Will Cain Country - Most Important and Worst Presidents of All-time

Episode Date: February 19, 2024

Story #1: Ranking the five WORST presidents of all-time. Story #2: Should we be in fear of ‘Pandemic X?’ Who is creating it? Former director of the U.S. CDC, Dr. Robert Redfield, shares his concerns. Story #3: The author of The American Story: Building the Republic!, Tim Barton, explains how these men were the most important Presidents of the United States.   Tell Will what you thought about this podcast by emailing [e-mail] Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

One, happy presidents day, a ranking of the five worst presidents of all time. Two, should we be in fear of pandemic X? Who is creating Pandemic X right now? Now, where, the United States, and three, the most important presidents in the history of the United States. It is the Will Kane show, streaming live at Fox News.com and on the Fox News YouTube channel, always on demand, in audio format, at Apple, Spotify, or at Fox News podcast, just hit subscribe in the latest episode of the will cane show will show up right there in your feed at apple or spotify and always on demand in video format both in full and in our exclusive interviews

with exclusive content at a will cane show on youtube go hit subscribe will cane show on youtube today coming up on the show author tim barton on his new book which looks at the building of America, the founding of America, the seven original presidents, the American story, building the republic, a survey of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, John Quincy Adams, and Andrew Jackson. We'll talk to him about what made those men that helped them make America. And we will also talk about the five worst presidents in the history of America. now i have some personal perspective i think on analyzing losers i think i have some personal perspective on

what it understands to mean being the worst because i just ventured on a three-day weekend where i absolutely lost where i was virtually the worst i work for what it's worth as you know seven days a week five days a week here on the will cane show two days on the weekend on fox and friends and i took this last weekend off. It was great. I don't really have weekends in the way that so many people have weekends. I don't have unplanned. What are we going to do today, Saturday? I don't have let's hang out together as a family Sunday. I have partial days. And then I have planned days off where there might be a trip or there's some commitment. But this was three days of virtually unplanned family time. And I somehow managed to make those three days of leisure, three days of losing. It started with my personal

discipline. Over the past three days, I have eaten Mexican food. I've eaten Italian food. I've had my fair share of old fashions. I had a catfish po-boy. I took my boys to breakfast. It's always one of our favorite father, son, pastimes, just when possible, go sit down over a plate of pancakes and eggs and catch up on each other's lives. But at the end of the weekend, when you added it all up, every moment of indulgence added up to a weekend of indulgence, which I'm going to count when it comes to my discipline as a loss. I also went and watched, which I love to be able to do, one of my sons play soccer in Fort Worth,

Texas. Now, my son lost that game. He played well, but it was yet another entry in a catalog. of losing. And anybody that's a sports fan knows what it feels like after a weekend where your college team and your pro team lose or just something at the end. You're like, why do I feel down? I just feel like I've been losing. My son, who's beginning to enter his teenage years, not quite yet, though, but just early enough that he's starting to feel a little grumpy. I ask him sometimes, hey, where are you on a 1 to 10 scale? Where are you? And he'll tell me

I'm like a 3. I'm like an 8. Well, he sent me soaring on the charts because after he lost in real soccer we played FIFA we played a video game together and he slaughtered me he slaughtered me five to nothing and he's not the kind of person you'd like to lose to because he gets up and he celebrates and he yells in my face and he rubs it in and even as his father i'm happy that he gets a w but and i don't mind that i get a nil but i like any man after a while don't want that much trash talked right into my face so it's just another again chapter in the weekend of losing. My wife and I decided together

to watch the latest seasons of love is blind. And let's be real. That makes me a loser. And finally, to cap off the weekend, my two sons and I went along with some friends to shoot sporting clays. Sporting clays is a lot of fun. I grew up shooting trap.

I've shot skeet. I've hunted with a shotgun. But something's happened to me later in life. and I went to the doctor to talk about this, I cannot see out of my left eye far away, but my right eye is like an eagle. But up close when reading, my left eye can't see a thing in my right eye, or rather my left I can see everything in my right eye is blind. So I've got one eye doing all the work far away and one I do in all the work up close.

And he said, look, that's what a lot of people ask for when they get LASIC surgery because you don't have to have readers or glasses. I said, that's great, except I'm left-eye dominant when it comes to shooting a gun. So whenever I shoot a gun, I have to look down through the eye that can't see anything far away. So when it came to sporting clays, I slaughtered it on the instinctual ones that are up close, running fast far away or across. But anything that was up against the backdrop of blue sky was an absolute guess. And I got second to last to my youngest son, the 12-year-old.

So, a weekend of loserdom, to answer my son's question, I'm about an eight on the one to ten scale of grumpiness. After a weekend of loserdom, I am well placed to be able to rank for you the worst. And let's start with that with the worst presidents in American history. Story number one. This is inspired on President's Day by an article that was posted on Zero Head. about the worst presidents in American history. The Woats. We spend a lot of time talking about The Goats.

Is it Tom Brady? Is it Jack Nicholas? Is it Tiger Woods? Is it Michael Jordan? Is it LeBron James? We spend a lot of time, I think appropriately talking about the positive, the accomplished, the greatest of all time. But it might be appropriate. We're in later in this conversation, we're going to talk to author Tim Barton about some of the most important presidents in America.

to think about the worst presidents in American history. Now, admittedly, this is somewhat subjective, but as you've probably come to expect, I have a rationale. I have a reason for these five entries into the worst presidents in America. First, who did not make the cut, but had to be to some extent considered? Joe Biden did not make the cut. of one of the worst presidents in American history.

