The Highwire with Del Bigtree - “THE TRUTH FINDS A WAY TO BE TOLD” SHARYL ATTKISSON

Episode Date: September 30, 2024

Five-time Emmy Award-winning investigative journalist, Sharyl Attkisson, gives a career- spanning interview, highlighting her pivotal role in breaking controversial stories from vaccine injury to government corruption. Hear why she broke away from mainstream media and why free speech in journalism is a driving force in her career.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-highwire-with-del-bigtree--3620606/support.

In many ways, it feels like journalism is dead, that the job of the press is over. We're watching, you know, debates on television where everyone's saying, boy, it felt like it was one side. I didn't feel like objective. We're seeing reporting, just depending on what news agency you're tuning into. It's like you're in a thought bubble where they're just telling you what they want you to believe. It doesn't seem to be reporting on the truth. We know the censorship is real. No one on mainstream media is talking about, hey, have you heard of IGG4?

Is it possible that maybe you don't? We've done a special... Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Can you imagine? Can you imagine if you turn on your television today and CNN said, special report today. We've now discovered that the COVID booster, if you're on your third or fourth COVID booster,

it appears that it's downregulating your immune system and making you vulnerable for cancer and perhaps other diseases like monkeypox or bird flu or you name it. And special report, here we go. You know, Brett, take it from here. Can you imagine you be like, Oh my God, the world's back.

We're back in order. They're reporting on this stuff. Well, the reporters that have throughout the years have been losing their jobs. One that was the forefront of all of it, someone that I've respected really through my whole career. I still look up to her. There's moments I ask myself when I'm reporting. Am I really being objective enough? Am I really looking at this?

Am I, you know, am I deluding myself? What would Cheryl Atkinson do right now? I swear that thought runs through my mind. She's that dynamic. I'm about to talk to her, or at least I just did a couple days ago. But if you don't know who Cheryl Atkinson is, take a look at this. CBS News investigative correspondent Cheryl Atkinson. Cheryl Atkinson on Capitol Hill.

Cheryl Atkison has the story. CBS News investigative correspondent Cheryl Atkison, who hasn't been just covering the Benghazi story but has been out front. most of the time. Hi, I'm CBS Evening News Correspondent Cheryl Ackison on Capitol Hill. I'm Cheryl Ackison with First Look from our CBS News Washington Bureau. Our story tonight is on veterans' charities and it's full of outrage. Today we're looking at a very important story here on Capitol Hill. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee is taking up a resolution that opposes the President's troop surge.

When you found out the last two teams were being pulled from Libya, what was your feeling about that? I felt like we were being asked to play the piano with two fingers. Congress wants to hear from Secretary of State Clinton, who said she'll be available after the State Department Review Board's investigation. CBS News has confirmed that someone has been breaking into the computer of our investigative correspondent, Cheryl Atkinson. The unauthorized party accessed the CBS computer in my home on multiple occasions, and specifically in December they used sophisticated methods to cover their tracks, meaning they tried to remove the indications of their previous unauthorized activity.

Subsequent forensics, unearthized, government-controlled IP addresses used in the intrusions and proved that not only did the guilty parties monitor my work in real-time, they also accessed my fast and furious files, got into the larger CBS system, and were able to listen in on conversations by activating Skype audio. I have a lawsuit pending against the government. We just want them to tell us who had control and access of the IP-government-owned IP address that's been found forensically in my computer. Let us know. You still don't know. Now, Department of Justice is blocking us from finding that information to date.

Former CBS News investigative correspondent Cheryl Atkinson left the network this year after two decades. Atkinson departed CBS News and made criticism over her reporting on Benghazi, Fast and Furious, and other alleged scandals being pursued by conservatives and Republicans. Primarily in the last couple of years, there was a declining appetite on the broadcast for original and investigative reporting, at least the kind that I was offering, and it did get to the point where it didn't seem like there was a lot left for me to do. As an investigative journalist, I found myself with a few questions about the emergence of fake news as a phrase and as a fad. I've investigated the shadowy multi-billion dollar industry that seeks to manipulate all of us through news, social media, and online.

Cheryl Ackinson joins us now, the host of Full Measure, the very successful TV series. Welcome to Full Measure. I'm Cheryl Ackison. Welcome to a special Full Measure town hall, the COVID clots. We begin today with illegal immigration and the border crisis. Green energy transition ambitions aren't quite ready for prime time. New cases of cancer in the U.S. are expected to surpass two million. For the last nine years on my TV show full measure, I broke countless news stories, congressional oversight, congressional fundraising,

prescription drug and vaccine dangers, green energy failures, waste and fraud at the Red Cross, Firestone tires, Benghazi, and Fast and Furious. If the press doesn't do its job, then all you're going to get primarily is The world that powers that be want you to see, propaganda, things that make them look good and perpetuate their interests, not necessarily yours, regardless of the truth. And I don't think that's what we ought to be doing. All right. Well, her name is Cheryl Atkison, and she's got a brand new book, Follow the Science, which is completely and totally amazing. And it is my honor and pleasure. In fact, one of those other bucket list moments to be here right now with Cheryl Atkinson.

Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Thank you for coming in. This is actually something I've wanted to do for many, many years. Because as you know, I think, my dive into the whole vaccine space really started with Vaxed, the film that I made. And I think the first time we met was at the Vax screening, I believe, in New York, right? That's right. Yeah.

Boy, what a nightmare that whole thing was. It was really, it was after getting kicked out of Tribeca and just So many crazy things that had happened. But I just remembered I knew you from CBS, and I was just happy that any reporter had really shown up to add, and you were asking, you know, legitimate questions. And, of course, I learned more and more about you in that space as time went on. But you've really, in many ways, I sort of started out in daytime talk with Dr. Phil and the doctors,

but when I really started thinking about being a journal, like, how am I. I'm going to tell the story. You've really been a guiding light on that. And I would say one of the last living, surviving journalists in the world. Thank you. Well, you know, I covered this story when I was assigned to look into vaccines originally at CBS as an investigative reporter like any other story. Yeah. And then I found similar components talking about corruption and whistleblowers and cover-ups, fascinating. But it was treated so differently, so different over time than all the others. Yeah. Where there were these forces that acted as though the rational questions were irrational, or not to be discussed.

And that became a story of interest to me, the fact of this culture surrounding the reasonable questions. Yeah. I mean, when I got involved with Baxson, I left CBS and the doctors to get involved with it, but I was looking at all this evidence

from Dr. William Thompson, who you fully know. Have you ever met with him, by the way? No, no, okay. Just the more I looked at the story, the media cover-up, the government involvement, and just as a journalist,

this, you realize, I mean, I just thought, this is like the greatest story of all times. And when I was working with Andy at the time, I just would say, all right, I just want to make one thing clear. You're sure you're the only one telling this story because I'm going to destroy my career by doing it. I'm fine as long as there's just not like a sea of competition all fighting for this. It's like, no one's covering it. And said, all right, then, you know, I'm all over this. And clearly, you have been too. So, I mean, this book is amazing. It's a, It's a journey in many ways, I think, through your career around specifically a lot of the medical things that you've covered, all the coverups, all the lies, what it was like to be in media and sort of go through a real change, as you said, at one moment, we love you doing these stories, and then slowly that sort of disappeared. But it really starts with the smallpox.

