UNBIASED - August 13, 2026: Trump's Vaccine Order, Fauci's Pregnancy Texts, ICE’s Electric Shock Gloves, USS Lincoln Sailors Overboard, and More.

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

Get the facts, without the spin. UNBIASED offers a clear, impartial recap of US news, including politics, elections, legal news, and more. Hosted by lawyer Jordan Berman, each episode provides a recap of current political events plus breakdowns of complex concepts—like constitutional rights, recent Supreme Court rulings, and new legislation—in an easy-to-understand way. No personal opinions, just the facts you need to stay informed on the daily news that matters. If you miss how journalism used to be, you're in the right place. In today's episode: Trump Issues Childhood Vaccine Executive Order. Here's What It Says and What It Means. (0:53) What We Know About Trump's Decoy Plan Out of Turkey (~18:03) DOJ Office of Legal Counsel Issues New Opinion Expanding Executive Privilege (~25:37) ICE Intends to Purchase New Electric Show Gloves. Here's What to Know. (~33:38) Senators Release Fauci's Text Messages About COVID Vaccines for Pregnant Women (~38:50) Quick Hitters (~43:42) Rumor Has It: Are Sailors Aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln Jumping Overboard? (~48:43) Critical Thinking Segment (~52:20) ⁠Watch⁠ this episode on YouTube. Follow Jordan on ⁠Instagram⁠ and ⁠TikTok⁠. All sources for this episode can be found ⁠here.⁠  Scammers are everywhere! But they can't harm you, if they can't find you! Use code JORDAN at https://incogni.com/jordan and get 60% off an annual plan! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. It's Thursday, August 13th, and we're talking about Trump's childhood vaccine executive order. Fauci's texts about COVID vaccines during pregnancy, a new DOJ memo, expanding executive privilege, what we know about Trump's decoy, out of Turkey, and much more. By the way, I do just want to say thank you so much for your suggestions. I asked you Monday to email me some show feedback and you guys definitely delivered. So thank you again for that. Some of that feedback I'm actually going to start immediately implementing. Some it's going to take, you know, a little bit longer just because there's other things I have to do and it's not

solely on me to execute. But either way, I really, really appreciate all of that feedback. And I look forward to making the show even better. So let's get into today's stories. We're going to start with the childhood vaccine executive order. And before we really get into the details of what this order says, I do just want to clear up exactly what's happening here because you might have seen this story described as Trump cutting the childhood vaccine schedule from 18 vaccines down to 11. And that's kind of what happened. But basically, the administration wants to go from a childhood schedule that covers 18 diseases for all kids to one where 11 are treated as the core vaccines for all kids. And then the remaining immunizations are either recommended for higher risk kids or left

for families and their doctors to decide through a shared decision-making process. So let's get a little more specific and actually talk about what the order says. Through this order, the administration is creating what it calls the gold standard childhood vaccine recommendations. And under these new gold standard recommendations, the administration says all children should be immunized against the following 11 diseases. Measles, mumps, rebella, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, or whooping cough, polio, hemophilus influenza type B, pneumococcal disease, HPV, and varicella, also known as chickenpox. Now, that doesn't mean the administration is saying children shouldn't receive any other vaccines. What the administration is trying to do is divide the remaining

vaccines into two different categories. So you have children in high-risk groups, and then you have shared clinical decision-making. So some vaccines would be recommended specifically for children in high-risk groups, and these include RSV monoclonal antibodies, hepatitis A, hepatitis B, meningoccal B, meningoccal ACW-Y, and Dengay. Then there's this third category called shared clinical decision-making. And the idea is that the parent and the doctor look at this specific child and assess their health, their risk factors, their circumstances, the family's preferences, and then decide together whether that child should get the vaccine. And that category includes hepatitis A and B, rhodovirus, meningococcal disease, influenza, and COVID. Now, some vaccines

do appear in both categories, both the high-risk category and shared decision-making category because they can be specifically recommended for high-risk children while still being an option for other children through the decision-making process. Then the order also proposes a change to how vaccines are given. So right now, measles, mumps, and rebella are generally given together in the MMR vaccine. But Trump is calling for those eventually to be available as three individual vaccines and says that once those products are available here in the United States, the three diseases should be vaccinated against separately. Now, right now, that is not possible in the United States. The FDA currently has two combination MMR vaccines approved, but individual measles bumps and

rebella vaccines are not currently available in the United States. Then the order says that to the maximum extent feasible, childhood immunizations should be administered at separate medical visits. So the administration is basically trying to move away from giving children. multiple immunizations during the same doctor's appointment, whenever possible, and space them out at different appointments. So per the order, HHS now has 90 days to come back with a plan for how to make some of this happen, right? HHS is also being directed to study the ideal timing and sequence of childhood vaccines, to continuously evaluate the risks and benefits of the vaccines, improve vaccine safety monitoring, and develop and study alternatives to aluminum

