The President's Daily Brief - August 18th, 2022. The CDC Admits They Handled COVID Poorly, Yet Monkeypox Response Has Seen No Improvement.

Episode Date: August 18, 2022

It’s August 18th. You’re listening to the President’s Daily Brief. Your morning intel starts now. ------ First, The CDC is admitting this morning that it failed during the COVID pandemic, its Director is promising to prevent such from ever happening again. But critics argue it’s too late, they’re already failing on the issue of Monkeypox. I’ll explain their argument. As always, I’m keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put these two on your radar. Two stories this morning focused on the mega drought in the Western United States. First, how its affecting America’s cotton farmers. And second, some rare good news for Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the country.  I’ll explain those stories and why you should care. And finally, one more thing before I let you go. A question from Jack in Rhode Island. He wants to know what advice I would have given President Trump on what declassified intelligence / should or shouldn’t have been taken once he left the White House.  ------ Please remember to subscribe if you enjoyed this episode of the President's Daily Brief. Email: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It's August 18th. You're listening to the President's Daily Brief. I'm your host and former CIA Officer Brian Dean Wright. Your morning intel starts now. First up, the CDC is admitting this morning that it failed during the COVID pandemic. Its director is promising to prevent such from ever happening again. But critics argue it's too late. They're already failing on the next issue of Monkeypox. I'll explain their argument. As always, I'm keeping an eye out for developing stories. Put these two on your radar. Two stories this morning focused on the mega drought in the western United States. First, how it's affecting America's cotton farmers. And second, some rare good news for Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the country. I'll explain those stories and why you should

care. And finally, one more thing before I let you go, a question from Jack in Rhode Island. He wants to know what advice I would have given President Trump on what declassified intelligence should or shouldn't have been taken once he left the White House. But first, let's get started with today's main brief. Yesterday, the CDC's director acknowledged that her agency failed to properly respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Director Rochelle Walensky said, quote, For 75 years, the CDC and public health officials have been preparing for COVID-19,

and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations. So to make amends, she has announced a series of changes. So for instance, she is asking for more federal power to force states to comply with her requests for information. She also wants better communication with the American people. She's actually hired a new public relations officer. And she thinks that a new office of equity will help with diversity issues. So I'll defer to you on whether or not those and other reforms are sufficient. But I want to focus this morning on one thing in particular that she said. She admitted that public health guidance on COVID-19 was sometimes confusing and ineffective. Her reforms, she said, would prevent those things from ever happening

again. But critics are saying this morning that the CDC and federal health officials more broadly are already failing to learn from their COVID mistakes, and they are pointing to the monkey pox response as the example. So we're going to look at one part of that response. We're going to look at one part of that response, the monkeypox vaccine actually, and how it's injected. And we're going to explore whether the critics are right or wrong. I want you to decide if the CDC and the federal government have learned lessons or not. So let's dig into this very interesting story. Two weeks ago, the Biden administration declared monkeypox a public health emergency. So to refresh our memories, monkeypox is a virus that's been around for 50 plus years. It was discovered.

in Central Africa and on occasion since has flared up outside of that region. Now in my previous briefs on monkeypox to you all, I have shared how this latest outbreak is very different. So in Africa, for example, it's spreading in areas that it's never been found before. So in Congo, it's normally been isolated to rainforests, but now it's in mountainous areas and savannas too. It's also showing up in countries where it's rarely been seen before, like in South Africa and Ghana and Mariner's, Morocco. Of course, it's also in Europe and the United States, too. Monkeypox is now a global phenomenon, and that is a first for this virus. So who exactly is getting this bug? Well, in Africa, the spread is mostly in heterosexual people, within families, but in the rest of the world,

it's mostly or exclusively gay or bisexual men. So why is that? Why are we seeing this spread both more often and in new groups of people? Well, initial tests show, showed that the virus has mutated many more times than what we would have expected. So why the sudden mutations? Nobody is quite sure. But the good news to date, or so we have been told, is that there is a vaccine for this virus. Well, two, actually. One is quite old, and it was long used for smallpox, which of course is a viral cousin of monkeypox. Now, this old vaccine has lots of side effects, unfortunately, but the new vaccine is supposed to be safer with fewer side effects, and it works against monkey pox and not just smallpox. And that's where critics are saying that the CDC and the