It does. I think that was super fascinating. We'll do. I'm going to talk a little bit about that. One of my first assignments, after 9-11, the government wanted to restart its smallpox vaccine program under the thought that maybe terrorists would now use smallpox as a biological weapon. Right. So I just approached like any other story and began to develop sources that would be very valuable decades later in understanding vaccines and medicine and the internal mechanisms. But I came to understand that vaccines have side effects.

I mean, like a lot of people, I think it never occurred to me. As silly as it sounds now in retrospect, never questioned them. But doctors were openly talking and public health officials at the time about this is a careful calculus with smallpox vaccine because there are so many side effects. It's more problematic than other vaccines, by the way, in terms of side effects. They ultimately stopped the smallpox vaccine restart because of a handful of deaths, which imply many more I also learned. you know, a handful of deaths could mean that there are 10,000 to 100,000 more not reported. That's why they care so much about what seems like a small number. But I learned, again, the mechanisms, you know, people were dying of the smallpox vaccine,

myocarditis, or getting myocarditis, blood clots, deep vein thrombosis, all these things that sound familiar today. Especially from COVID, right? Almost a very identical side effects. Certain things that can happen to your system when check. with, I guess, the immune challenge and the ingredients of these vaccines. When I was reading it, I don't, and maybe I wasn't, so we were talking, 2003? Is that? That was 2000, after 9-11, 2001.

So yeah, 2002-2003 time period. Because I don't remember a smallpox. Like, I mean, they were literally planning on vaccinating and everyone in America with smallpox. Was it getting a lot of press and I was just too busy, you know, focus somewhere else? If you weren't where we are now in this space, you probably wouldn't really pay much attention to it at all. But everybody was covering it on the news because first the smallpox vaccine was tested or given to, supposed to be given to a half million first responders and military people.

The first responders wouldn't take it. After some time on the program, they had already identified that they didn't want it. They thought the risk was too high. And then there were some military sicknesses and deaths and the death of my colleague at NBC, David Bloom, of deep pain thrombosis, which was a known suspected side effect of smallpox vaccine and anthrax vaccine. And I broke the story that the government didn't properly report his death as a potential adverse event. Right, but you're watching. All they were saying is we lost a reporter, unfortunately, got sick while overseas in Iraq or something like that. Yeah, in Iraq, young and healthy. How old was he?

I think he was in his 40s. And you were sitting and going, wait a minute, I've just done a story on this, and deep vein thrombosis is a side effect of this vaccine. Why is no one talking about that? And I was able to confirm through my sources that he had anthrax shot, smallpox shot, and should have been reported. And then a government advisor even acknowledged on camera that he should have been reported. NBC correspondent David Bloom.

He died of an apparent blood clot several weeks after getting. both smallpox and anthrax vaccines. If someone dies within a matter of weeks of getting the smallpox and anthrax vaccination, should that be reported? Yes. As a result of my reporting, he did go into the database, and ultimately they pulled the smallpox vaccine from the program they were trying to do as a restart. But nobody, this is, I guess, what got me going down the rabbit hole.

I'm the only one that reported that about David Bloom. Why weren't the medical reporters, this is their job? Why weren't they looking at this? Why weren't they intuitively asking the questions? Why weren't other people paying attention? And then as I uncovered the news, which did get attention at the time at CBS and globally, why weren't others picking up on it and taking it from there and saying, well, was this a cover-up that they didn't report his case? You know, what are the implications?

Nobody seemed to care. How did you get into the side effects? I mean, was that something that you thought, well, if I'm going to tell this story, what are the side effects? Was that just a natural question to you? It's the first thing the advisors for the government brought up. They said. I mean, I remember being kind of surprised on camera when they would say, we have to be careful.

This is a toxic vaccine. One of them used that phrase. This is a toxic vaccine. We should only use it in people who need it. This is a pro-vaccine person who was on the committee that thought we should start the program back up again. But to hear him say, this is a toxic vaccine, got me going, toxic vaccine. What is that? I thought, you know, smallpox vaccine saved the world.

And as a result of covering that whole what vaccines can do and military vaccines, I remember having this moment, which sounds so obvious in retrospect, well, if occasionally a healthy 18-year-old guy goes into the military and drops dead after his boot camp battery of vaccines, what might it do to a baby? Maybe there's something to all that stuff that sounded crazy. And I asked someone in the government, what are my sources? And he said, I'm not touching that. That's a third rail.

I actually had to look up what third rail meant at the time. And I'm like, why is that the third rail? Like it's so defied logic. Yeah. But it really piqued my interest as a reporter. And of course, I had to go down the path. You know, one of the things that when I was first traveling to the country with Vaxed, I think it was in Atlanta.

This guy came up to me after a screening. We were doing Q&As. And he said, you know, I work with the CIA. And I don't have no idea of, that was real or lunate, but he said, do you see those two guys across over there in the suits? And there was like two guys across room in suits. It's like there with the FBI, you know,

just so you know you're being watched as you're doing this tour. We actually support you. Most of us think what you're doing is, you know, important work, but I just want to warn you one thing, just don't ever get into military vaccines. Don't take this into talking about the military and vaccines that's going to get you in a lot of trouble.

And so I have no idea, you know. But what's interesting, because you started with military vaccines. You're like, no, the third rails don't go into the childhood basis. We got opposite messaging, probably at different times. And so that's, you know, quite a bit of time. I mean, that's a year. You're a good 10 years before I really start looking into this issue. So you were at it quite some time.

Now, there's other, what I love about this book is how you just show so many different things that start popping up that grab your attention, whether it's drugs and, you know, you know, we know all these drugs that end up being pulled from the market. Why did we not have the information up front? How did it get through the safety studies? But I didn't know about this premature baby oxygen study. That was pretty horrific. How did, so tell me a little bit about that.

Public Citizen, watchdog group that does great work in the health space, had been following the controversy over a federally funded study, being done at organizations like Duke, you know, very famous hospitals, that in retrospect, according to the government's own watchdog, was unethical. It put babies in extremely fragile, premature babies in a study that manipulated their oxygen levels, not for their own good, but for some kind of test purposes, without, according to the parents, telling the parents that they were doing this. So the parents didn't get, according to them, informed consent. Right.

The ethics watchdog said they didn't get informed consent. They weren't. They were told, according to the parents, and multiple ones have the same story. As they're being rushed in to have a premature baby, they're handed a piece of paper and said, this will help provide support for you. So it was their understanding. So get into this study and you'll get extra support for your- They didn't even use the word study.