based vaccine adjuvants. And just to quickly talk about what an adjuven is, an adjuvant is an ingredient that's added to certain vaccines to help stimulate a stronger immune response. And aluminum salts have been used as vaccine adjuvants for decades. Now, this order is not banning aluminum-based adjuvants, but it is directing HHS to look into alternatives and conduct comparative safety and effectiveness studies. So why is the administration doing all of this? Well, the argument from the Trump administration is that America has gradually developed a much larger universal childhood immunization schedule than comparable developed countries. And it doesn't believe that every vaccine that could benefit some children necessarily needs to be recommended automatically

for every child. So HHS conducted this review of 20 developed peer countries and concluded that the United States recommends more childhood vaccine doses than any of the countries it looked at, and more than twice as many doses as some European countries. For example, Japan recommends vaccinations for 14 diseases, which was the most of the countries HHS reviewed besides the United States. Germany recommends vaccinations for 15 diseases. Norway recommends vaccinations for 11 diseases and Denmark 10 diseases. So based on that data, HHS essentially identified this group of immunizations against 11

diseases that are recommended almost universally across these peer countries and use that as the foundation for these 11 core recommendations that will continue to be recommended for all children. Now, for some of the vaccines that moved out of the universal category, HHS looked at the risk of the disease to an average American child and asked whether routinely vaccinating every child makes sense or whether the decision should depend more on individual risks. So take rhodovirus as an example. The HHS assessment acknowledges that rhodovirus can cause hospitalization in American children and that the current vaccines do reduce disease. But the assessment argues that deaths from rhodovirus in the United States are extremely rare and points out that several peer countries

don't universally recommend the rhodovirus vaccine. So the report therefore concludes that reasonable people can weigh that risk benefit calculation differently. And as a result, you know, the HHS or the federal government recommends keeping the vaccine available through shared decision-making instead of just universally recommending it. And it makes similar arguments with some of the other vaccines as well. So hepatitis A, for example, HHS points to the relatively low incidence and mortality in the United States and argues that children with greater exposure risks, like children who are traveling to areas where hepatitis A is more common, stand to benefit more from getting the vaccine.

For hepatitis B, this new framework specifically recommends vaccination at birth when the mother tests positive for hepatitis B or when the mother's status is unknown. But if the mother test negative, it becomes more of an individual decision between the parents and their doctor about whether to give the vaccine a birth or start the series later. The administration also argues that there are gaps in what we know about some of the long-term vaccine risks, interactions between vaccines, and the overall vaccine schedule and says that those questions deserve additional research rather than just being treated as settled. It argues that giving parents more choice and being more transparent about uncertainty could actually increase trust in the vaccines that are generally agreed upon. Now, there's a very different argument coming from major medical organizations. The American Academy of Pediatrics, American Medical Association, and Infectious Diseases Society of America have all come out strongly against this order.

And their argument is that the administration has not presented any new evidence that shows that the existing childhood schedule has safety issues that require this sort of overhaul or that separating vaccines would make children safer. They argue that the existing schedule was already designed around when children face particular disease risks, how vaccines perform at different ages, and available safety data. So they argue the administration hasn't set forth a scientific reason to change it now. And they're particularly concerned about the spacing out part of this. Their concern is that if something that currently requires only one doctor's appointment, now requires multiple appointments, there are then more opportunities for a child to either miss an appointment or just never finish the series of shots.

And it also means that depending on how far apart those appointments are, a child might spend more time without protection against a disease than they might otherwise spend under the existing schedule. These medical organizations have also pushed back on the comparison to other countries. They argue that the fact that another developed country recommends fewer vaccines doesn't necessarily tell you what the U.S. should recommend because countries can have different disease patterns, different health care systems, different vaccination programs, things like that. For example, some European countries routinely recommend vaccines for diseases that aren't routinely

recommended in the United States, like tick-borne encephalitis, because that disease is much more common in certain parts of Europe. And then when it comes to giving multiple vaccines during the same appointment, these medical groups argue that this isn't something doctors just did for convenience. The timing and co-administration of vaccines has been studied. So they say there should be evidence of an actual benefit before moving toward spaced out appointments. So if you really strip all this down, the argument for the change is basically that not every vaccine that could help some kids necessarily needs to be something the federal government recommends for every single child. Supporters also argue that parents and doctors should have more room to look at a kid's actual risk, be able to make some of these decisions individually, and weigh certain things like timing, combinations, and long-term safety. The argument against the change is that the current schedule has already been studied for years,