federal government aren't being honest with the American people. So here's what we know, and probably what you haven't heard, based on a remarkable set of information from the Atlantic magazine. The Genios vaccine, that's the new vaccine, it is currently being injected into upward of 1.6 million Americans. Now, while the vaccine is approved to prevent monkeypox infection, very little is actually known about how effective it really is. Now, to appreciate why, you have to understand that the shot was only authorized back in 2019. There were never any large-scale clinical trials in humans.

Instead, researchers only conducted lab tests and animal experiments. So the most that scientists can say is that this new vaccine does two things for sure. First, it produces similar numbers of antibodies as compared to the older vaccine. And second, that it protects lab monkeys. Now, what we don't know is how well it guards against disease, infection, or the duration of protection in humans. Also, scientists aren't sure if the vaccine stops transmission of the virus to other people or if it just protects the person who gets the jab.

So based on this limited research and understanding of the vaccine, one vaccinologist at the Oregon Health and Sciences University said, quote, I don't necessarily trust making clinical decisions just based on those lab and monkey trials. Well, if there is a lack of trust based on these issues, what I'm about to tell you, that's not going to help. That's because just days ago, the Food and Drug Administration,

or FDA changed up the protocol for the dosing of this vaccine and how it's injected. So here's why they did it. Remember that I mentioned just a little bit ago that the federal government estimates that there are 1.6 million people who need this vaccine in this country? Well, the U.S. government only has about 600,000 doses. So we are a million short. Well, that left the folks at the CDC and the FDA and others in the federal government to scramble for a solution.

Well, they first asked the... vaccine manufacturer to send us more, but for now that is not going to happen. They are swamped with orders from around the world. So our government experts had another idea. There's a small old study from 2015 that looked at cutting the dose of the vaccine to a fraction of the prescribed strength. Now, the study did suggest that you probably could do so and you wouldn't lose any protection. And if that were true, that could mean that inside the vials of the 600,000 jabs were actually millions of jabs. Now, this idea would require not only cutting the dosage, but also how the vaccine is actually injected into the body. So instead of deep into the

fat of the arm, they now have to place it just under the skin. So without getting into the science of why that could probably work, the federal government decided, well, let's give it a try. So the FDA issued an emergency authorization just a short time ago, and public health officials from around the country are adopting that advice. But again, to emphasize, there's already very limited data on whether the vaccine works at the prescribed dose placed deep an arm, let alone these new lower doses and the shallower injection site. And that led the vaccine's manufacturer to say that they, quote, have reservations about this new approach due to the very limited safety data available, end quote. They're also very concerned about the fact that more people experience more severe reactions

when the vaccine was injected in that very shallow area versus deep into the arm. So overall, the vaccine manufacturer said that this untested approach, quote, may have a negative impact on vaccine uptake and coverage, end quote. In other words, they have no idea whether or not this will work and whether or how safe it might be. An infection disease physician at the University of Alabama Birmingham was asked about all of this by a reporter. And this doctor said, as diplomatically as one could, we are, she said, in a very data thin zone. One final concern the doctors highlighted. The new untested injection method is rarely used for vaccines of any kind. And that's because needles can go slightly too deep in the skin, and that slashes effectiveness,

or too shallow, and that lets the vaccine ooze back out. So the injectors have to have additional training plus very specialized needles. So, my friends, those are the facts about the monkeypox vaccine and how your government is handling this public health emergency. Now, as always, I defer to you on what to make of all of this, but if I were briefing you in the White House this morning, here would be my opinion and counsel based on this data. Simply put, there are 1.6 million Americans being made guinea pigs again. And that may well damage trust in public health officials again. So we spent the last two years over promising and

under-delivering on the COVID vaccine. So remember, for months, the CDC and others insisted that COVID vaccines would prevent people from ever getting infected. And then when that was proven wrong, the CDC and others said that it was rare that people would get infected post-vaccination. They called it a breakthrough infection. But when those breakthrough infections clearly weren't rare, the CDC and others said, well, you will still be protected, but you should probably get a booster. In fact, maybe two, because the benefit actually wears off faster than we anticipated.