They just thought they were signing to have their babies' weight and height measured and get emotional support for how hard it was going to be. So it turns out they had signed away the right to have their babies put in an experiment, the roll of a dice, flip of a coin, put them in either a high oxygen or low oxygen group, according to watchdogs caused the death of some babies that might not have otherwise died. And the women didn't know till some years later when this came exposed through kind of happenstance. And what surprised me is the pressure from the establishment medical community, came down on their watchdog that worked for the government,

not to apologize for what they'd done, but to try to get him to back off enforcement action. When the story broke, it was unethical. They did a hit job really on the person that came forward. And just to be clear, they were using these babies to test, if I remember correctly, like low oxygen levels could cause death. And too high would cause blindness and was it swelling in the eyes or something? Or vice versa, I don't remember which.

One causes blindness, one causes death. They wanted to know where the sweet spot was, but here's the kicker. By keeping a baby in the oxygen level that they were assigned, normally it's adjusted depending on how the baby's doing. The oxygen monitors were disabled to provide false readings on purpose. Parents weren't told this, so that the medical personnel caring for the babies wouldn't be tempted to put them in the right range for them. This is how horrific that was.

So that they go, they're at a good level, they don't realize it's high because they're in a study that they don't know about or low. And so blindness occurs, deaths occurred, all of these things. And it was really just, let's just monitor these kids and see which one does what to mean. For future babies, because then we'll be able to see what happened to these babies. So it's that greater good argument. Well, we'll be helping babies in the future, but at the expense of the ones who were in the study that the parents said they didn't know about. It's really amazing. So one of the defenders of the study at the time,

is now head of FDA. That was years ago. Is it Caleb? Yes. Yeah. I know it like early chapters. Wait a minute. I know that Robert Caleb, that's the guy that, you know, and then later on you bring up.

And how ironic is this? They had a look back at what they'd done wrong because there was sort of an uproar. There was a lot going on. I go to the meeting where they're having this look back thinking they're going to say, this is what needs to happen. Informed consent has to be stricter. This was horrible. Instead, about half of the researchers argued, well, why do we have informed consent?

anyway because people aren't getting in studies because we're telling them all these scary things. And would you believe that maybe you know this? In the past year, their dream came true. The FDA changes rules where they no longer have to give informed consent to everybody in a study. So they can enroll you in a study. And if they determine that they think the risks are minimal, they don't have to tell you about it. It's stunning. Same people that said this is minimal risk to COVID vaccine, minimal risk to all these drugs. everything's been approved. So their idea of risk, I think, is questionable. Right. You put it in their hands. It is we've reported on how scary that really is.

So probably, I mean, you have, I think the most important interview ever done, I would say. If there's one video I use more than anything else, is your interview of Bernadine Healy. I use it in PowerPoints to this day. I have from day one. I use it in testimony. I mean, everywhere I go, I've had private meetings with politicians. I'm like, just watch this. This says it all.

Let's watch it really quickly because I have some questions about this. This is the time when we do have the opportunity to understand whether or not there are susceptible children, perhaps genetically, perhaps they have a metabolic issue, mitochondrial disorder, immunological, issue that makes them more susceptible to vaccines plural or to one particular vaccine or to a component of vaccine like mercury. So we now in these times have to, I think, take another look at that hypothesis, not deny it. And I think we have the tools today that we didn't have 10 years ago, that we didn't have 20 years ago, to try and tease that out and find out if indeed there is that susceptible group. Why is this important? A susceptible

group does not mean that vaccines aren't good. What a susceptible group will tell us is that maybe there is a group of individuals or a group of children that shouldn't have a particular vaccine or shouldn't have vaccine on the same schedule. It is the job of the public health community and of physicians to be out there and to say, yes, we can make it safer because we are able to say this is a subset. We're going to deliver it in a way that we think is safer. Do you feel the government was too quick to dismiss out of hand that there was this possibility of a link between vaccines and autism? I think the government or certain public health officials in the government have been too

quick to dismiss the concerns of these families without studying the population that got sick. I haven't seen major studies that focus on 300 kids who got a autistic symptoms within a period of a few weeks of a vaccine. The reason why they didn't want to look for those susceptibility groups was because they're afraid that if they found them, however big or small they were, that that would scare the public away. The fact that there is concern that you don't want to know that susceptible group is a real disappointment to me.

If you know that susceptible group, you can save those children. It sounds like you don't think the hypothesis of a lay between vaccines and autism is completely irrational. So when I first heard about it, I thought, well, that doesn't make sense to me. The more you delve into it, if you look at the basic science, if you look at the research that's been done in animals, if you also look at some of these individual cases, and if you look at the evidence that there is no link,

what I come away with is the question has not been answered. That's just, it's an amazing interview, former head of the NIH, so arguably one of the top scientists in the world or at least over one of the biggest scientific institutions we have in the world making statements like that I think you know there's a lot to that but number one saying I've never seen a study where we took say 300 kids that have been affected by a vaccine that ended up being autistic and studied them I mean that is a shot that is like everywhere I go you know people like oh it's misinformation you know there's mountains of

studies like they really there's there are no There's not even a molehill of studies. There's nothing there. It is such a shocking statement because Sanjay Gupta and big, you know, we hear it all the time. This has been thoroughly studied. Did you realize at that moment when she was saying that just really how perhaps dangerous but profound those statements were? I mean, where were you at in this investigation when you got that interview? By the time she was willing to say that on camera, I knew that stuff.

and she had talked about it off camera with me. And I had come to similar realizations by looking at the data. You know, those of us who dig in, you include it, I'm sure, you go through a process. You think this is crazy talk at first because that's what we've been manipulated to believe. Then you start talking to whistleblowers and looking at data and studies and realize, wait, studies do exist that they say don't exist. And you go on and on.

She went through the same process. by that point, I understood that what she was saying to be reasonable and logical and made perfect sense. And when she said there's nobody studying the population at risk, I thought, wow, vaccine court has a self-identified population of thousands of people who say their children got autism from vaccines and have documentation that they could, if they wanted to, clearly they don't want the data. They could study those kids so easily and determine if they have to, have common factors that have made them susceptible to injury. I've asked why they haven't done it.

They don't have a good answer. They just say, well, somebody should do a study. Or that's private medical information. We don't have the full charts. And I'm thinking any of those parents would be delighted to have someone call them and say, if someone they trusted, give us your records and let us look for common factors to see if we can identify.

No one's interested in doing it. Because I think, as Dr. Healy suggested, they know the answer. They don't want to ask the question. Yeah, I mean, I think that that's, I brought this up with, I was once in a radio interview with this guy out of New York, who had a huge following. And he was really, it was one of the few I got

where he was really on the other side challenging me, which I actually loved those interviews. But at one point, I said, let me get this straight. So he was out, he was irate, it was right, now that remember, it was right about the time Donald Trump was suggesting that Bobby Kennedy back in 2017 might write a vaccine safety commission. He's like, I mean, that'd be the internet

of the rules we know. I was like, why? I mean, are you under some impression that, like, whoever's doing the studies, that that bias can affect the outcome of the study? He said, absolutely. I mean, this guy is a known anti-vaccination. But don't we want people that want the car to fail in a crash test doing the crash test? Not the ones that own the car. Like, I mean, if a study can be manipulated, as you're saying, based on bias, then you are in my wheelhouse. This is exactly my problem. Everyone's studying vaccines. POMPOMs on is telling before the thing even releases it's the greatest thing ever created. I don't want them doing the safety trials.