and critics say the administration hasn't shown that giving multiple vaccines together is unsafe or that spacing them out is any safer. And they worry that if you turn one doctor's visit into three or four, some kids will go longer without protection or just never end up getting all of the shots. So what actually changes now that Trump signed this? I think that's an important part of this discussion. And the answer is a little bit complicated. okay so this executive order establishes the administration's preferred federal vaccination policy it also directs federal agencies to take whatever lawful steps they can to advance this policy but it doesn't rewrite the country's vaccine rules for starters school vaccination requirements are primarily

determined by the states not the federal government so if your state currently requires your child to receive certain vaccines to attend school this executive order doesn't change that now with That said, Trump is encouraging states to review their laws and consider aligning them with these new federal recommendations. And he's also directed the DOJ to support what the order calls meritorious legal challenges to state vaccine laws when the administration thinks that those laws violate federal protections that involve parental authority, religious liberty, disability accommodations, or equal protection. But again, school vaccination requirements are primarily determined by the states. This executive order does not change that. I know,

some of you are also wondering whether moving some of these vaccines out of the recommended for all children category means that insurance will stop paying for them. For now, the answer is no. Under the administration's plan, HHS says vaccines in the high risk and shared decision categories should still be covered without cost sharing and federal agencies have been directed to keep that coverage in place. With that said, vaccine recommendations and insurance coverage are connected under federal law. So if the CDC or ACIP formally changes their recommendations down the road, that could raise some separate coverage questions. But this order itself does not tell insurers to stop paying for these vaccines. Something else worth mentioning is that the Trump administration actually tried to put essentially

this same 11 disease framework into the CDC's official childhood vaccine scheduled back in January. Medical groups sued over it. And in March, a federal judge, temporarily blocked or temporarily stayed that change while the lawsuit continues. And a stay just means that a policy is put on hold while the court works through whether the policy was legally adopted. The judge in that case found that the medical groups were likely to succeed in arguing that HHS and CDC violated administrative law because they bypass the traditional vaccine advisory process and because the reconstituted ACIP likely didn't comply with federal requirements

governing advisory committees. Now, that was a preliminary decision to stay the vaccine schedule. It wasn't a final decision on the ultimate merits of the case, but because of that ruling, the CDC's website still shows the July 2025 childhood immunization schedule as its current schedule. So right now, we essentially have the president formally declaring a vaccine policy for his administration, but the actual CDC schedule is still operating under the older framework because the federal court put the administration's earlier attempt to change it on hold. Just to be very clear, though, this executive order itself, it can direct federal agencies to do certain things. It can establish the administration's policy, but it doesn't automatically

replace the CDC's vaccine schedule or override that federal court order that blocks the administration's earlier attempt to change it. So actually implementing some of these changes, will require additional agency action, potentially even another round in court. Let's take our first break here. When we come back, we'll talk about Trump's decoy out of Turkey, this new executive privilege memo, and more. Welcome back. This next story is pretty interesting because we're now learning what was actually happening

behind the scenes when Trump left the NATO summit in Turkey last month. And when we initially covered this story, you know, we talked about the fact that U.S. officials had said that there was a security concern that caused. Trump to not fly on the Qatari gifted plane and instead fly on the older presidential 747. And at the time, even that coming out, President Trump was, you know, a little surprised by that information coming out. He didn't want that information to come out. But now it seems that it was even more secret than any of us had even thought back then. So Trump has now confirmed that he did secretly switch planes before he left Turkey because of a security threat.

So we have to go back to July 8th, which was the final day of the NATO summit in Turkey. And that day, Trump had posted on Truth Social that the Qatari-gifted plane that he took to the NATO summit was being sent to Raff Mildenhull in the UK so that American service members at Raff Mildenhall could tour the plane. And Trump said, quote, for old time's sake, end quote, he would instead take the older blue and white presidential 747 from Turkey to the U.S. UK. Then once he got to the UK, he would get on board the Katari gifted plane and take that the rest of the way home, you know, once the U.S. service members had a chance to tour it. So that Katari gifted plane actually left Turkey first and got to Mildenhall before Trump even left Turkey. Then at around 8.24 p.m., Trump got to the airport in Turkey, walked up the stairs of that older presidential plane, waved, went inside. And as far as we knew, that was it.

the plane, you know, eventually took off and headed to the UK. But we've since learned that Trump didn't stay on the plane. A few minutes after he boarded the plane, a catering truck can be seen pulling away from the other side of the plane. And we now know that Trump was inside that catering truck. He had apparently gone through the plane and somehow exited the plane into the catering truck without being seen. And the truck then drove across the tarmac to another U.S. Air Force plane, which was parked nearby, and Trump got on that plane. That plane was a C-32A, which is basically a specially configured military version of a Boeing 757. It's typically used to transport senior government officials.

