The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3553 Trump And Rfk Jrs Assault On Your Health W Dr Kristin Lyerly

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

It's News Day Tuesday on the Majority Report On today's program: Sean Hannity attempts to coax Venezuelan opposition figure María Corina Machado into gifting her Nobel Peace Prize to Donald Trump as a way to flatter him into installing her as Venezuela's president. Dr. Kristin Lyerly, OB-GYN and chair of the board of the Committee to Protect Public Health, joins the show to discuss RFK Jr.'s plan to reduce the number of vaccines recommended for newborns from 17 to 11. in the Fun Half: Sean Hannity tries to coax Maria Corina Machado into gifting her Nobel Peace Prize to Trump in hopes he'll return the favor by installing her as president on Venezuela Tucker Carlson and Cheryl Hines pretend to be confused on how vaccines are important to public health. RFK, Jr's claims there has been no research into links between autism and vaccines administered to newborns. Trump comments on the dilemma he faces in wanting young people to be able to buy homes but also not wanting to devalue the net worth of current homeowners. Of course, we know he will not address this crisis in any meaningful way. Stephen Miller and Jake Tapper debate Venezuela in a neo-con vs neo-liberal cage match. Francesca Fiorentini floats the idea the invasion of Venezuela could have started with GOP mega donor and owner of Citgo, Paul Singer. Chris Cuomo delivers a very confused monologue about Venezuela where he mashes several concepts together without any linearity or logic. All that and more. The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the US Senate or the House of Representatives. Watch/Listen to The Majority Report live Monday–Friday at 12pm EST on YouTube OR via daily podcast at http://www.Majority.fm Today's Sponsors: ZOCDOC: Go to Zocdoc.com/MAJORITY and download the Zocdoc app to sign-up for FREE and book a top-rated doctor. BLUELAND: Get 15% off your first order by going to Blueland.com/MAJORITY. SUNSET LAKE CBD: Use coupon code "Left Is Best" (all one word) for 20% on their full lineup of CBD products to support your New Year wellness goals and Dry January aspirations at SunsetLakeCBD.com  Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.com

So, folks, the holidays are behind us. We still got a lot of winter ahead of us. My God. But let's be honest, it is a tough time of the year to start new resolutions. I started off this year with no absolutely, like, abusing cookies in the office, and it fell apart yesterday in a big way. Abusing. Anyway, keep going to.

I just had too many cookies yesterday. I had to get them out of the office. But the point is, a lot of folks are taking breaks from drinking, dry January. And if that's you, good on you. That's not easy, especially when it's dark at 4.30 in the afternoon. Everything feels like a lot, as it were. Making healthy changes takes effort and having the right support actually matters. That's where our friends at Sunset Lake Sabadee come in.

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Get on it. And now time for the show. Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Tuesday, January 6, 2026. My name is Sam Cedar. five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live steps from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA.

On the program today, Dr. Kristen Lairley, OBGYN, and chair of the Board of Committee to protect health care. On the CDC assault on vaccines, this as a flu, there's a flu hits its highest levels in 25 years across the country. Meanwhile, Trump floats the idea of a taxpayer bailout for oil firms developing Venezuelan oil. Yep. U.S. allies warned Trump hands off Greenland, Health Department to freeze $10 billion in funding to five.

Democratic states. No point in having a budget. They're not distributing funds that have been allocated. Republican House member Doug La Malfe Malfa suddenly dies California's first district

further shrinking the Republicans' advantage in the house. Meanwhile, only one and three Americans support Maduro's ouster. Trump regime sends 2,000 federal goons to Minneapolis. 2,000. They have 10,000 Marines off the coast of Venezuela ostensibly to control that country.

DOJ admits it still has millions of unreleased Epstein files. And the Department of Homeland Security has plans for massive FEMA cuts. Corporation Public Broadcasting shuts down because it has no more funds. Graham Platner announces Q4 fundraising numbers, $5 million. Average

donation somewhere in the high 20s, $28 or something like that. Meanwhile, happy January 6th, Donald Trump pardoned all of those rioters

no harm no phone some of them Nazis I mean just based upon their Heil Hitler's All of them patriots though All patriots Such a killjoy Other P words as well

All this and more On today's majority report Welcome ladies and gentlemen It is Newsday Tuesday Tuesday the first Newsday Tuesday of 2026 So things are getting pretty exciting around here.

I also want to just know. First day, big problems here. Yes. Who is that? Oh, you know who it is. No, I don't. Oh, yes, you do. Who?

Dopical. Oh, yes, yes, yes. The guy who recircumcised himself when converting to Judaism. Primetime do capo. Well, I mean, to be fair, I do that whenever the Patriots win the Super Bowl. Seven times? Yeah. Hey?

