of people are being infected with new coronaviruses every day. And then every seven to nine years, one, whatever metaphor you want to use, catches fire against critical mass and causes a major pandemic. But we don't really understand in a deep granular level how that happens. We're not doing the virus surveillance of the bats and animals and all the investigations that need to be done across the face of Asia and elsewhere. But whenever the bat ecologists and virologists look,

we find these bats all across Cambodia and Japan and Vietnam, and you name it across Southeast Asia up into China, just teeming with these coronaviruses and they're jumping all the time. We need to be sampling those animals. We need to be looking at intermediate animal hosts. We need to be identifying the viruses, potentially making vaccines against those viruses ahead of the time when they jump into humans and modernizing the Centers for Disease Control. And we can talk about the failings of the CDC and how it's slowly being fixed, but it needs a pretty big overhaul in order to get us ready for the next pandemic so we don't see the same epic fail that we saw that in 2020. Yeah, I do want to get into that. I just very briefly want to talk about the lab leak theory.

because I think that's all it deserves is a very brief discussion. But my take on that has always been, yeah, okay, that's certainly plausible. And as of now, it seems to be lacking in any evidence that stands up to scrutiny. And I don't have a problem in general with continuing scientific inquiries into it to determine exactly what did or did not happen. But that, to me, is not what in particular the Republicans want to do. What they're doing is, and what they want to do, is pure unadulterated politics aimed mainly at discrediting one person, Anthony Fauci. Am I correct in that? Well, Fauci and other scientists that the National

Institutes of Health supported. So there's two parts to this. There's two allegations or assertions. One, that the virus was generated in a lab, produced in a lab through artificial means, through genetic manipulation, what's sometimes called gain of function research. And in my view, that's been thoroughly discredited from published papers by Robert Gary at Tulane. Those published in the proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. as well as Jerry Kirsch's group at Boston University and Angela Rasmus and Michael Warby at Arizona, all have done pretty thorough studies to debunk the artificial gain of function. That's point one. Point two, lab leak, you know, to me it's a low probability event.

It's not that it's impossible, you know, that the virus was being studied. It's just that, one, there's been no evidence for it. And second, you don't need to postulate it when we've been already predict. predicting these major coronaviruses are emerging. What's often said is, gee, what a weird coincidence, right, that you had a major institute of virology in Wuhan, and then the virus emerged in Wuhan. Well, but the truth is, if you know anything about coronavirus research in China, after SARS in 2002, every major microbiology institute in China in just about every city undertook coronavirus research. So no matter where that virus emerged, you can identify a research center institute that's studying

coronavirus. So I often like to use my friend Mike Osterholm's analogy. You know, Mike, he's a very important epidemiologist, University of Minnesota, heads the Center for Infectious Disease Policy. He says it very nicely. He says, imagine if you had this virus emerge in the Caribbean, what would you think? Well, with daily flights between the Caribbean, Atlanta-Hartsfield Airport, the virus would first be picked up in Atlanta, and people would immediately assume there was a lab leak from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. So, I thought that was a pretty interesting analogy to make. And I think it's the same here.

I don't think there's any evidence for a lab leak. It doesn't mean it's zero. Right. But, you know, given the fact that you've got this big imminent threat looming, it reminds me of the Monty Python skit from the 70s where they talk about disarming a man against fresh fruit when they really should be targeting, you know, disarming a man against knives and guns and that sort of thing. Right. Yeah, it always kind of struck me the whole, the Wuhan connection. always kind of struck me as if you had labs studying Las of fever in Western Africa, and then there was a Las of fever outbreak, and you would say, oh, well, it must be from the lab. It's like,

well, no, the lab is there because that's where the virus is. Yeah, and you have labs all over the face of China because back in 2002 was such a devastating event. I think that it's true that the Chinese are not being transparent. And what I think they're not being transparent about especially is the fact that, you know, they, instead of allowing an international investigative team to come into the wet markets in Wuhan, where the virus may have jumped to some of these intermediate animal hosts. I mean, those wet markets are horrible places. I remember visiting one in Shanghai back when I was doing research in China on parasitic diseases in the 90s. I mean, I used to call them the killing fields because they're just exercises on how you slaughter living animals in front of the