Good point. I want someone that actually, you know, is skeptical. And he didn't really have much to say. But what I get to, and I've been doing a talk lately, I've like the unequivocal argument against vaccines, and I use this video to say, that's your motive. I mean, people say, why would they do it? Why would the CDC? Why would all of these people be behind this cover up?

And, you know, it's not that they all know that there's a problem, but she makes the point. We don't want to do a single study to look for some group, some susceptibility group, because no matter how small that group would end up being, no matter how small it is if we found one, it would mean people might self-identify as maybe that could be my kid, and then your vaccine program falls apart. And the problem with the vaccine program falling apart is, of course, they argue, and they'll tell reporters, and this is pretty powerful until you start dissecting their arguments, they'll say, if you report these things and keep reporting it, you will be responsible for babies dying. I was told that.

Because the theory is people will lose faith in the vaccine program, infectious diseases will return, and everybody dies. And at first, that's a powerful argument. As a reporter, I'm like, I don't want people to die. Oh, my goodness. And then I started thinking logically about it and understanding some of the factors at play. And I came to conclude, it's not my job as a journalist to figure out how people are going to process the truth and therefore withhold the truth from them. CDC will have to deal with the mess if there is vaccine, hesitancy, or lack of confidence in the program. It's not up to me to anticipate that and therefore cover up the truth on their behalf.

There was an argument in some public documents that were released. They weren't public. were released some years later, I believe it was late 90s. Someone from the Public Health Service was arguing with somebody from another federal agency about the mercury in vaccines. And the argument was, we should come clean, said the woman. We should tell people. And the one who didn't want to come clean said, he made the argument.

If people wonder why we didn't do the eighth grade math to add up the cumulative load we were giving kids as we triple the vaccine schedule, people will lose confidence. This was in the email. She argued, and I think she's right, we may have a momentary blip in vaccination because of this, but we'll have overall confidence that the blip will not last long enough to impact hurt immunity or whatever you want to call it, but people then know we're taking care of business.

You know, we're looking out for their safety. She argued if we continue to cover it up, that's going to create lack of confidence in the vaccine program because people know something's going on. And I think that's exactly what's happening. today. I agree. And it's really, it's really shocking. It's hard to imagine how many kids were now talking about COVID comes along. You know, I know for us, and it had to be for you. I mean, you had been at this, as I said, 10 years longer than I have. CBS, I would say, I mean,

I would argue you probably lost your job at CBS for doing too many of these vaccine stories. I mean, we could get into that. But at the point that you realize you've been dancing on a third rail. Not just that. I mean, your career is stunning and how many third rails you've stepped on and seemed to be fearlessly moving forward. But as COVID was hitting and we saw Donald Trump saying we're going to warp speed this vaccine at this point. I have a nonprofit. I have this show the high wire. We're winning lawsuits against government agencies. We have uncovered. I'm sure everything that you had already uncovered. There are no studies. There's no placebo studies. There's no randomized control trials being done prior to licensure. This entire thing is

you know, how a castle built on sand, but we're being told it's misinformation and we're lying to the public. And I remember when the vaccine was going to be warped-speeded, I just sat my team down and said, this is that moment we've been waiting for. I've been saying all along, no one will understand this until they have an adult mandate. Because adults, suddenly, you're going to see the injury after it happens. And they're going to say, I was jogging last week. I was fine. Now I can't get out of bad a baby could never do that. The parents are crazy. I said, this is going, and they're going to show the world how they rush a vaccine on the market, which they've done every time. Did you have a similar thought as you were watching this unfold? Like, here we go. In the beginning of any new

story, people are asking, what do you think? What are you going to do? I don't know the truth, and I try not to advise or discuss something I haven't been able to research. And so I was hopeful on the front end, maybe there will be an answer. I thought the vaccine was way down the road. But COVID sounded bad and if it was going to be that maybe they could get a vaccine that could help. But pretty early on, I interviewed the guys, I'll call them, at Fort Dietrich, who were part of helping develop the vaccines. And one of them said, I believe I have this on camera, I put on my show full measure, RNA vaccines don't last very long and don't work very well. Stuck in my head. You said very early on before the vaccines were out that you anticipated they would not work for all that long or they would not last for all that long and boosters would be needed.

And yet it seemed like everybody was surprised when it was reported that after a certain period of months, immunity was waning for people. So I think scientists weren't sure. But when I looked at the immune responses that were being generated by the vaccines, they were very impressive short term. But that long lasting immunity was not generated with just one. one shot. So needing multiple shots was, in my opinion, what would be needed to actually achieve some sort of long-lasting effect. And he said if they did, we'd have a vaccine for AIDS, which is an RNA virus, and we've been trying for 50 years. So he also, he said a lot of things that I took to heart that he proved to be correct about in retrospect. For those who would choose to get a vaccine when it ultimately came out, they would need a booster quickly because they don't last very long,

don't work very well. He said he anticipated healthy people wouldn't need the vaccine. Children don't need the vaccine. He said all of these things, and it really stuck in my mind. That proved guidance for me and how I handled my treatment of COVID, which my treatment was I lived my normal life,

which he advised. So one little sub-story. We're at Fort Dietrich, which is the biodefense head of the military and all that, and my producer notices they're not masking or social, distancing on the front end when everybody was starting to do this. And at the end, my producer says to him, the head virologist there, I notice you're not masking her social distancing. Why?

And he said, well, I assume I've already had it. And if I haven't, I'm not concerned. I'm healthy. My kids are healthy. He said, I wouldn't want my father to get it. My father's elderly and not, he's in frail health. But that said a lot to me. And I said a lot of stuff to him off camera. like people are washing their groceries. Shouldn't we get a little exposure? He's like, yes, absolutely. So that was my guidance. So yeah, I was cautious based on that guidance that when the vaccine came out, how effective would it really be, what would be the side effects, because you have to balance, do I really need it, and what is the risk? And yeah, the calculus seem to be off from the start. People don't understand. Just because you don't have a side effect that day,

some people do. Or within a week, side effects from a medicine scientists say can happen months or years later. We don't know the full extent of what the side effects of the COVID vaccines are. Yeah. So yeah, that was my thought. As it, you know, as it turns out the vaccines, I think a disaster. I had Brett Weinstein on last week, who's bringing up the fact that now by three vaccines in, we're triggering IGG4 creation, which is going to downregulate your immune system would be the exact most catastrophic outcome. of a vaccine. And yet they're still pushing it.

They're still, I mean, they're still recommending it for children. There's going to be kindergartners being. One of the few countries that's doing that. Yeah, I mean, what is that? I mean, what does that say about our country? Our information is so controlled and manipulated that even in the face of the COVID disaster that was, nothing's been done to take care of it.