A lot to work with. Maybe six, I can't remember. Anyways, I wanted to note that it's been two days, and I've done 2026 correctly every time. I know. I didn't even remind you today. Which you resented yesterday.

Listen, I'm on top of this. On day one, I can get it. It's going to be like day four and five. It's going to be a problem. This is going to be May, and you're going to be doing it. Exactly. Referred in 2025. Without a doubt.

No, it's just, I'm, you know, I'm sunsetting. So that's, uh... If you're going to time travel, can you go forward? Yeah, exactly. I know. I know. What's the stuff that Michael Jackson was on that just made him sleep for like two weeks at the time?

I feel like I need some of that. Oh, no. That's, uh, that's propanol. Yeah. Just kidding. I'm joking. That actually, I mean, now you mention it. Uh, uh, it depends.

I mean, I've told this story a couple of times, but when you get a colonoscopy, on the West Coast, they use prophenol a lot more than they do on the East Coast in terms of using the prophenol. And it has to do with, like, insurance coverage. I'm not going to get deep into that. But I had it once, and I'll tell you, like, for three days afterwards, you feel great. Yeah. I mean, I understand. Not advocating for anyone to do it. No.

Yes. It's not like. like trying to. It's not like you can pick some up at the bodega. But all right, let's get into this. It is becoming increasingly clear that there is no plan for Venezuela. Or I should say that Donald Trump does not actually have a plan for Venezuela. It seems like there's a bunch of other people who have plans for Venezuela and that they seem to be, not necessarily all on the same page. There's been reporting, and we talked about at least testimony that was delivered in 2019 and then ostensibly some reporting from what's been on, you know, videos that have been

on Russian telegram channels that Putin had encouraged Trump to adopt a modern-day Monroe Doctrine, or the Donro Doctrine, as Trump has been talking about. And the idea being that, look, we're in a multipolar world. And you don't have to mess around with China. You don't have to mess around with Russia. You just essentially create fortress America. You control and dominate the Western Hemisphere. And you'll have all the resources you need.

You'll have shorter supply lines. All of that sounds all well and good. And let me do what I would like with Ukraine. It is my territory. You know, why don't we just kind of put this all of this aside? We're all in this together, right? We'll carve up the world. Well, it's like a mafia.

It's basically like a mafia deal. You know, I'm watching, rewatching a little bit of the wire. I mean, it's that type of thing. Now, the biggest problem for the execution of that, however, is that this is not 1935. This is not 1965. This is not 1895. These countries no longer are so easily dominated by the U.S. in the way that it would have been 50 or 60 years ago because there's so many weapons there.

And so with 10,000 Marines off the coast of Venezuela, the United States is not in a position to invade and take over Venezuela. And it is unclear, it became clear, I think, to Trump, or at least Trump was, you know, there was a lot of neocons who were like, oh, we're going to put in Maria Carina Machado and get rid of the Chavistas, you know, the Hugo Chavez, Marxist folks. And then, you know, she's going to open up. I mean, she literally said six months ago, I'm, I'm going to. I'm going to give the oil back to the Americans, essentially. And so I think there were people in the administration. Lindsey Graham reportedly was very encouraging on this coup and kidnapping of Maduro. But I think he thought that Maria Carina Machado would get the nod from Trump.

And his neocon fantasies would be carried out. but Trump seems to have basically just stopped in part because some people suggest that Trump and Trump mentioned this today apparently or yesterday that he was going after Maduro because Maduro was mocking him by doing his dance. His dance. And if you can believe that, then you can believe that he would be so spiteful towards Maria Carina Machado that he wouldn't impose her as the leader of Venezuela because like the the practical realities don't stop these people. I mean, they're behaving in a very unhinged manner altogether.

We there's a, we read in the packetage of the CIA briefed the administration and said that she wouldn't have the infrastructure to take over the government. And that's true. Like she has been in since the early 2000s in the sphere of right wing neocons, NGOs here in the West getting these awards, right? I mean, there's a cultural memory in Venezuela where people understand that these are the Yanke. keys trying to steal our resources and imposing their preferred candidate like they did with Guaido and like they'd done across Latin America. And so like this hadn't stopped them before. She'd been enormously explicit. But the point is, like, the arrogance of the neocons is paramount here. So why didn't they try? Well, I mean, and they tried. Now we know the answer. It could just be Trump's pettiness. Well, and we should also say, too. And later in the program,

We will dig into sort of the theory that perhaps this was just one of the biggest winners was this billionaire hedge fund guy, Paul Singer, who essentially bought the U.S. portion of Chevron, which was the Venezuelan oil company, and bought it for, you know, 50 cents, 30 cents on the dollar. and this is a way to make him, you know, sit coach, excuse me, very, very wealthy. And but before we get there, here we have Sean Hannity. And Sean Hannity has always been essentially a Republican operative. He had a very good relationship with Donald Trump because he kisses people's asses. and he was basically a, you know, a main advisor to Trump in his first term, probably still the case. But everybody's afraid of Trump. They don't want, they want to convince him the way that, you know, where Trump comes to it himself.