customer. I mean, they're really disgusting places. And they were supposed to shut those down after 2002 when SARS emerged, but they kept them going. And I think that's when a lot of the cover-up is they were supposed to do something about the wet markets. Let's shift to what our government should be doing right now. There's something you wrote in the piece. You say the Biden administration has yet to get us ready for the next pandemic in two years, which is understandable. And my question is why is that understandable? Because I frankly don't understand it. And I honestly feel like our entire government, Republicans, Democrats, has abdicated its responsibility for this. Am I wrong in thinking? that? Well, I was trying to be a little bit generous. You know, they've got a lot of distractions, and it's hard to build up pandemic preparedness in the middle of fighting a pandemic. Sure. It's not easy to do those two things simultaneously. I think overall, the Biden administration has done a, you know, a good job in fighting this pandemic, but there have been lapses. And, you know, they've been very slow to modernize and upgrade the CDC. I think Rochelle Willinsky, who I have a lot of respect for and I think she's done a good job as his director.

has been tasked with doing change management of a federal agency, but I don't think a single person at the top can do this alone. I mean, change management's hard enough to do it at my National School of Tropical Medicine with 15 faculty members. How you do that at the federal agency. And she needs more help and assistance. She inherited a mess, right?

I mean, let's remember what happened here. When everyone was concerning in their hands about China, this virus entered surreptitiously from Southern Europe. right night the terrible epidemic in new york cdc missed that didn't get diagnostic testing on underway for months and months and months genomic sequencing didn't get underway they weren't measuring vaccine effectiveness that's why we had to go to israel and in the uk for all of our vaccine effectiveness data and that's why people who got the j and jay vaccine were feeling buyers remorse because they don't use those vaccines in israel and in the uk so they weren't getting information about

those those vaccines and they weren't leading a federal response it was left to the state And the states didn't have the chops to know how to do this. So all that needs to be modernized, realigned, a predictive mathematical modeling and everything else. And it's happening. Things are better. If you notice now, you can actually get some vaccine effect in this data out of the CDC, whereas in the past you can't. There is genomic sequencing now being put up there on the website. So no question, things are improved.

But it's not ready for prime time. It's still not fully equipped to manage another major pandemic and also given the authority to lead that response. I think that's the other piece that people have been sort of tossing back and forth. I mean, who leads a federal response to a pandemic? They're talking about building a separate branch of the federal government in Washington, D.C. And I've said, I don't think that's such a good idea. I mean, can you imagine if Ron DeSanctus becomes president or somebody who's not quite really committed to? to pandemic preparedness becomes the president of the United States. I mean, the last place you

wanted is Washington, D.C. So see, it's got to be at CDC. We've got to modernize the CDC, upgrade it, and make it ready to fight that pandemic. And it is happening in little bits. No director of the Centers for Disease Control can do this alone. It's got to be done with the full weight of the executive branch of the federal government. And they need help from Congress, too. And that's what we're not seeing. So instead of the House GOP and the leadership, they're saying, hey, we're really worried about the country. We want to help. We want to hold hearings to see what we need to do to get the CDC and the federal response ready for the next pandemic. All I want to do is target Tony and all the phony baloney gain of function of lab leak.

And they're going to bring every whack-a-doodle scientists they can to support their contention that it was generated in a lab. And I find that very disturbing. No, absolutely. And most disturbing to me is there's not even a small chance that they'll do the right thing. There is absolutely zero chance that they will do the right thing. Certainly in their public statements, it's all about investigative hearings. And I mean, they've showed their hand, right? It's not like they're lousy poker players. I mean, they've told us exactly what's in their hand and it's not looking good. I mean, it's all the craziness. It's all the gain of function, lab leak, what one on in Wuhan. And they know it.