And everybody knows, let's say at least half of America, and I think more, understands the disaster that happened. and the nightmare that happened and that there was misinformation, the government was the biggest misinformation that existed and nothing has been done and nobody's been held accountable because the establishment, whatever that is, has taken on a life of its own, doesn't work for us. They think they lured over us and the people are now to point they wonder how they can get anything done, how they can get responsiveness, even Congress. There are well-meaning members of Congress, but both parties are controlled at the highest levels

so that they don't attack these vaccine problems in a consequential way. You, I think just recently interviewed, I mean, released these phone calls that Thomas Massey had recorded. Let's just take a listen to these because, I mean, it's really, it's to this point. If you can't even fix a problem that you know you have, then where are we going to be at? Just give me a setup here. What was Thomas' concern? He'd had COVID. When the vaccines came out, he wondered.

would he benefit from getting vaccinated on top of it? He looked at the studies and saw there was no benefit. And yet he saw the CDC putting out false information under the guise of their scientific committee that said there is a benefit shown in the studies, which he knew wasn't true. So he's calling them and recording the conversation surreptitiously, getting this typical double speak from the government,

they act like you're kind of stupid when you do this. Oh, you're so smart that you found this mistake in our work that nobody else found. We're going to call you Eagle Eye Massey, they said. From now on, admitted ultimately that it wasn't true, kept trying to argue that it would confuse the public if they put the real information out there. And he's pressing and pressing them as they're admitting it's wrong with an addendum people should listen to. After admitting to him on the phone that they knew this information was false, the next day, the same scientist and CDC officials did a webinar for doctors that repeated the misinformation.

So now you have proof positive. It's no accident that they're pretending the vaccine proved effective for people who'd already had COVID. At a time when, let's say you do, at the time we thought the vaccine might work, and there was a shortage. So Massey's argument was, you're telling people who've already had COVID

to go get a precious resource there's not enough of instead of saving it for the old people who may need it. So that's what the conversation was about. that. All right. This is great. This call with CDC's Washington DC director, Anstis Brand. If there's a they who is refusing to fix something that is factually and provably wrong, I want to know who they is because this is going to result and it's already resulting in misallocation of the vaccine. Let me check that and get back used as possible.

Massey also argued the point in a call with Dr. Sarah Oliver, the CDC scientist who gave the misinformation on the web video. Hi, this is Congressman Thomas Massey. Is this Dr. Oliver? Yes. There was an error and I noticed you're an author on it and I wondered if I could get your help in getting this error corrected. You can't say it's efficacious for people with prior infection. That's an absolutely untrue sentence. Yeah, I mean, we're still recommending that individuals who had prior infection received the vaccine, but we wouldn't want to put out that if you've had COVID before you shouldn't get the vaccine. Actually, if you've had COVID before and there's a 75-year-old person who can't get the vaccine

and you're 30 years old, you are, you should not get the vaccine because you are wasting resource. It will lead to people who die or have medical complications because we have a limitation of the vaccine. That's why I think it's important that that document gets fixed. Okay, I can talk with MMWR and with Dr. Cohen and see if we can tweak that language a little bit. We asked CDC, Dr. Oliver and Dr. Cohn for interviews, but they decline. Some of the agency's response was summed up during Congressman Massey's final call with CDC this past week. It was with CDC principal deputy director, Ann Shook it. I feel like right now we have the tail wagging the dog that the folks who want to do the messaging,

the folks who want everybody to get the vaccine have pressured the folks who are doing the science, i.e. reviewing the phase three trial from Pfizer, not to correct the document, but the document is false. So the CDC can do whatever messaging they want. That's the CDC's job, not my job, but they cannot propagate false and incorrect science. So that's my position. And I'm really disappointed. It's gone on a month without being fixed. Like really disappointed.

As you note correctly, there is not sufficient analysis to show that in the subset of only the people with prior infection, there's efficacy. So you're correct that that sentence is wrong and that we need to make a correct. of it. I apologize for the delay. But in terms of a large scale, you know, trying to mislead people, I just give you my word that that was not the intent. So really apologize about the confusion that we apparently caused. And perhaps the, as you say, you know, people who are fairly low risk rushing to get vaccine at and people who are higher risk. CDC has now issued a correction. But Massey and other scientists we ask say the new wording still wrongly implies studies show vaccines work in people who've had coronavirus.

And instead of fixing it, they proposed repeating it and just phrasing their mistake differently. So at that point, I can, right now, I consider it a lie. It's amazing when you catch them, you know, that sort of red-handed. But from the very beginning, as you point out in your book, the denial of the immunity given by an infection. Rand Paul found himself in the middle of this. I went like, you know, you know, why aren't you wearing a mask? Why aren't you getting vaccines? Like, I've already had COVID, right?

And then you had Fauci, you know, saying that basically you need the vaccine, that there was no proof that the immunity from having an infection, which, I mean, as a journalist, that's done any research at all, but you didn't even have to have that much, I mean, the known science is the entire purpose of vaccines to try and mirror what is achieved from a natural infection. It has never done, I would say, on my show. To date, there's never been a vaccine that's as effective as having caught the illness and survived it. And there's never been a case. It's my understanding of a disease like that, not giving immunity some kind.

So it would be a historic turn in science as we know it, if it didn't. didn't happen after a COVID infection. How do we, I mean, how do you as a journalist in the United States of America, these are supposed to be the top scientists of the world and they lead the world. I mean, every, you know, most of the decisions made by CDC, NIH, FDA effect.

Most countries aren't re-studying what we're saying. They're going, America's on it, they have all the money. Our government's lying to us. Well, you have to understand. So that false information we referred to was signed off by something like nine or 12 scientists on the vaccine advisory committee. Yeah.

So they didn't read the studies and or they didn't read the paper they signed their names to. Shocking. Which tells me, because the claim was fabricated out of thin air, it wasn't like a typo, tells me that the vaccine makers write those papers. And I'm extrapolating from past experience. The vaccine and pharmaceutical industry will write press releases and announcement and guidance for FDA and CDC, not the people who work, the experts who work on it. So I suspect that paper was written by Pfizer or someone in the interest of Pfizer,

and that those people who sign off on those things just, for whatever reason, take their word for it and don't really do their due diligence as a scientist. And then we see the officials that know better, even when it's proven they know better, still go out and put disinformation to the public that pumps up the vaccine. vaccine industry. One of the things Brett Weinstein said is he was, I mean, he and I got in an argument I've talked about last week on the show several years ago where he just thought it was a COVID vaccine. He's like, you've got to look at the whole vaccine program.