And it's quite clear that all these neocons, I'm talking like Lindsey Graham and, you know, whoever other neocons who are sort of interested in the notion of, of getting rid of the Marxist in this area and maintaining our hegemony insofar as we have open policy for U.S. corporations there got into Hannity's ear and we're like, dude, you're the only one who can save this now. We need Maria Karina Machado to get the nod from Trump. You've got to do your magic. And watch how like desperate Hannity is in there to, like, Not the only desperate person in this clip. I mean, this is humiliating on so many different levels. Watch this.

And it's not very usual that people will dedicate the Nobel Peace Prize to the leader of a different country and say publicly, he deserves this more than I do. But you did that. Let me be very clear. As soon as I learned that we had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, I dedicated to President Trump because I believe. at that point that he deserved it. And a lot of people, most people said it was impossible to achieve what he has just done on Saturday, January 3rd. So if I believe he deserved it on October imagine now, I think he has proven to the world what he means. I mean, January 3rd will go down in history as the day justice defeated a tyranny.

a milestone, and it's not only huge for the Venezuelan people on our future, I think it's a huge step for humanity, for freedom and human dignity. Have you spoken with President Trump since then? Actually, I spoke with President Trump on October 10th, the same day the prize was announced. Not since then, but I do want to say today. So not since then. Have I spoken to him? Yes.

I mean, two or three months ago. But I haven't spoken to him since I got the prize that was rightfully going to should have gone to him. How did that conversation go? Here's the. Here's the coup de grace of ladies and a little bit. Let's see if she's ready. President Trump since then.

Actually, I spoke with President Trump on October 10th, the same day the prize was announced. Not since then, but I do want to say today, on behalf of the Venezuelan people, how grateful we are for his courageous vision, the actions, historical actions he has taken against this narco-terrorist regime to start dismantling this structure and bringing Maduro to justice, which, means that 30 million Venezuelans are now closer to freedom, but also that the United States of America is a safer country nowadays. Right. Did you at any point offer to give him the Nobel Peace Prize? Did that actually happen? I had read that somewhere. I wasn't sure if it was true. Well, it hasn't happened yet, but I certainly would love to be able to personally tell him that we believe the Venezuelan people because he's a surprise of the Venezuelan people

certainly want to give it to him and share it with him. What has, what he has done, as I said, it's tor. Oh, my God. That is. Words, words, words. Where's my goals? You know,

you know, the problem is she's like maybe a five. And I don't know. She's a, she's a, She's just like out of my age range. Yes, well, there you go.

You know, so. She's aged out. She's aged out. Maybe if it was the age. It's gross. Maybe I had gotten it before. But, you know, when you have to actually kidnap a leader of another country to get your peace prize, it doesn't feel as good. I'm sorry.

I just don't want to have to make it feel like I'm being too thirsty. She lacks what Zoron had in the Oval Office, which is like an aura of being a winner. Yeah. Right. Right. Right. She should have given it to him October 10th. You had your opportunity.

More on Venezuela later in the program, of course. And in a moment, we'll be talking to Dr. Kristen Lireli, an OBGYN, and chair the board of committee to protect health care on the CDC's assault on vaccines, as announced, I guess this morning, maybe yesterday after. I should say. But finding a doctor, speaking of which, you actually like, feels like finding a diamond in the rough shirt. You want to find someone who's in network, someone who's nearby with open time slots.

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slash majority. You don't want to miss this. Blueland.com slash majority. 15% off. that's Blueland.com slash majority. Get 15% off. Do yourself a favor by a bunch of stuff and take that, take advantage of 15% because you will be happy you did. Quick break. When we come back, Dr. Kristen Lirely, OBGYN, chair of the board of committee to protect health care on the latest assault on vaccinations by our CDC. We are back. Sam Cedar. of Viglin on the majority report joining us now, Dr. Kristen Lirely, and O B-G-Y-N and chair of the board of the committee to protect health care. Kristen, thanks so much for joining us.

Two big stories out today, not exactly unrelated. One being that we are suffering one of the worst flu seasons in about 25 years, at least in terms of people who have contracted the flu and coming in with symptoms. And announcement from Health and Human Services that they are narrowing the guidance on childhood vaccinations. Walk us through what both those announcements mean. I mean, I think everybody knows what it means was a bad flu year. Yeah. Well, I think we better get used to bad name your disease years.