Actually, the vice president often flies on one. It's a lot smaller than the big presidential 747. But yeah, so Trump boarded that C-32A along with a small group of AIDS. Those aides included Dan Scavino, Natalie Harp, and Walt Nuwana. and off they went to the UK, flying behind the 747 that everyone thought Trump was on. And just a fun Air Force One fact here, we actually talked about this when we initially covered his trip from Turkey to the UK. But technically, Air Force One is not the name of a specific plane. A lot of people think that the presidential plane is called Air Force One. Air Force One is actually

the call sign given to an Air Force aircraft whenever the president is on it. So once Trump moved to this smaller C-32A, the presidential 747 that everyone thought was Air Force One actually wasn't because it wasn't carrying the president. It was actually that C-32A that was Air Force One for that trip. So just a little fun fact for you. As Trump was flying in the C-32A, the blue and white 747, the presidential 747 was carrying other administration officials like Secretary of State Marker Rubio, Churchery's Secretary Scott Bessent, of the White House staff, the traveling press corps. They were all in the presidential 747. And you might remember actually, so reporters on the 747 were told to keep their window shades

completely closed as they left Turkey. And when Trump was asked about it later by some of the reporters who were on the plane, Trump acted like he didn't really know what they were talking about. And he actually said they didn't tell me to close my window, which we now know is likely true because he wasn't even on the 747. So that's just a little interesting. tidbit. But apparently, Rubio and Besson were some of the only people who were aware that Trump had switched planes. Most other White House staff and the reporters had no idea. Now, once Trump's plane and the 747 got to Raf Mildenhall in the UK, Trump somehow made his way back to the 747 and exited the 747 in front of the cameras, which of course made it look like he had just flown in on

it from Turkey, right? A few minutes later, he boarded the Katari gifted plane. He took that plane home, which was part of his original plan. So what was all of this for? Well, we already knew the night Trump left Turkey that officials had raised concerns about threats from Iran. And at the time, those security concerns were reportedly the reason that Trump was switching from the newer Qatari gifted plane to the older presidential plane. What we obviously didn't know was that he wasn't actually going to fly on the presidential plane either. Some reports now say that the NSA, CIA, and Turkey's intelligence service had picked up information

about a potential Iranian plot to fire a surface-to-air missile at the 747. And there were reports that officials had information about a possible team in Turkey that was assigned to carry out the attack. Officials ultimately didn't find said team and no missile was ever fired. But that is reportedly the information that officials had. Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Trump said the Secret Service and military told him they wanted him on a different plane. And he went along with their recommendation. He said he wasn't given many details about the specific threat because, as he put it, quote, I get a lot of threats. And quote.

Now, one of the big questions coming out of all of this is what about everyone who is still on the other plane? Because as we talked about, the 747, took off carrying cabinet officials, White House staff, and journalists. And most of them had no idea. They were part of a decoy operation. But officials familiar with the operation have said they were dealing with what they thought was an imminent threat and they didn't have a lot of time to come up with a plan. However, another source that was briefed on the threat said officials had had information about an intent to attack Trump, but they didn't have evidence of a clear plan for actually carrying it out, which is apparently part of why they ultimately determined that both planes could still safely take off. And just for some added context here, I feel like people are wondering, you know, is this normal? Do presidents do this?

Using decoy planes or secretly changing a president's travel plans because of a security threat, it's not totally unheard of. It doesn't happen often, but it's not totally unprecedented either. Back in 2000, when President Clinton flew into Pakistan, he traveled on an unmarked plane, well, another aircraft that looked like a presidential plane was used as a decoy. And presidents from both parties have also made secretive trips into places like Iraq and Afghanistan. What does seem a little different here is that in past cases, once the president was safely on the ground or otherwise out of, you know, out of harm's way, the secret came out. Here, the public found out about the switch more than a month later. And typically, reporters on secret presidential trips can be told what's happening

ahead of time as long as they're sworn to secrecy. But in this case, most of the people traveling on the decoy plane apparently didn't know what was happening. So those two things make this situation a little bit different than past similar situations. Okay. Next up, the DOJ put out a new legal opinion this week about executive privilege. And essentially the DOJ is saying that if the president gets private advice about his official job, that conversation can potentially be protected by executive privilege, even if the person giving the advice doesn't work for the government. Now, just as a quick refresher, executive privilege is the president's ability to say, hey, certain conversations or information related to me doing my job as president have to stay

private. And the idea is that presidents have to have candid conversations without everyone involved in those conversations, wondering if that conversation is eventually going to get out, whether it's, you know, going to end up in court or end up before Congress, something like that. There are different types of executive privilege. The one we're talking about here is called the presidential communications privilege. So the DOJ's Office of Legal Counsel or OLC put out this legal opinion that answers whether executive privilege can apply when the person advising the president doesn't work for the government. And the DOJ's answer is yes, at least sometimes. According to the memo, the fact that somebody is a private citizen does not automatically

mean their conversation with the president can't be protected. Instead, DOJ says three things have to be true. The conversation has to be about the president doing his official job. It has to be closely connected to the president or one of his top advisors, and the conversation actually has to be a private conversation, a confidential conversation. So long as those three things are true, it doesn't matter if the conversation is with an executive branch employee or a lawmaker or a private citizen or someone else. So let's say the president is weighing whether to impose new tariffs, and he decides he's going to call up the CEO of a company because he wants that CEO's advice on what to do. Well, that CEO obviously doesn't work at the White House, right? But under the DOJ's position, if the president is genuinely asking the