What you're just seeing, you've just dipped your toe in, there's a rabbit hole that's going to blow your mind. Eventually he's come around now. And he said to me at a, we met again in Switzerland a few months ago. He said, it's just so improbable, though. Like, I don't know what to do with it. It is, yeah. How do you convince people that they're all.

always like, oh, so you're telling me every doctor is just poisoning me? You know? And, and, and I was like, well, I will tell you that every doctor doesn't read the science. They don't have any information. They really don't know what they're talking about. That was exemplified by a WHO meeting. You've probably covered right before COVID, where they stood up in the meeting, I think it was in Geneva, and said, our doctors are having a hard time defending these vaccine, this vaccine hesitancy, because as we all know, they're lucky if they get a half a day education on vaccines and immunology. I mean, it was finally stated by the WHO. We have a very wobbly health professional front line that is starting to question vaccines and the safety of vaccines. That's a huge problem. I mean, most medical school curriculums,

even nursing curriculums, I mean, in medical school, you're lucky if you have a half day on vaccines, never mind keeping up to date with all this. But do you get this where people say, I mean, Cheryl, you're telling me I'm supposed to trust you more than my doctor? All the time. And I explain in the book why that's a fallacy. I try to bring people along the journey from me, believe it or not, in 2000, thinking doctors know the best.

Scientific studies are pure and to be believed, and there's no corruption in the federal agencies when it comes to health. from going from there with my brother and my doctor my brother and my father doctors good doctors to understanding where we are today where there's really should be skepticism at every level because of what's happened to the system i try to bring people along on the journey so you do brilliantly by the way i think it's the best book for that i've ever read too much i've learned when people ask a question if you lay everything on them at once they shut down because it is improbable i thought it was improbable too as a reporter i didn't

believe any of it. I studied this stuff for a year on the vaccine's an autism link. I studied that for a year and purposely talked to no advocate parents to try to figure out what was really going on before I reported because it was so improbable compared to what I've been told. The science I was reading was so contrary. So I understand it's a lot for people. I tell one story that seems to make sense to people that when my daughter got polio vaccine, Before I covered any of these stories, I was asked at the doctor's office, does your daughter want sugar, water, or a shot choice,

oral polio vaccine or the injection? I said sugar water, because why would you want your kid to have a shot if we can have sugar water? I only learned through covering these stories that sugar water, the oral vaccine, can give your kid a slight chance of getting polio, where the injectable version carries no chance.

That's what I should have been told. I would never have given her something, when there was a choice that could possibly give a polio. And all the last cases of polio in this country were caused by the vaccine. When I tell that to people, which has now been pulled from the market, the oral version in the United States,

but that's a story that makes sense to people they can hang on to and go, how can that be? I wasn't told that information either, you know, at the doctors. Do you get into, I mean, because you get into the book, all the stories of drugs, because people, we see the side effects

in the commercials, right? We are all aware the jokes about everyone jokes about, oh my God, who would want restless leg syndrome and, you know, anal leakage and whatever has just been mentioned for, you know. I mean, I guess if you're suffering from the illness, you're going to consider it, but you talk about the fact it's like shiny, happy people while they're giving this horrid line of disclaimers. But so many drugs have been recalled. And you've done some work looking at that. And it's something that people know. I was like, how do you think, I mean, first of all, oxycontin is the most recent one. I mean, if your doctors are so great and they're so brilliant, then why were they prescribing oxycontin?

You know, are they bad people? Did they want to create one of the greatest epidemics we've ever seen of now 100,000 deaths? You know, if you include fentanyl and where that drug addiction leads to, they're like, well, I can't explain this. Like, I can. They go to the CDC's website, and they go to the FDA, and it says non-habit forming, perfectly safe, And even in the middle of this epidemic, FDA is like, why don't we do a study seeing kids can take it? Oh, lo and behold, kids can take it too. I said, once the regulatory agencies are corrupted, a doctor has no, what information they have.

It's all that they know. So I think this corruption starts in med school, whereby I'm able to show here one of the most popular reference books doctors learn from is the Merck Manual, written by, believe it or not, the pharmaceutical company, Mark. Is it called the Merck Manual? The Merck Manual, yes. And it's online because they're so generous, they give consumers a version for free as well. So we can all consult the Merck Manual for all of our problems. A pediatrician I spoke two years ago called to the pediatric Bible, as in follow religiously. That's how I took it.

So Merck claims there's a firewall between its pharmaceutical side, which has paid hundreds of millions of dollars in fines for paying kickbacks to doctors, for bribery, for dangerous medicine marketing, and all these things. But there's a firewall between them and the editorial side that writes for the doctors, which at CBS, even if you'd have told me there was a firewall between news and the advertising division, we all know there's self-censorship, you understand where the bread is buttered, there's pressure. So I don't feel like that holds a lot of water. So I look to see, well, what are doctors taught? I mean, they're shaped so very early to not look at adverse events that vaccines are the best

invention since clean drinking water. You'll hear them parrot these kind of like cold. altish lines about things. And on its face, it's so silly, vaccines are safest in ventures and drinking water, well, which vaccine? For which people? Certainly the ones that are pulled from the market for safety reasons aren't safe.

So they're making these crazy blanket statements they're taught to parrot in med school. So I look in the Merck manual. What does Merck tell doctors about their controversial Gardasil vaccine? Nothing of consequence. In fact, it says in there when I looked online, No serious adverse events have been reported.

False on its face because the label mark includes with the vaccine that nobody sees, but that's FDA approved, lists dozens upon dozens of serious adverse events from paralysis to death. But doctors, they're taught in the Merck Manual. There's no serious adverse events. And that's repeated over and over again throughout medical school whereby they're carefully aimed away

from looking at root causes, looking at adverse events, reporting adverse events, and so, So by the time you get to your doctor, they're not listening if you're trying to, they're not looking or listening to these things that we're talking about because they've been conditioned not to. Right. Yeah, it's really incredible. I once asked Suzanne Humphreys, what is it in the education system that sort of seems to take away critical thinking from doctors? Like somehow they come through it and they just can't like read a study or say, will you look at this? It's peer reviewed.

No, I already know vaccines are safe. And she said, she's like, actually, it's on the contrary. She's like, I don't think it's that. It takes away critical thinking. I think it selects for people that don't lean towards critical thinking. Selects for people that will just cut and paste, a really good cut and pasting information from a textbook onto a test. They can memorize it really well.

That's who we want. We don't want someone like raising her hands to think. But hold on a second. How does that make any sense? So that, again, I argue that's taught in med school by the pharmaceutical industry influence. They don't want to teach a doctor. your job is to do critical thinking and put two and two together. They're teaching doctors.

Your job is to stovepipe this malady and here's a treatment or a pill. Right. So there's a reason, I believe, that the system is the way it is. Of all of the stories that you've done, I mean, you've sort of always been on the cutting edge. Is there one that stands out as the most shocking revelation? The vaccines and autism link and cover up. Yeah, that's one of the biggest stories of our. time. And let me be clear, based on my research and my sources, I don't believe vaccines alone

are the only cause of autism. I believe there is a combination of factors, which makes it easy to try to pretend it's not, because genetics can come in play. If your kid has a genetic predisposition and then gets challenged with vaccines in a way the child can't handle, or if the child has other toxic exposures that are individual to the child, or is just getting over an infection that's why they tell you don't get vaccinated if your kid has a cold. They used to. Yeah, I don't know if they don't say that now. I know so many people. In fact, a lot of people in the autistic community said my kid had a running nose, ear infection, they gave him the vaccine anyway. So. Well, so there are so many factors that can be in play,

but one clearly established by medicine and even by court cases where the government has secretly paid these cases and tried to have them sealed so nobody would know. But vaccines can be a trigger. It's been acknowledged by top officials if you know how to ask the question, which I did with a top CDC immunization official. He didn't want to say vaccines cause autism and I said, well, can they trigger autism? Which is one and the same to a parent perhaps, but scientifically allows them some wiggle room. And he acknowledged that yes, and that somebody he said should study that. So I do think it's a factor, but the cover-up, the willful cover-up by people that I think most doctors trust and most parents trust is pretty shocking. That's that's even maybe the bigger story.