Right now it's the flu because this is respiratory season. We always see respiratory viruses rising at this point. But what we're also seeing is a rise in measles, arise in whooping cough, arise in a number of other vaccine preventable diseases because of this administration, because of the political messaging that they are putting out into the universe and that people who follow them are listening to. I mean, I'm seeing in my own patients, and I'm an obstetrician gynecologist, I take care of pregnant people, but in my own patients, we vaccinate against whooping cough

toward the end of pregnancy. And we vaccinate for the baby because a newborn with whooping cough, first of all, we can't vaccinate a newborn against whooping cough, but it's really hard to treat. And it's painful to watch. And babies really suffer. But I'm finding a lot of moms are not wanting to vaccinate or they're asking a lot of questions because they don't trust vaccines the way that they used to. And now with these new recommendations that were made.

with very little thought that were very clearly politically motivated. They've reduced the number of recommended childhood vaccines from 17 to 11. And they've spaced them out in a way where they won't be protective for a lot of these young children, which ultimately means that we're going to see a lot more of these preventable diseases. Do we even know what the process was to make this change? Magic one. What's that? Medved one, I think.

Well, but I mean, honestly, like, I mean, there, we, because in the past, there is a, at the very least, there is, uh, transparency in terms of how, you know, we have an advisory committee that, uh, issues, uh, suggestions. Here, it's just sort of like, um, Kennedy met with whomever and or had these ideas and just rolled it out essentially. I don't mean to be glib. I'm a physician. I went to medical school for four years. I did four years of residency training. Every year I have to do continuing education to make sure that I know what's going on so I can take care of my patients. What they used to do is they brought together experts from all over the country who understood the research, who put their heads together and made recommendations about what do we need here in the United States? What is the best thing for our population of people at certain ages? their development. And that was how these decisions were made. They were thoughtful. They were protracted. They had footnotes. They were very detailed. But what happened yesterday was literally

just this is what we're doing. There were no resources or there was no data. There was no evidence. It was just this change and a change that they're selling to the people as reflecting what's happening in other countries. But other countries are not the United States of America. Other countries have universal health care. Other countries have parental leave. We don't have any of those supports here. And all of those things have to be factored into how we take care of our people. Okay.

Let me ask you about that specifically because we should also say that it turns out the fact is that we are actually now below the number of recommendations that we have in terms of vaccination actually below a lot of the European countries. with this new announcement. A, but explain how the difference of having universal health care, how that impacts this, because it's true we don't have the same health care. We don't have the same level of support. But I'm thinking like specifically, like I'm looking at the flu shot, for instance,

the U.S. will no longer recommend annual flu shots for children. They'll suggest the parents make the decision in consultation with medical professionals. but because of the cost of health care and because a lot of people don't have doctors, you don't have the opportunity to consult with a doctor. You don't have a doctor who's saying like, hey, you're in here for your annual physical. Make sure you get the kids a flu shot. You just, you are severing the relationship between this medical advice and patients. You're spot on, Sam. They just took Medicaid away from a large swath of the population, including children. They just cut ACA premium assistance. So millions of Americans are going to go without health care. And then they turn around and say, you have to talk to your doctor in order to get these preventive measures to protect your health care. It doesn't work that way. You know, and they're also cherry picking this data. The United States is not Denmark. The United States is not Denmark. The United States is

much, much larger, much more diverse. Denmark is about the size of Minnesota. So I mean, think about it. It doesn't work that way. And by the way, what is up with our obsession, with the Trump regime's obsession with Denmark? It's the vaccines. It's Greenland. What is it going to be next? Confiscating Legos? I don't understand why they are so concerned about Denmark. This is the United States. We need to tailor our health advice, our health care for the people who live here. Well, I mean, the HPV vaccine being a part of this as well takes me back to when I was the age when I got the HPV vaccine. And I remember some of my friends having it being controversial with their parents. And this is like a fight basically that goes all the way, you know, years and the

Republicans have been waging on it. So it's just fascinating to see like, you know, you talk about like the lack of coherence here. This isn't just new with the RFK Jr. movement. The Republicans and the conservatives have been waging more on science and these kinds of vaccinations for a while. They sure have. And as an OBGYN doctor, who was training during the time that they rolled out the HPV vaccine, I remember that so clearly. Because to me and my colleagues and my patients, this is a cancer-preventing vaccine. But politicians, were saying, this is a vaccine that we're giving to 12-year-old girls that will make them promiscuous. That was the big argument.