CEO for advice about an official presidential decision and that conversation is confidential, the administration could argue that the conversation is protected by executive privilege. And DOJ is using the term private advisor pretty broadly here. It says this could potentially include state officials, someone who works in another branch of the federal government other than the executive branch or members of the general public. Now, the closest thing we have to this new interpretation is a legal opinion from the OLC in 2007 during the George W. Bush administration. At that time, OLC said that certain confidential conversations between White House officials and people outside the executive branch, including people in Congress, could be protected by executive privilege.

But that opinion dealt specifically with the firing. of U.S. attorneys. This new memo goes further by explicitly laying out when that privilege can apply to private advisors. So people like outside experts, business leaders, even friends who are advising the president on official decisions. And DOJ's argument is that presidents have relied on unofficial advisors forever. Andrew Jackson famously had his quote unquote kitchen cabinet of friends and informal advisors. FDR had his quote unquote brain trust, which was composed of outside academics who helped advise him on policy. Lyndon Johnson had people outside the government who gave him advice on Vietnam. So DOJ is arguing that if presidents have always gotten advice from people

outside the government, why should the confidentiality of that advice disappear just because the person giving it isn't an executive branch employee? And a lot of the legal foundation here, by the way, comes from United States v. Nixon. So during Watergate, the Supreme Court acknowledged that presidents do need confidential conversations in order to get candid advice, but it also said that executive privilege is not absolute. And in Nixon's case, the need for evidence in the criminal case outweighed his confidentiality interests. So he had to turn those tapes over. The court essentially balanced those two competing interests. So this new DOJ opinion doesn't mean the president can just talk to anyone and call them an advisor and then suddenly make the conversation untouchable, right? For this type of

executive privilege to apply, the conversation still has to involve the president's official job. There still has to be a real connection to the president or one of his close advisors. And the conversation has to be confidential. And even then, this OSCE opinion isn't the final determiner. And we'll talk about that more in a second. But let's talk about what this means in practice. I want to give you a practical real world example. Let's say Congress is investigating how the president came to some sort of controversial policy

decision. Maybe it's a tariff decision. And lawmakers find out that he was privately getting advice from some billionaire CEO who doesn't work for the government. Well, Congress can subpoena the CEO and ask what they talked about. But under this new DOJ opinion, the White House could potentially say, no, no, no, no, no, that was confidential advice connected to an official presidential decision. So executive privilege applies here. You can't review that conversation. But whether executive privilege actually applies is a whole other question. And this is what I was getting at. out a second ago. DoJ doesn't get the final say here. OLC is basically the executive branch's in-house lawyer. So this opinion controls how the Trump administration interprets the law, but it doesn't

control Congress or the courts. So if there is a dispute over one of these conversations and the president asserts executive privilege, the dispute would eventually go before a judge and that judge would have to decide whether he or she agrees with the DOJ's interpretation, disagrees with the interpretation or draws the line somewhere else. And that dispute could eventually make its way up to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court would be the final determiner. So in OLC opinion, is not binding on the courts or Congress. Now, let's quickly talk about the arguments for and against. If you can't tell this is something I'm going to do more of. This is one of the most common pieces of feedback when I asked for feedback on Monday. You wanted the arguments on both sides of issues showcased a bit more.

So those who support this DOJ interpretation argue that presidents have to make decisions about pretty complicated things. And sometimes the person who knows the most about something related to that decision doesn't work for the federal government. Supporters also argue that the president should be able to ask those people for honest advice without them worrying that every conversation is going to become public or that they're going to get subpoenaed by Congress and have to explain everything that they said. Their concern is that if outside advisors don't think those conversations can remain confidential, then some people might just stop giving the president advice altogether. And if you have people outside the government who know a lot about a particular issue and they're not giving the president advice because of that fear, then that could be detrimental. The argument against the DOJ's interpretation is that once you start extending executive privilege to people outside the government, you potentially create a much bigger group of people whose conversations with the president can be protected from Congress.