I think so too. And I think once that once they seem to retreat into I would say about five years ago they really hit this, autism's always been here. We're just diagnosing it better, which is why the increase is happening. So once that's your default position, you are, you've run out of road on your lie. I mean, as Bobby Kennedy puts, where's the old, where are the guys my age with autism. Where are they? Forget about like any theoretical or hypothetical. Where are they? What building has one in 24, you know, 75 year old men with autism? Where are they? Yeah. You've got, there's nowhere to go with that. And so, and to think the number as you've been reporting on this, let's see, if you start in this early 2000, so you were probably in the, what,

one in 2,500 or? It was, yeah, it was alarming, but big compared to. and now one in 36 something, eight-year-olds. So one in 36, eight-year-olds implies bigger as you get younger. They're only looking at the eight-year-olds and it's increasing. So what other thing can you think of? Well, now there's probably a few. But when autism exploded, was an epidemic that occurred in such a short time, a visible epidemic, that there's been no public health emergency declared over, that nobody has an action plan.

And the best the medical establishment can say is, we don't know. what's causing it, but it can't be the one thing that's implicated. Yeah, the one thing that's eyewitnesses across the world pointing to it. It's really phenomenal. You have, I mean, I agree. I think it's the biggest cover of people say, Del, just why don't you leave autism alone this? We've got COVID. And I've all these other issues, aluminum and things that we can talk about.

That kind of gets it sidelined. And I've said over and over again, I'm never letting that story go. It's what got me into this. I think it will go down as one of the greatest lies ever told. journalism's behind it, governments behind it, farmers behind it, doctors are going to be implicated. And I think that we're getting very, very close to that reality finally coming through, especially with Stanley Plotkin, I think finally admitting after we've had him under oath,

and I think you've seen some of the videos of Aaron Siri putting him under oath, but this incredible paper that he just put out, the funding post-authorization vaccine safety science, progress in vaccine safety science has understandably been slow, often depending on epidemiologic evidence that is delayed or is inadequate to support causal conclusions and on an understanding of biological mechanisms that's incomplete, which is adversely affected vaccine acceptance. It is critical to examine adverse events following immunization that have not been detected in clinical trials to ascertain whether a causally or coincidentally related to vaccination, no duh. Currently in the United States, when the Biodic Committee on Immunization Practices recommends a new routine vaccine,

the only automatic statutory resource allocations that follow are for vaccination. procurement by vaccines for children, which you talk about. Is it billions of dollars? Hundreds of millions, like $500 million spent on purchasing vaccines? Over time, billions. Yeah, billions. I mean, the government is the biggest purchaser and make sure that poor children, particularly are vaccinated, vaccinated, vaccinated, vaccinated,

early and often and reaching out and basically marketing for the vaccine makers. And ultimately, he ends up, you know, really saying that because they've done such a poor job that they've never actually tested for safety prior to Lesinger, and maybe we should start doing that since so many people are becoming hesitant. It's an easy problem if somebody wanted the answer to the question. If doctors were simply told by their medical associations or directed by the federal health agencies to start monitoring and reporting diligently for adverse events every time a child comes to the,

for the checkup, note what vaccines they had when, what's happening with the child, what the parents are reporting. you have a database with millions of data points that could be looked at for patterns that would answer these questions, it's already, it doesn't, it wouldn't even take a ton of money. So the whole idea that, oh, we have to set up this big system, that would be nice to do all of those things. But it's within our grasp now if we wanted to do it. I went with Robert Kennedy, Jr. to the NIH meeting set up by Donald Trump. In your book, you say nothing ever came out of the vaccine safety commission.

And that meeting actually did. I mean, it wasn't the whole deal, but, you know, President Trump at the time did say to Robert Kennedy, why don't you go bring all of your questions to NIH, and I'll have someone from our administration, Reed Cordish, was sent over to sort of referee between us. I didn't know that. Kennedy told me nothing came up. I think whatever came up was not what he hoped, but I didn't know they had that meeting. Yeah, that meeting was, and it was super fascinating.

They ended up admitting they had no placebo trials prior to life. which was amazing. And then the big question was, well, then, and they said it would be unethical. Be unethical for us to do a double blind placebo study, you know, and keep kids from getting the vaccine and being a placebo group. But we said to your point, but you sit on the VSD,

the vaccine safety data links, 10 million people in there. You have over tens of thousands of unvaccinated individuals just do a comparative study. They do a survey every year, CDC. They call parents and they ask if they're a very vaccinating or not and then they put out how many parents are vaccinated or not. In that phone call they could ask the parents who have vaccinated the status of their kids.

I mean it would be so easy to expand the survey they're already paying money to do. And I suspect, I keep suspecting, they know the answers to the questions so they're not going to ask them. Certainly the vaccine makers, they do all this stuff behind the scenes. They've done all the studies, believe me. The studies are not going to be published when they're negative as I discuss in the book. That's a really important point though that you've been. bring up there that what people don't understand, not to block you, but I'm glad you brought it up.

In the book, you mentioned the fact that what people don't understand is the pharmaceutical industry will hire an outside university, professor, or group to do research on a product, on a drug or something and, you know, as sort of the independent research. But in the contract, it says, if we don't like the outcome, we can keep it from being published. Absolutely. So this started in the early 2000s when There were negative outcomes for drugs, and researchers used to publish either way, because that's how science was. Yes, how's supposed to be gained. Right. And then, you know, drugs were being pulled from the market.

There was negative publicity, and the drug companies started tightening up their contracts to keep researchers from reporting stuff if it wasn't positive or if it didn't come out right. So a big challenge in the early 2000s was a scientist research group at a university in California that an AIDS vaccine candidate was stopped because, it was going to be futile. They could tell early on it wasn't going to help. And the researchers went to publish and were told by the vaccine maker, you can't. And it was unheard of at the time. This was sort of as things were changing. They published anyway with the data that they had. And the journals at the time, which were less compromised, the medical journals stood behind them and said, we have to stop the drug companies from calling the shots on science like this. Well, the company sued that top researcher for $7 million.