The big argument was this is going to make them more likely to have sex because now they feel like they have a license to have sex without getting HPV, which I can tell you that like even, you know, at the time this was happening, someone in probably at his 30s at that time, I had never even heard of HPV in that way. So the idea that I had been vaccinated or not vaccinated against it. But it's funny how it went from like a religious sort of like, because that was very big during the aughts when this was happening. The idea of, you know, having chastity balls and getting rid of sex ed in schools was a very big push. And it's sort of like mutated. it's almost as if like the sort of that that that fundamentalist um anti sex ed uh energy sort of went into the sort of the maha movement in some way and mutated and in some of that vaccine hesitancy was adopted but let's i want to go through some of the specifics here

we mentioned hpv yeah we talked about the flu shots we should just say that like um there were 300 pediatric flu deaths last year's unusually severe flu. season. This season sounds like it's worse. 89% of the victims were not fully vaccinated. And again, this is about, maybe it would be helpful for you to sort of just discuss the concept of public health versus like individual health because your choice. Right. Like we don't really hear that much about there's a difference between those things.

They're not necessarily oppositional, but there's. a difference. I mean, if we were all to pursue our own interests exclusively, we would all take antibiotics for anything, but 10 years down the road, antibiotics aren't going to work for anything. No. I mean, look at what's happening with gonorrhea right now. We have so many disease for antibiotic resistant forms of gonorrhea. Recently, they were able to come up with two new antibiotics, so we've got a little bit of breathing space, but we know that gonorrhea mutates quickly and we have to stay ahead of it. But, you know, to your point, Sam, about public health versus individual health, it's not one or the other. They go together. Public health is about having

clean water, clean air, preventing the diseases that you can prevent. And vaccines are one of the greatest public health victories in the last century. If you look back to the early 1900s and the deaths from the flu pandemic, from diphtheria, from tetanus, from all of these things that we don't even think about anymore because we just get the vaccines and we don't have to worry about it. Vaccines are a victim of their own success, which gives us the psychological freedom to think that it doesn't matter to us as individuals, but it does. Because if we're not all pitching in and we're not all doing what we can, it makes the most vulnerable amongst us, more vulnerable.

Now, it is important to ask, to have conversations with your health care provider, if you can, to seek out good information from places like the American Academy of Pediatrics, if you're looking for childhood vaccines, like the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists, if you're looking for vaccines when you're pregnant, looking for good data so that you can make good, informed decisions about your own health care. But pitching in and being part of that public health solution is integral to your own health and the health of your family and your community. There seems to be like, you know, a question of like, where is the burden of, like, where,

on what side of a ledger are we going to err? And maybe air is the wrong word, but it really is like, where is there a burden? because we have moved from a more or less like opt out type of situation where like, you know, you have the ability to say to your doctor, I want to, I feel very strongly that I want to delay the hepatitis vaccine from for my newborn baby. Like you have the ability to to advocate for yourself in that regard. but it seems like we've now flipped it on the other head where if you know nothing about medicine you just know you want your kid to be healthy it is now incumbent upon you to learn what you don't

know which of course is very difficult right because i don't like what am i going to start doing it's complicated it's complicated it's not like buying you know it's like it's even harder than buying a stereo in the old days but that's but honestly that's like that's the dilemma here because the incidence of hepatitis is going to be higher in low-income communities, in communities where they have less contact on a regular basis with a doctor. Maybe they don't have as many people in their social network who have exposure to medical training and whatnot. And we are essentially increasing the responsibility. on these people who have less assets and resources to know what they need to be healthy

and at the expense of really just sort of an ideology. Yeah. And they can't get access to the health care and the information that they need. That's why we vaccinate for hepatitis B because if we could screen everybody and everybody came to the doctor for prenatal care, then we probably wouldn't have to worry about it. But even though we do screen our patients who come for care, there are a lot of people who don't get prenatal care or who get inadequate prenatal care. So that's the reason we vaccinate everybody.

And I can tell you as a mom, I have four kids. My oldest is 26. When he was an infant, that was when we first started vaccinating against hepatitis B. I was reluctant to vaccinate my little baby. It's scary to look at that newborn and think, I'm going to put a vaccine in him. I get it, maha. We want to the best thing for our babies. And often the best thing is getting the vaccine and doing it in a safe way. It was shared decision making, making sure that you understand what's happening and what the best thing is for your baby, for you, for your family. Let's just going through what they have rolled back. It was the flu shot. It was CDC's no longer recommends hepatitis A vaccination for children ages 12 to 23 months.

And now, CDC previously recommended menagoccal. Menningoccal. Thank you. I got you. To adolescence with the first dose at age 11 or 12 and a second

dose at age 16. And now they are basically rolling that back to just sort of like special, special cases. Yeah. So, get ready to see more brain infections in young people that are obviously devastating, life determining. I mean, they can kill you when you are at your most vibrant and best. It's just shocking to me that they can just literally with the sweep of a pen just get rid of it. People will

die. Teens and people in their young 20s will die because they're not vaccinated against these things. And we have no idea like why, right? I mean, not some March, we have an idea why, but like, we have no idea why they've decided that, uh, the meningitis vaccine is too dangerous for, uh, 11 and 12 year old and 16 year olds. They do recommend it for first year college students living in residential housing. Um, they do recommend it for high risk groups, but, To make that determination that it has value to freshmen at a college, for instance, versus not other people, they would have to say that there is a downside, like a risk associated with meningitis that outweighs the benefit that they're conceding exists for freshmen in college.