So imagine a president is getting policy advice from that CEO we talked about earlier. Maybe that CEO could financially benefit from the policy being discussed. Well, in that case, Congress might have a pretty legitimate reason to want to know what was said and want to know whether that person influenced the president's decision. So critics are concerned that this broader interpretation can make it easier for a president to keep, those kinds of relationships and conversations from the public. But again, just so we're all on the same page, just because the president asserts executive privilege doesn't necessarily mean they're entitled to executive privilege. Depending on the situation, Congress, prosecutors, or courts can,

you know, argue that the need for information is strong enough to outweigh the president's confidentiality interests. Okay. Next story. On Monday, DHS published a notice saying ICE plans to purchase thousands of something called G-L-O-V-E, which stands for generated low-output voltage emitter. DHS estimates the contract will be worth somewhere between $10 and $20 million, though I do want to clarify, ICE has not actually bought these gloves yet. This is essentially a notice saying that a DHS intends to buy them. We don't know when they're going to buy them. We don't know how many. We don't know any of that. So what are they? They look like normal gloves, but they have an electrical mode. And if an officer activates the electrical mode,

the glove will basically shock someone if it touches their skin. So imagine an officer is trying to rest someone who's resisting arrest, right? And the officer is trying to get that person's arms behind their back to handcuff them. Well, instead of using a taser or something, the officer, if the officer's wearing these gloves, could just activate the glove while they're holding on to the person and send a shock. Now, the company that makes them compliant technologies says they've already been used by police department's jails and other facilities around the country, and there are rules around how they're supposed to be used. Officers not only have to complete training before using them, but they have to get recertified every two years. And interestingly,

the version ICE plans to buy also keeps an electronic log whenever the electrical function is activated. So there would potentially be this record showing that an officer used the glove, but obviously that record wouldn't tell you why the glove was used or whether the use was justified. The argument for giving ICE officers these gloves is that once an encounter becomes physical, officers should have more options to get the person under control without escalating to something potentially more dangerous, like using a gun. Supporters argue that if a short electrical stimulus can end a physical struggle faster, it could potentially reduce injuries to both the officer and the person being arrested.

And because the officer has to physically touch the person to use it, it's meant only for those close hands-on confrontations where officers are already trying to restrain somebody. The argument against the gloves is that you're giving officers a tool specifically designed to cause pain that's sitting right there on their hand and can be activated with the flick of a switch. Critics worry that this could make it especially easy to overuse or use in situations where less force would have worked. And they also point to the fact that children, pregnant women, elderly people and people with disabilities, the same groups that the manufacturer's manual warns about using the device on are all groups ICE officers could potentially encounter.

So that's the deal. That's what we know. I think the biggest thing we still don't know is what ICE's actual policy for these gloves will look like, right? We also don't even know when ICE is buying them. But once ICE buys them, ICE has to come up with a policy as to how they're going to be used. So when exactly can an officer activate one? How much resistance does somebody have to show before use is justified? How long can the electrical stimulus last? What happens if an officer uses it outside of policy? Those are all questions that we don't yet have answers to. Let's take our second and final break here. When we come back, we'll talk about Fauci's text messages, and then we'll finish with quick hitters, rumor has it, and critical

thinking. Welcome back. Senators Rand Paul and Ron Johnson released a batch of text messages from Dr. Anthony Fauci's government phone. And the texts are getting attention because they show Fauci and other health officials talking about the possible risks of giving the COVID vaccine to pregnant women back in 2021. So let's go back to 2021, January 2021 to be specific, just to kind of talk about what was going on. At that point, the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines had only been available for a little over a month. And pregnant women had pretty much been left out of the original clinical trials. So officials didn't have a ton of pregnancy specific data yet.

And this text conversation was between Fauci, then CDC director, Rochelle Walenski, and Vivek Murthy, who at the time was Biden's nominee for Surgeon General, and they were talking about giving the vaccine to pregnant women. So Murthy asks the group chat, quote, for pregnant women considering getting the vaccine, are you aware of any data or theoretical reason why vaccinating early versus late in pregnancy would be preferred? I've been telling pregnant women that there hasn't been evidence of concerning adverse outcomes in the trials, though the number of pregnant subjects was likely limited. End quote. Wellensky then responds that they don't have much data yet, but the CDC had started tracking pregnant women through its pregnancy registry. Fauci responds saying there wasn't any

data or theoretical reason to think earlier or later in pregnancy was better. He added, quote, yet some people, even female health care professionals, feel concerned about injecting a genetic vaccine very early in pregnancy. There is this misperception out there that we will need to deal with that mRNA can somehow get into your genes. When the misperception gets extended to an early developing fetus, the anxiety heightens, end quote. Then a few minutes later, Fauci comes back to the group chat, and he says he's asked around a bit more, and there's another issue that came up.

He writes, quote, since many people have significant cytokines storm and fever after the second dose, this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the first trimester. End quote. Wollenski responds, quote, definitely a good point, especially. after dose two. End quote. Murthy also agrees it's a good point and adds that he had also been hearing those concerns about the mRNA causing mutations in the developing fetus.