This is to spank them and to let everybody in public know. If you're a researcher and you don't do what the sponsor wants, here's what can happen to you. Amazing. Ultimately, they dropped the lawsuit because they were so shamed by the uproar over it. But after that, these contracts have been so buttoned down. The researchers have no control over the what happens. I mean, you talk about that, like that shame. They were shamed because people like you, we used to call them journalists, would shame them.

would shame them. Like, this is outrageous. This is public information. Sort of just to sort of wrap this up. And I want people to read the book because you have so many details that I think would be great for anyone that wants to hand to a friend that is maybe really they're having trouble with the conversation. Because you approach it from such a great unbiased reporter's position. Just this is what I found. And here's all the places I found it. You just see this incredible pattern. but the state of journalism today, the fact that this COVID vaccine is being promoted, and everyone in media, the way the media jumped on, you get into hydroxychloroquine,

ivermectin, making fun of people that have taken, Joe Rogans and things like that, even though you and I both know there's so much science showing that these are and would have been incredibly effective products, could have saved half a million people or more. but instead they were ridiculed. But now we have censorship. Now people, you know, you get some of your reports get shut down online and others that never see the time of day because you've dealt with executive producers I have. That clip that you showed with Congressman Massey, there's nothing to argue with. There's nothing factually incorrect in there.

And that got banned on TikTok for community, violating community standards. there's nobody to appeal that to. It's just not going to be seen. Right, right. A lot of people think, oh, they're trying to keep us from getting misinformation. The fact is they're trying to keep you from getting real information.

So they don't want a fair hearing. They don't want you to hear all sides because they believe you'll form the conclusion that's not in their best interest. Were you different than other reporters around you? Is there something that you're just wired differently? Totally. Wired differently.

I like being on the outside. I like throwing jabs at the establishment. myself. I would go down in the newsroom when I would hear this incredible group thing going on, which kind of always surprised me at a network, everybody's thinking alike. And I would take an opposing view and just say something, not because I believed necessarily, but to start the conversation or make them realize, why are we all in agreement? When I first came to CBS, and I didn't cover politics or care about politics until around 2016. When I first got hired at CBS, it was the year that Republicans took over Congress for the first time in a

a bazillion years. And I'm walking around the newsroom. I didn't even know there was an election. I was covering the overnight news. And everybody's all depressed. I could just tell the air was thick. And I said, what's wrong? And someone said to me, didn't you hear, we lost the election?

And I'm like, we, we, what election? And then I realized they meant we as Democrats lost this congressional election. And I was like, wow. You know, so that just really, it became sort of a pulse point for me to understand how newsrooms are, but you're going to find the better stories. Sometimes the group think covers something accurately, and there are a lot of great reporters at CBS and I had great bosses.

But a lot of times you're going to go down the wrong road, and because of the group think, not open your mind to the facts that may prove accurate or at least worthy of considering, and I've thought long and hard about how that's a big part of my job. I'm sure I didn't do it well when I was 22 years old. I hope I do it very well today because I put so much thought. into us. I think it's important. When we watch the news right now, I mean, some of these people, you know, you would arguably be probably a news anchor at this point with the way your career had been on a trajectory

before you did too many probably controversial stories as you seem to be addicted to. But like when we watch Rachel Maddow, you know, talk about ivermectin or say things like this vaccine that's going to stop with you, the infection stops with you. Does a person like that have any thought once the vaccine stops working or concern like, oh my God, I didn't give correct information or I was even used as a pawn or like what? I guess not. I mean, in the cases where that's happened, like with doctors, some of them have broken away and spoken out and stood up. But for commentators whose purpose is, I think today, maybe more entertainment,

and distributing narratives. So if you understand news today, to be about, it's been so wholly taken over by special interests, even inside the newsroom, not just being influenced from outside. It explains why when they get something wrong, they're not sorry, because they were happy, whoever's pulling the strings,

that the false narrative got out there, because that was the goal. That's why Maggie Haberman was promoted to the New York Times from Politico, even after being shamed for the biased reporting that she was doing. I mean, there's many examples. What they want is the biased reporting now,

because the industry has changed. So I'm not sure they feel shamed or do that critical thinking exercise. They're being patted on the back when they have those programs that say these things, or when they report these stories, even if they're wrong, their bosses and their colleagues and the awards are being given for this kind of reporting. So they're perfectly happy unless you're like me and like you,

they're perfectly happy to do that. So then do they just see it as a sales job? Then I have a sales job and I'm good at it. I sell what I'm told I have to sell to the public. I think a lot of people have an incredible ability to rationalize what they think is good for them in a way that they may tell themselves this other talk is dangerous and they may believe it. They're not informing themselves. They're not opening their minds to the facts that are contrary to what their bosses want them to conclude or what they would like to believe. If we have a bad person out there, they must be censored.

and therefore there's a time and place where First Amendment, we really have this question now. Well, First Amendment has to be controlled by the government, I think. The fact we're even discussing that the press is cheering on censorship in some cases or debating the terms of which censorship is okay. We're debating the fine points when the whole discussion is unconstitutional in my view. I agree. Do you fear that we could lose our First Amendment rights? I mean, certainly they were temporarily sidelined through COVID. Absolutely. Absolutely.

What's happened with the press failing to be the watchdog on these issues, at least we used to say, well, if corporations have to make money and that's their job, I get that. And if Congress is compromised and doesn't do their job and overseeing them, at least the media is there to be sort of an equalizer and hold the feet to the fire of the political figures. We're not doing that now. So who's left in the equation that's there to unearth the corruption and make sure these things don't happen? I like to say the truth finds a way to be told.

It may take time. I think these little veins of truth are finding ways to be told, whether it's substack or podcasts or alternate programs. Alternate media. Do you think that's really the future now? Well, I don't know what it will end up being. We're in a transition now. But at least people are finding ways to get around the big tech censorship and the news. news media. It's becoming something else. News will become something else. I don't know what the

end result will be, but there's a search, you know, like I say, with substack. That's not the end all. But that is an example of how people are looking for and finding alternate ways to get truth and facts and accurate, other alternate viewpoints even out to the public. That's amazing. Well, Cheryl, I want to thank you for joining me today. And thank you for really taking the time to write this incredible book for everyone out there. Shill Atkinson, follow the science. I'm serious. I know I've had a lot of great books on here because I get the best of the best in the world to come and talk. But this book, for anyone that has a friend that's like really sort of pushing back, but you can sense, I mean, I've said before, don't waste your time with someone that's already

poured the concrete around their feet jumped in the water. They're going, they're, they're totally bought in. But for anyone that's questioning, this book is so great, because because you see her journey through all of the different stories, drugs that will remember, Vioxx and things like that, like, oh yeah, I remember that. And she lays out how she did that story. You remember seeing that story, and then you slowly watch how you see this pattern

through so many different parts of journalism and the corruption in government and the pharmaceutical industry. It's so beautifully laid out. You want this book, you want to get everyone you know to. And by the way, where are you at New York Times? You're bestseller now? Well, we would be number nine our first week if they were going to list us,

but we did make the other list. New York Times doesn't have to. First two books they listed, this one and the last one, which discussed the New York Times. I don't think we're going to see on the list. Isn't that amazing? So they don't let you on the list. So why don't we do this?

Why don't you help me make this number one? And they can go ahead and deal with the fact that they won't put it on the list. We don't need New York Times anymore. Let's make that happen really a great book. Anywhere where books are bound, I imagine. Absolutely. Cheryl, thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for what you do.

You bet.