And so, but they, they're, we have no indication of what that is from them. We don't know. The best explanation they've given us is that this is what they're doing in Denmark. But if you look at the actual childhood recommended vaccine chart and you can find it at aAP.org, it is, there's a chart. And then there are like 17 pages of footnotes and links and data and evidence that help you understand what these diseases are and give you more access to why we vaccinate against these things. But that isn't at all part of what came out yesterday. And I think that's really telling.

I mean, obviously it's telling. If they can only tell you just because we said so when somebody else is doing it, that's not great advice. We need better. We have to have better from our public health leaders in this country. I think this is the, from the Times. The review compares, this is speaking of the review. It's a 34-page review authored by Tracy Beth Hogue, acting director of the FDA Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. And they have a lot, and also Martin Koldorf, who have all long opposed vaccine mandates, advocated for reducing U.S. Childhood Vaccine Schedule prior to their roles in government. Their review compares the U.S. to nations, including Australia, Canada, Finland, France, the Netherlands, Norway, and United Kingdom. The review claims the U.S. outpaces them the number

of recommended shots under the previous schedule. Most of the named countries recommend nearly an identical list of shots. I mean, so this is a polite way of saying, like, even on the basic facts, this review is just wrong. aside from not addressing the differences in health care systems, because this is, again, like, if you are under, if I have a concierge doctor who is with me and I'm going to see every quarter for a checkup, the advice they give me is going to be more specific and tailored and can be more nuanced and can get down to like very granular risk reward analysis based upon. upon, you know, Sam, you hang out in the subway a lot or Sam, you, I mean, honestly, like, you like, you like to go to parties. So you, I mean, it can go down to that, that granular level where, you know, you shouldn't be taking Tylenol as much. You shouldn't be, I mean, it could be anything. But, but we're not talking about that at all with our system.

No, especially if you have a concierge doctor. I mean, they are there to cater to the tiniest concern. And if they don't know the answer, they can get all the tests. They can get all the imaging studies, all the blood work, because you have access. You have resources. But on a public health level, think about the people in Flint, Michigan, who were drinking that lead contaminated water for so long. Brown stuff was coming out of their tap. That's a public health problem.

What do those people do? Many of them didn't have access to a physician, but they didn't even have access to clean water. What do you do in that situation? Clean water equals vaccines in this scenario. We have to make sure that we've got the floor for everybody. And then when you start making those individualized health care decisions, is this vaccine right for me? Is this medication right for me? Should I be doing this screening test?

There are so many questions we can each ask about our individual health, but public health is for all of us. The rotavirus vaccination. Rotavirus was the leading cause before vaccination of severe diarrhea and young children. hospitalized between 55,000 and 70,000 annually in the United States. Deaths were between 20 and 60 annually. Vaccines now routinely administered to infants became available in the late 2000s, protect 9 and 10 recipients from severe disease. Now federal officials say parents should make their own decisions in consultation with doctors.

But again, it's like I've been a parent of two kids and I cannot imagine a scenario where it would occur to me to ask about the rhoda virus. Right. Like I, if it wasn't for this job, I wouldn't even know what a road of, I would have never read the word rotavirus. It doesn't come up in any, in any type of. And I would say also RSV, RSV, which I had never heard of it until like the, I don't know, the past two or three years. Maybe because COVID was in the air and maybe I was reading more, but it is the respiratory, you would know how to pronounce this. Let's just call it RSV, Sam. RASV, a rampant pathogen infects nearly every young child and is the leading cause of hospitalization in children.

Yeah. In recent years, all children were able to gain protection for the first time through maternal vaccination or monoclonal antibodies. the existing recommendation doesn't change under the new guidelines, but the administration says it only recommends RSV monoclonal antibodies for certain high-risk groups, but that includes children whose mothers did not get vaccinated during pregnancy. I mean, this is, again, we are just sort of like putting more responsibility on non-doctors to, it's, it's very similar to the idea of like looking at patients as consumers, as if, like, we all have enough knowledge about medicine to make an informed decision on, you know, I, you know,

I think you're using the wrong suit, sir. I don't know what, what, you know, it's crazy. It's overwhelming from a patient perspective. I'm a doctor, but I'm also a patient. And as a patient, as a person who's living in this world, you think you're going to be fine. Maybe I don't need that vaccine. I'm probably not going to get rhodovirus. I'll probably get through the season without the flu. If I do, I'll be fine. Some people aren't fine.