Then the following day, Murthy sends Fauci and Walenski, a world health organization announcement that at the time advised against giving Moderna's vaccine to pregnant women due to a lack of data. Fauci essentially responds saying that it's a risk benefit decision. He said we don't have a ton of pregnancy-specific vaccine data, but we also know COVID itself can be more dangerous during pregnancy. And he pointed out that at that point, more than 10,000 pregnant women had already gotten the vaccine without any major safety issues being reported, that the FDA, ACIP, and ACOG were all permissive for pregnant women to have a

choice and that animal studies hadn't raised any red flags either. Murthy agreed with Fauci's take and said, quote, that's why I was surprised to see who saying they don't recommend Magerna and pregnant women. That's a strong statement to make and potentially quite damaging to public confidence among pregnant women. End quote. Now, the reason these texts are getting attention is because Senators Paul and Johnson argue that these texts show that federal health officials were privately discussing uncertainty and possible risks that weren't always communicated clearly enough to the public. They argue that if officials were talking behind closed doors about even a theoretical concern involving miscarriage, pregnant women should have been told explicitly something like,

hey, look, we don't have much data here yet. These are some of the things we're still trying to figure out. Publicly, at the time, health officials were acknowledging that data were limited and pregnant women who were otherwise eligible could choose to get vaccinated. It wasn't formally recommended in early 2021. The guidance at the time acknowledged that there were still questions that we didn't have answers to. But the public messaging also emphasized the reassuring information that was out at the time, such as the fact that thousands of pregnant women had already been vaccinated without an obvious issue. What these texts add is that privately, Fauci and these other health officials were discussing at least one specific theoretical concern involving miscarriage that wasn't necessarily

being emphasized publicly in the same way, in the same way as the more reassuring data points. eventually as more data came in, the guidance changed by August 2021. The CDC did go ahead and formally recommend COVID vaccines during pregnancy. And by the way, Republican lawmakers are currently reviewing more than 34,000 text messages and 522 voicemails. So this initial release is just a small portion of everything that they're looking at. All right, let's do some quick hitters. White House Press Secretary Caroline Levitt will leave her role at the end of August saying

she wants to spend more time with her children after recently returning for maternity leave. In a statement on social media, she wrote in part, quote, being a mother and welcoming a new baby while working in one of the most demanding jobs in the world has been the most rewarding yet challenging season of my life to say the least. The truth is, since returning to the White House after the birth of my daughter, I have felt in my heart that I cannot be the best mom my two young children deserve while devoting my constant time, energy, and attention required of the White House press secretary. And that is why I have ultimately made the bittersweet decision to depart the White House and embark on a new chapter of my life. And quote, President Trump

has said Leavitt will remain involved as a top outside advisor and Republican Party advocate. And the White House has not yet announced her replacement. Two U.S. Army soldiers were killed Wednesday when an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter crashed in a field near Salado, Texas, while operating out of Fort Hood. The crash sparked a grassfire but damaged no buildings, and the army has not released the soldiers' names or said what caused the crash. Tuesday night's primaries produced a few notable upsets at November matchups. In Minnesota, Lieutenant Governor Peggy Flanagan beat Representative Angie Craig for the Democratic Senate nomination,

while Republican Lisa Dumuth defeated Trump endorsed Mike Lindell for governor. In Wisconsin, David Crowley narrowly won the Democratic U.S. gubernatorial primary, and in Connecticut, former Hartford mayor, Luke Bronon, ousted longtime Democratic Representative John Larson. South Carolina's Republican Senate primary is headed to an August 25th runoff between Darlene Graham and Representative Ralph Norman. A federal grand jury has added Heidi Barrick as a defendant in the case against the Southern Poverty Law Center and added charges including conspiracy to commit wire fraud and making false

statements to a federally insured bank. The Southern Poverty Law Center was previously charged in an 11-count indictment returned in April 26 with wire fraud, false statements to a federally insured bank and conspiracy to commit concealment money laundering. But this second superseding indictment alleges that between 2007 and 2023, more than $4 million in donated funds, were secretly funneled to individuals associated with various violent extremist groups and concealed through financial accounts and fictitious entities. President Trump and members of his White House team are being sued by the Intercept and the Freedom of the Press Foundation over Truth Social's new paid API, which as we've talked about, charges customers for faster access to certain truth social posts, including potentially market-moving government announcements. The groups argue the arrangement violates the first and fifth amendments by giving paying customers preferential access to presidential communications, while Trump media says the posts are so publicly available and that,

paid APIs are common across media and technology companies. The Social Security Administration added 14 serious medical conditions to its compassionate allowances list, which allows disability claims involving certain severe diseases to be processed more quickly. The additions, including several rare genetic disorders and aggressive cancers, bring the list to 314 conditions. Applicants still must meet Social Security's disability requirements and provide supporting medical records. Flock Safety is introducing new safeguards for its license plate camera system following growing concerns about police misuse. The new safeguards include requiring searches to be tied to case numbers, automatically flagging unusual search activity, and locking users out pending review.