And it's totally unproductive. They know and it does several things. One, it waste, taxpayers money. Second, it distracts. And, you know, again, this is a reason why the Biden administration's going to continue to do things incrementally rather than make the wholesale improvements and upgrades that we need in our federal response. Because if you're spending all of your time answering outrageous queries from members of the House, you know, what else can you do? I mean, thank goodness the Senate is not been converted over. Then we've got to deal with Rand Paul and the anti-vaccine. senator from Wisconsin Johnson and all his stuff. So I guess we should count our blessings. But, you know, and by the way, I'm not a very political person. I could care less. I mean, I, you know,

I'm here in Texas. When I came to Texas 12 years ago, you know, we had what I used to call Jim Baker, George H.W. Bush Republicans. I didn't always agree with them. But I never doubted for a minute that they were putting country first. But it's what these guys are doing is just so destructive for the country. This shouldn't be a political issue. This is a disease. This is a public health issue, not a political issue. And I don't think... Well, it's even beyond a public health. This is a homeland security issue. Remember, COVID-19 affected this country, not only at the public health level, as it did every other country. It damaged our economy. It created gaps in our national security. Pandemics are as big a threat as external armed invasions,

and yet we don't treat it as such. And that's where we need to go. Yeah, I just don't think I've seen a disease politicized like this since AIDS. And, you know, AIDS, I'm not saying it makes sense to politicize AIDS. It was horrible what happened in this country. But at least you could look at that and just say, oh, well, you're just a bunch of bigots. You're homophobes. And that's why you don't care about AIDS. And, you know, part of you is happy that gay people are dying. So you can at least sort of game that out in a weird sense. But with COVID, it's like, this is a disease that literally affects everyone, and they still manage to find a way to turn it into pure unadulterated politics. Well, and at the expense of, you know, massive losses in human life.

I mean, I put out an article in the Public Library of Science a few months ago about looking just at where I am in Texas. And, you know, Texas, you know, if you want to think of it as its own country of 30 million people in a multi-trillion dollar economy, that's similar in population size and economy to actually the nation of Canada or the nation of Australia. You know, after vaccines became widely available, the deaths in Canada and Australia largely halted. In Texas, it was just the opposite. They kept on going.

In fact, of the 92,000 deaths in Texas, Texas was the worst affected state in the country. Half of those came after vaccines became widely and freely available because people refused to get vaccinated. They were victims of the statements from the CPAC conference. conference. First they're going to vaccinate you, then they're going to take away your guns and your Bibles and as ridiculous as that sounds to us, people believed it in the state of Texas. And comments from the House Freedom Caucus and Senator Johnson, Senator Paul, amplified every night on Fox News, as documented by Media Matters, the watchdog group and a social science research group at ETH Zurich, which is like the MIT of Switzerland, of central Europe, and piled on and given academic cover by the contrarian pseudo-intellectuals. Antiscience is a

societal killing force. 40,000 Texans died. And in my new book, which will come out hopefully soon with Johns Hopkins University Press, it's called The Deadly Rise of Antiscience, how health freedom propaganda endangers the world. 200,000 Americans needlessly lost their lives because they were victims of this anti-science. And now the House wants to continue it through the gain of function lab leak nonsense. And again, they're going to target vaccines. And so they're not stopping despite the already horrific losses in human life. Yeah, I mean, as you said, unfortunately, these are now the people in charge, at least in the House of Representatives.

And things are going to get worse before there's even a chance of them getting better, it feels like. Yeah, I mean, you know, you like to think eventually there'll be an auto correction, but doesn't look like it's going to happen in 2023 anyway. Yeah. It's really unfortunate. If I sound, you know, exercised by all this, it's. because it's not a theoretical discussion.

You know, I'm a MD PhD vaccine scientist. I wanted to make vaccines ever since I was a kid and living a lifelong dream. We made a two of COVID vaccines that have now been administered to 100 million people in India and Indonesia. And that I always planned on doing. What I never thought I'd have to do was defend vaccines like I do and defend science. And unfortunately, there's a vacuum there and needs to be talked about

because otherwise, how do you figure out how to solve the problem? Yeah, it truly is amazing and it often has begun to feel like we're living back in the middle ages. Dr. Hotes, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it and we'll have you back on again soon. I'm excited to see your book. Oh, thanks, Andy. I really appreciate the opportunity. Andy Levy.

Danielle Moody. The list is long, my friend. As always. And the web is wide. The list never gets shorter, does it? No, it does not. It just gets added to. Nothing ever gets subtracted. Unfortunately, who, dear friend, is your fuck that guy today?