Putting aside one's belief about that vaccine, the point is that the CDC and the federal government ended up destroying the trust that the American people had in our public health officials. And it appears with this monkeypox vaccine, they are doing it all over again. We've got very little actual science, a handful of modest studies, we've got an emergency authorization, and no real disclosure to those injected that, frankly, they are taking part in an experiment. they are guinea pigs. And that's okay if people are informed, but that doesn't appear to be the case here. As I prepared this brief for you, I looked on the public health websites for cities and counties in New York, Los Angeles, and other major cities where the monkeypox outbreaks are centered. And I didn't see any of these caveats or warnings about the vaccine, the lack of studies, or the increased rates of side effects with this new dosing and injection protocol.

So from my optic friends, what is happening right now is just confirmation of my reaction yesterday when I saw that the CDC was promising big reforms. It's all talk, unfortunately. And once again, I fear that too many Americans are going to pay the price for their hot air. Coming up, ladies and gentlemen, a closer look at what's on my radar. Two quick briefs for you on the mega drought affecting the western United States. Got some bad news and some good news. We'll be right back.

Some follow the noise. Bloomberg follows the money, whether it's the funds fueling AI or crypto's trillion dollar swings. There's a money side to every story. Get the money side of the story. Subscribe now at Bloomberg.com. Welcome back to the PDB. As always, I'm watching a few other stories this morning, both connected to the mega

drought hitting the American West and Southwest today. So let's first talk about that drought. If you've been watching the news, you know that for years, the west and the southwest of this country have been missing their big snow packs in the wintertime and also good rains in the spring and summer. Now, droughts are nothing new to the West. Anybody who has lived there or studied the region knows that droughts are a natural part of life. But this drought is especially bad. Back in 2020, there was a team of researchers who studied how bad this current drought is historically.

and they looked at tree rings and other tricks of science to peer back into time. And they produced a very sobering report in the academic journal Science. That report showed that the current drought, which started around the year 2000, is the second worst drought on record since at least the late 800s. Again, not the 1800s, the 800s over 1,200 years ago. The worst drought in the West, by the way, started in the late 1500s and lasted for a about 30 years. But regardless, this current one is pretty bad. So first, let's talk about how it's affecting cotton growers. Reports are out this morning that growers have abandoned millions

of acres that they planted this spring, all due to the drought. U.S. agricultural forecasters expect farmers to walk away from more than 40% of the 12.5 million acres that they sowed. And the harvest will likely be the smallest area since reconstruction. In the high plains, of the Texas panhandle, there was a farmer who shared with reporters that he's only gotten three inches of rain since last August. Normally, he'd have 18 inches by now. There's another farmer in Lubbock, Texas who was interviewed, and he reported that some 90% of cotton fields have all been abandoned in his hometown. So both of those gentlemen had crop insurance, so they will survive for another season. But meanwhile, consumers like you and I are going to pay the price. Cotton futures shot

up to about a buck 50 a pound in May, dropped to about 90 cents last month, but are now heading back north to about a buck 15. So those gyrations and the supply issue may well affect prices that you pay for things like clothes and betting. So we'll see, of course, but regardless, I'll keep my eye on it. Finally, we do have some good news to report on this mega drought. It's not much, but we'll take it. for the first time in three years lake mead's water levels have gone up lake mead of course is the largest reservoir in the united states formed by the hoover dam on the colorado river and it provides lots of electricity for tons of people in nevada and arizona but since the year 2000 water levels have been falling in that reservoir down 170 feet in fact that's the lowest that it has been since the 1930s

but since late July it's come back out 18 inches and that's because of the summer monsoons the Las Vegas Valley in fact is the wetest it has been in a decade still Lake Mead sits at 27% of capacity and the dam is very close to losing its ability to generate power and that would have disastrous consequences for the people and the economy of the southwest so all in all for our radar stories today I think the upshot is let's pray for rain and for our farmers. And with that, one more thing before I let you go. Jack from Warwick, Rhode Island, he wrote in asking, what advice I might give to a president about what they should or shouldn't take from the White House when they leave office? So that question was connected to the brief that I

gave you about the FBI raiding the home of former President Donald Trump, allegedly based on classified material that he took when he left office. So we're going to talk about that and see if you agree with my advice. We'll be right back. Own it all. Pay off your home, travel for life, drive a Ferrari. In celebration of the world premiere of the Monopoly, big board buck slot machine by aristocrat gaming,