The company is also reducing its default data retention period from 30 days to seven days and allowing communities to restrict what types of investigations outside agencies can use their camera data for, such as blocking immigration enforcement searches. And if you do want to learn more about flock cameras, I did a 20-ish minute deep dive in Monday's episode, so definitely tune into that. Not political, but a single powerball ticket sold at a gas station in Quincy, Illinois, won last night's $1.04 billion jackpot, which is the largest powerball prize of 2026 and the eighth largest in the game's history. The winner who has not yet been identified can choose between the full amount paid as an annuity over 29 years or a $450 million lump sum before taxes. And new

unemployment claims rose to $209,000 last week up from $200,000 the week before and slightly above economists' expectations, but layoffs remain historically low. The broader label market is more mixed. Unemployment remains low at 4.1%, but hiring has been relatively weak, and this creates what economists have described as a no hire, no fire job market. It's time for rumor has it. My weekly segment where I do my best to either confirm, dispel, or add context to recent rumors submitted by all of you. Due to the length of today's episode, we have won. Rumor has it that sailors aboard USS Abraham Lincoln have tried to jump overboard as their deployment has been extended. This one is true. So the Abraham Lincoln left San Diego back in November. It was originally

expected to come home around May, but its deployment has since been extended because of the war in Iran. As of today, the roughly 5,000 soldiers and Marines on board have been deployed for nine months, including about 250 consecutive days at sea. A typical deployment is about six months. During this extended deployment, there have been reports of sailors attempting to go overboard. And today, actually, CNN reported that one sailor did go overboard and was quickly rescued. So within the last week, the Navy Times, which is one of two leading specialist military papers, reported on at least two incidents aboard the ship. In one incident, the wife of a sailor says her husband tried to jump from the ship and is now on medical hold. In another incident,

the wife of a different sailor says her husband found another crew member getting ready to go overboard and pulled that person back onto the deck. Then, Stars and Stripes, which is the second of the two leading specialist military papers separately reported that sailors described an incident where watch standards stopped a crew member from jumping. And today, CNN reported that two U.S. officials confirmed that a sailor did in fact go overboard last month. However, he was quickly rescued and subsequently medically evaluated. CNN noted that it wasn't immediately clear under what circumstances the sailor went overboard or whether the sailor returned to duty or was evacuated from the ship.

Now, because of these recent instances, Navy leadership did meet with the family members of sailors last week at an in-person meeting in San Diego. And at that meeting, various family members expressed their concerns about their loved ones on board with one spouse saying her husband had texted her that day, saying he hopes he doesn't wake up tomorrow. Navy leadership reportedly assured the family members that sailors aboard the ship had access to mental health workers, doctors, and that the Navy was working to send more mental health professionals to the ship. And yesterday, Senate Democrats wrote a letter to Defense Secretary Hegsteth asking for answers about conditions on board because in the background of all of this, there have been reports dating back to April of shortages of basic supplies, water contamination, plumbing issues, deteriorating mental health, of course, as well as deck safety concerns. In light of that letter, a Navy official told CBS news that the Lincoln is, quote, operating in a highly contested environment where traditional, supply hubs in the Middle East were disrupted by combat actions. In response, leadership prioritized mission critical supplies, first food, then hygiene items, then mail. Current reports from the ship confirm continuous access to clean water, functional AC, and healthy meal options.

And quote, the official also said, based on information available to the command, we have not identified an increase in reported suicidal ideation or suicide attempts aboard the ship. The Lincoln is providing a comprehensive support network, including on board deployment resilience counselors, chaplains, fleet and family support center services, military one source, and medical professionals. End quote. Now it's time for critical thinking. We are going all the way back to the first story in this episode, the vaccine executive

order. So if you support moving some vaccines out of the recommended for every child category because the disease is rare, ask yourself this. Could the disease be rare because the vaccine worked? And if so, how should that factor into the decision to stop routinely recommending it? Now, if you oppose changing the schedule because existing vaccines have been shown to be safe and effective, ask yourself this. Does safe and effective automatically means something should be routinely recommended for every child, regardless of how small that individual child's risk from the disease is?

And why? What's the justification? And finally, given the fact that the U.S. recommends more childhood immunizations than many peer countries, should that make you question the U.S. schedule or is comparing the number of vaccines too simplistic because different countries face different risks? What evidence would settle that for you? That's what I have for you. Thank you so much for being here, as always.

If you learned something from today's episode or just generally enjoyed it, please leave me a five-star review wherever you listen to podcasts. I really appreciate it. I hope you have a great weekend. And I will talk to you on Monday.