And you're gambling with your health. In this situation, you're gambling with your child's health. I don't know if any of your kids ever had RSV, Sam, but I remember two of my boys had bad asthma. And when they got RSV in the winter, it was. brutal listening to them breathe, trying to get them through these coughing fits and just being worried that they weren't going to get better. So these vaccines have been game changers. And I can see that as somebody who's had that experience. But when I'm talking with a new mom who's thinking about the future, she's thinking her baby is going to be fine, that her baby's not going to get sick.

But when it really does happen, then it's too late for these vaccines. So that's another part of the conversation that we need to make sure that we're having, but you can only have it when you have access to a health care provider that you trust. And if you're relying on what you're seeing on social media, there's so much misinformation out there. And people don't even, they know some of it is misinformation, but they don't process it that way. So they still follow this advice that points them in the wrong direction and causes them to make decisions that are not in their best interest. Our health care system is so fundamentally broken, this is just one, one symptom. And as of now, my understanding is, is that insurers are still going to cover these vaccinations.

Well, as of now, as of now. If they are on the CDC schedule, Dr. Oz said. But he didn't say if they're on the American Academy of Pediatric Schedule or the American College of Obstetricians and gynecologist schedule. So with this cut in the number of vaccines and the change in timing, I think it remains to be understood whether they will actually be covering these vaccines in a way that is meaningful and actually effective. Right. And we're talking about both. It's a, and it's also, we don't know relative to like private insurance versus Medicaid or Medicare for that matter. or S-CHIP or it could be different across those boards.

I mean, I would imagine it's going to be interesting to see the difference between private health insurance coverage and public health insurance coverage because I suspect private insurance, when they don't have the ideological factor in there, may just find that like long term risk pool, it's going to be cheaper for us to. pay for the vaccinations than to deal with any of our people that were covering to deal with these actual diseases. It's why they covered IUD they cover IUDs or other you know birth control and things like that because even if it's not you know the Republicans or whatever administration are ideologically against it, it's better for preventative medicine that way. But there's also this lawsuit, right? Because back to just the process of what what Sam's talking about, they apparently didn't follow this law, this administrative procedures act, where they're supposed to basically make it clear why they're making these determinations. So I wonder if the lawsuit has, like,

they're trying to speed past it or something like that, and if that affects private or public health insurance too. Yeah, that's a great question. And so many of these battles are being waged in the courts right now. But back to your point about how insurance companies think it's a great idea to invest in preventive care, I'm going to push back on that. Because in my experience, whether we're talking about vaccines or IUDs, insurance companies and hospital systems are just thinking about making it to the end of the year. Because what might happen after that is their patient might leave. Their patient might switch insurance companies or go to a different health care system. So they're just trying to do the most budget-friendly thing right now,

not actually invest in your health care, in the future of American health care. So ultimately, failing to provide these vaccines will cause an increase in the number of preventable illnesses, which will raise costs overall for all of us in this country, where we already know that we have the most expensive health care in the world and the worst outcomes amongst all of our peer nations. Dr. Kristen Larley, OBGYN, and chair of the board of the committee to protect health care, care. Thanks for your time, but what, I mean, what should people do in this instance?

I mean, you know, I think like, maybe it's my own sort of like bias, but I suspect that most people in our audience, at the very least are, you know, we'll listen to this stuff, we'll listen to, you know, we'll read deeper into it. We'll, the vast majority will be sent to this stuff and be in an opportunity to, you know, advocate for themselves and to find the vaccinations. It may or may not be prohibitively expensive because of these decisions. But what can what should people be doing, I guess, on a, on a political level, because as on an individual level, I mean, I think it's sort of like undermines the point is that we should not have to be fighting to, you know, or going to a learning annex to

to find out what diseases are more preventable and where there's vaccines that are available to us to deal with something like this. It feels overwhelming, but there are a couple simple things that we can do. So as patients, instead of turning to the CDC, which is where I always used to go as a doctor to find guidelines and information, I know I can't count on the CDC anymore because it's been compromised. So I go to my professional organization. And as patients, we all can do that.

too. So it's the American Academy of Pediatrics if you're looking for information about your kids. It's the American College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists for people looking for OBGYN care. It's the American Academy of Family Practice if you're looking for general care. Look to those professional organizations, the American Medical Association. They will have this information for you that you can trust because we are doctors and health care providers and we actually care. With regards to the political piece of it, I mean, there's one solution. We can't trust. what's happening on a federal level right now, we need to replace these leaders with people who

actually have the best interest of Americans in mind. And that opportunity is coming. We've got the midterms in November. We've got a presidential coming up in 2028. Now is the time to start building. Kristen Lirely, thank you so much. Really appreciate your time today. Thank you, Sam. Thanks, Emma. All right, folks. It's scary. Yeah. It is, it is scary. It is just also another reason why we need Medicare for all. Medicare for all, because A, not only, obviously, is it less expensive per capita in terms of spending.