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Taxes and fees extra. See full terms at mintmobile.com. Welcome back to the PDB, ladies and gentlemen. I've got one more thing for you before I let you go. Jack from Warwick, Rhode Island, wrote in with a really great question. So here's what he said. Brian, when you talk about the FBI raid, it made me wonder, what advice would you have given Trump about what he should or shouldn't have taken from the White House when he left?

So I love this question, Jack, and I'm going to talk. some about Trump, but more about what habits that we should be encouraging of all presidents, regardless of person or party, when they leave the White House. But first, to emphasize, we don't know what Trump did or didn't take from the White House. That FBI affidavit is still sealed as of this morning. And second, according to that 1988 Supreme Court ruling that I talked you all about previously, the president has wide authority to declassify, well, virtually everything. And because of that, he can actually take whatever he'd like so long as he declassifies it before he leaves the White House. But still, Jack, your question is fair. You're asking

what a president should do, not what they are allowed to do. So I'm going to use my time at the CIA to guide this advice. And it's based on an old principle that some of my listeners in the intelligence community know all too well. It's the principle of need to know. So, let's define that by imagining that you and I are in the CIA headquarters this morning in Langley, Virginia. And I work on, say, North Korea issues, and you work on Ukrainian operations. Now, we both have active top secret security clearances. We've both been polygraphed. In other words, we should be trustworthy. So would it be a problem if I shared with you what I was working on regarding our North Korean operations? And would it be okay if you shared with me about your operations

inside of Ukraine? Well, the answer is, no, it wouldn't be right. In fact, many officers would swap stories about operations or their secret agents all around the world. And then a bunch of those agents started dying. And I can't tell you a ton of information about what exactly happened, but basically, another country recruited a CIA officer and turned him into one of their spies. And he gave up a lot of information, projects that he was working on, and projects that he was working on, and projects that his CIA friends were working on. And all of those operations were compromised. So now there is a culture at the CIA of need to know.

If I'm working on North Korean operations, my friends working in Ukraine, well, they have no need to know anything about my work unless they can demonstrate a good reason to. So we compartment that information from each other, even though we all have security clearances. Okay, so let's talk about how that might apply to the Oval Office. The president has a need to know everything while they are president.

I think we can all hopefully agree on that. But what about when they leave office? Now, obviously, they can't erase what they know in their heads, classified or otherwise, but still, they have a lifelong obligation to use discernment on how or if they can ever share that secret information. So that's why I would offer President Trump or any president three sets of questions to ask themselves as they discern what to do. First, do you still have a need to know and share that information once you leave the White House? So remember here, I said a need to know and share, not a want to know and share. In other words, what is the need and how will you use it? Second, did the people around you have a need to know and share that information, even if you

declassified that information? In other words, what would there need be to use it and discuss it? Finally, could the country's safety and security be compromised if you take or share that information, even if you declassify it? In other words, is there any potential damage? So that's the advice that I would offer, Jack, careful discernment based on a need to know and share. So did Trump and his team used that discernment and use it well? Was there good reason for them to declassify and take that information? Well, I would hope so, and I think so. But that's why it is so important for that FBI affidavit to be made public.

We could confirm very quickly whether the FBI's raid was a political hit job or it was a necessary step to protect the country. And that, ladies and gentlemen, concludes your morning brief. As always, we close out the show reminding each other of why we are here. here, talking about our country and our world. It's the creed of every good spy and every smart American. It's from John chapter 8, verse 32. And you shall know the truth. And the truth shall make you free. Good day.