My fuck that guy is a whole bunch of Republicans. There was a story that popped up on, God, I guess it was Wednesday, I think originally, maybe Tuesday, I think Wednesday, that the Consumer Product Safety Commission was going to ban gas stoves and forced everyone to replace them with electric or whatever. and this led to just unbelievable outrage on the right. You had Representative Ronnie Jackson from Texas, best known as the crazy person who somehow was Obama's doctor, saying, I'll never give up my gas stove. If the maniacs in the White House come from my stove, they can pry it for my cold dead hands. Come and take it. Ron DeSantis tweeted something similar, and this became a whole cause to lab on Fox News

and all across the right-wing media world. Then, of course, the next day you have the head of the CPSC saying that they are not looking to ban gas stoves. And not only that, but the Consumer Product Safety's Commission has sort of no proceeding to do so, as I think the way he put it. But he did say that there is a lot of research showing that the emissions from gas stoves are hazardous, particularly to kids, and particularly when you're talking about things like

childhood asthma, of really good data about how having gas stoves increases incidence of childhood illnesses. So, gee, I don't know. Maybe that is something that should be looked at by the government. But the Republicans couldn't wait to just pounce on this and make it some sort of, you know, federal government overreach. And this is exactly, look, this is what they do. It's what they did with Michelle Obama daring to want kids to eat healthy lunches in schools.

You know, I feel like if we're up to Republicans that we'd, all still have asbestos in, you know, in our walls because they wouldn't want anyone to pry the asbestos from their cold dead hands. And it's just unbelievable how they just use the same playbook over and over and there's no reality to it. There's no logic to it. There's no science to it. It's just getting out there and being the loudest to say, pry it from my cold dead hands. It's just fucking pathetic. So my fuck that guy goes to a whole bunch of people on the right, but I'll specify if we're keeping track. I'll go with Ronnie Jackson and Ronnie DeSantis, the two Ronnie's.

I can't wait for the R&C convention. Maybe they'll put Clint Eastwood on the stage and instead of an empty chair, it will be just a stove that he stands in front of. That'll be epic. Oh, God. So, all right, Daniel, who is your fuck-that guy? My fuck-that guy, once again, you know, you know how Republicans, Andy, love to talk about voter fraud.

Oh, yeah. You know, and it's, it's the biggest crime, you know, wave that is facing Americans are all of these people who register to vote fraudulently, and they're all Democrats, and we've got to purge, purge these people from the rolls. Well, it turns out that once again, there is a case of voter fraud, and at the center of it is, in fact, a Republican.

No. I know. It's crazy. Jason Schofield, a Republican who recently resigned from, the Renssela County Board of Elections. Guess what? He didn't fake one ballot, Andy, not two, not three, not even five, but 12, 12 absentee ballots. Did this man apply for using fake names that he submitted electronically to vote via absentee ballot in New York?

And he is facing all of these, like, facing crimes. He's going to be sentenced in May. He faces up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000. It is amazing to me. It's like everything that Republicans say is just fucking projection, right? Everything that they accuse other people from, they do in spades, like over and over and over again. This piece of crap, oh, you know, we got to protect our elections and elect. fraud and Donald Trump won the election and blah blah and and you're filling out fake absentee ballots.

Twelve of them because that was going to send somebody like over the edge with an election win. Why was the magic number 12? The pettiness is amazing. So for me this week, it's Jason Showfield, but it's every single Republican, honestly, that comes after quote unquote voter fraud when the biggest perpetrators of said fraud are Republicans. You know, there's a way to look at it, though, that he was just doing his part and that if every Republican would fill out 12 fake ballots,

that could make a huge difference. I agree with you, fuck that guy, but maybe you shouldn't be so harsh on him for, you know, doing his part. It's like recycling. You know, we all have to do our part. And if everybody does it, then it's good for the environment.

And I think this is sort of the same situation here. And you're right. And if everyone does it, then guess what? In the Republicans' minds, it's not wrong. Exactly. There's that. Hope you enjoy checking out this episode of the new abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday.

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