Not only will it provide health care for more people, not only will it not, it will essentially remove that sort of like a side hustle you have of trying to get health insurance coverage for any given thing that you've done. But it also improves the relationship between you as a patient or a citizen and your health care because you have an ongoing, more consistent, closer proximity, less obstacles in the way of having a closer relationship with your doctor or your health care. health care providers and it just makes for better outcomes. Yeah, I mean, the truth is about the vaccine policy that it was actually a pretty

impressive thing American did, America did, but no one trusts it because we don't have relationship with our health care system that fosters trust at all. And Abdul al-Said is the candidate that's been speaking explicitly to that. You know, we can pathologize and we do make fun of people like Brett Weinstein who do this anti-VAC stuff, but it's a symptom of our private. you know, uh, healthcare system.

Uh, and I'll just say on the left reckoning, uh, bum steer of the year awards 2025, RFK walked away with it in our, uh, member vote over, uh,

Fuentes and Vivek Ramoswami. 90% of people said it's RFC. So I think they're right. Uh, with that said, um, your support is what keeps this show going. You can become a member at join the majority report.

dot com. When you do, you not only get the free show, free of commercials, but you get to IAM us during the fun half and you help this show survive and thrive in 2026 with all these pathogens around. Yep. That could do us in. Also, don't forget justcoffee.coop, fair trade coffee.

Use the coupon code majority. Get 10% off all your coffee needs. And speaking of Left Reckoning, Matt. Yeah, coming up right after the show today, Jose Luis Granada Sea talking today. talking to David about Venezuela. And also Nick Estes of Red Nation, who I'm a big fan of talking about a similar, the long history of America doing this to folks

in the context of the Indian Wars. So check that out this afternoon. Well, we interviewed him a long time ago on this program, right? Yep, he's great. He's great. And speaking of David Griscom, Emma. Yeah, so reading his book right now. It's a tangled web.

It's phenomenal. I sent the link in the chat. David Griscom, very honored and humbled as athletes like to say in post-grained press conferences that he asked me to moderate the launch of his book and the celebration of the launch of that book. We're going to have a conversation around an hour and a half on Wednesday, February 25th. An open conversation. Open, yes, where we just, we'll deal with the, We'll battle each other on the ideas in the book.

6 p.m. down on Avenue C at the Francis Kite Club in New York City. It's free. You can just reserve a spot, but you've got to go to that link before all the spots fill up. It's the Eventbrite link that's down below in the YouTube and episode descriptions. The book is The Myth of Red Texas. It's very good. I just got my ticket. Nice.

I just literally. Open conversation is the way. of humans connecting. Folks, see you in the fun half. Three months from now, six months from now, nine months from now, and I don't think it's going to be the same as it looks like in six months from now, and I don't know if it's necessarily going to be better six months from now than it is three months from now.

But I think around 18 months out, we're going to look back and go like, wow. What? What is that going on? It's nuts. Wait a second. Hold on. for a second. The majority.

Emma, welcome to the program. Hey. Fun hack. Matt. Who? Fun hack. What is up, everyone? Fun hack.

No, me, Keene. You did it. Fun hack. Let's go Brandon. Let's go Brandon. Bradley, you want to say hello? Sorry to disappoint. Everyone, I'm just a random guy.

It's all the boys today. Fundamentally false. No, I'm sorry. Stop talking for a second. Let me finish. Where is this coming from, dude? But dude, you want to smoke this? 7.8?

Yes. Yes. It is you. Oh, it's me. I think it is you. Who is you? No sound. Every single freaking day.

What's on your mind? We can discuss free markets and we can discuss capitalism. I'm going to go to life. Libertarians. They're so stupid, though. Common sense says, of course. Gobbled e-gook. We fucking nailed him.

So what's 79 plus 21? Challenge merit. I'm positively clivery. I believe 96, I want to say. 857, 210,0, 35. 501. One half. 3-8s.

9-11 for instance. $3,400, $1,900. $6.5,4, $3 trillion sold. It's a zero-sum game. Actually, you're making me think less. But let me say this. Hoop. You can call it satire.

Sam goes to satire. On top of it all, my favorite part about you is just like every day, all day, like everything you do. Without a doubt. Hey, buddy, we've seen you. Folks, obviously. Yeah, sundown guns out. I don't know. But you should know.

People just don't like to entertain ideas anymore. I have a question. Who cares? Our chat is enabled, folks. I love it. I do love that. Got to jump. I got to be quick.

I get a jump. I'm a losing. Two o'clock. We're already late. And the guy's being a dick. So scroom. Sent to a gulaw? Outrage.

Like, what? What is wrong with you? Love you. Love you. Bye-bye.