When I analyze the worst, I think, in two categories. Those who made, in my mind, negative fundamental transformation of the United States and those who were incompetent. Joe Biden's future promises to be able to rise very high in the rankings. Once we've seen the full impact of his presidency and can look back on the present, when it is in the past, when it is truly history, I think we're going to see that Joe Biden managed to accomplish both objectives to be both incompetent and transformational, negatively transformational.

But for now, I think history offers us much worse presidents. And in many ways, I'm a fan of President George W. Bush, but he has to be considered, if for no other reason, then the fundamental flaws in the war on terror. The 20 years we spent in Afghanistan, the failure in Iraq, and maybe the biggest transformation we were able to accomplish, which was when our domestic surveillance state by implementing the Patriot Act. I think those things would put him in the conversation. There are other things that I very much appreciate about George W. Bush, but those with a decade or more of hindsight are not good bullet points on your resume as president. But neither of those men made the top five worst. Here are the five worst presidents in American history.

Number five, Barack Obama. Barack Obama was fundamentally transformational. When Barack Obama ran for president in 2008 against John McCain, it was really one of the first times where I became more dedicatedly passionate about a politics in America. I had studied the law, went to the University of Texas law school. I'd voted throughout my life. I had cared. But when he arrived on the scene, Barack Obama, was when I saw. the choice that was before America. It was not a choice between the cool and hip versus the old

and yesterday. It was a choice between a vision of America that was undoubtedly more socialist versus at the time what we considered to be more conservative. Barack Obama did promise literally in his speeches to fundamentally change America. When he passed Obamacare, we thought it would be a fundamental change in the relationship between the individual and the state. In many ways it has been. It's been possibly, in retrospect, a small step forward on a long march of changing the relationship between the individual and the state, but it was still a step forward, or more appropriately, a step backwards in the true virtuous relationship between the individual and the state. What more, it's just objectively true that we can look at correlation between the races

and race relationships in the United States and see that it took a negative downward trend beginning with Obama. A moment that we thought was a time for America to come together in unity that was a great accomplishment on its surface for America, for America to elect a black president ended up clearly resulting in divisiveness. There are those that say that's because it's a reaction to a black president. But again, the nation elected a black president. It's instead, I think, of the presidency of Barack Obama was the beginning of leaning into your identity, was the beginning of the necessitation of divisiveness, that race essentialism, became a virtue. You are black. I am white. Instead of seeking to get beyond our literal

superficial differences and find our commonalities, it was the beginning of essentialism. That is core to our identity and who we are. I think we can all see from that point forward over the past decade plus, we have arrived at a place of regression when it comes to race relations in America. At number four, James Buchanan, among the worst presidents in American history. Now, in my ranking, in my estimation, presidents can arrive as some of the worst presidents in the United States by what they manage to achieve, achieve that is not a great leap forward for America. James Buchanan, and for that matter, his predecessor, Franklin Pierce, and for that matter,

the man that came after Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Johnson, are often characterized but what they could not do. They could not ward off a civil war. Buchanan accepted the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which further divided America. He, by some accounts, helped endorse or encourage the Dred Scott decision of the Supreme Court of the United States, pretty much universally considered the worst decision in the history of the United States Supreme Court, held that African-Americans could not be citizens of the United States, that had not people, as in referenced by the United States Constitution.

Buchanan didn't do a thing, didn't exert a bit of power, said it was beyond the realm of the federal government to keep states from seceding, said if they wanted to, as sovereigns, pursue their own future, then that was what they would be able to do. The Civil War resulted in almost a million deaths of Americans, and I think it would have been the job of any president to try to, to at least try to, stop. an American Civil War. At number three, worst presidents in America. Lyndon Baines Johnson. LBJ is possibly one of the most corrupt men to ever hold office in the United States. He is accused in his home state of Texas, my home state of Texas, a voter fraud, ballot stuffing, dead people voting in alphabetical order when running for lower office in the state of Texas. In the Senate, he's seen as a dealmaker, but he's also seen as a dealmaker.

but he's also seen as a man of low moral character. As a president, he called people into the John while he was taking a dump to hold meetings with his staff. But honestly, there's a lot of probably unsavory characters who've been president. LBJ managed to take that personality and reinstitute a vision of America that, again, like Obama was a step backwards in redefining. the relationship with the individual in the state, but he also stood on the shoulders of men who managed much more. First, on LBJ, the Great Society, the War on Poverty, both of which

managed to, when it comes to Medicare, and many people appreciate Medicare, but there is no doubt it made the individual more dependent upon the state. And the war on poverty was an abject failure, an ill-defined war with welfare-based policies that, for one, held African-Americans in some destroyed the African-American family and held them back in the name of advancement when it comes to fighting poverty. LBJ led and doubled down on a loss in Vietnam. And presidents are often awarded for what they do overseas and ignore what they do domestically. LBJ managed to fail both at home and abroad. But the second worst president in American history is FDR, Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Now, FDR is in many of the rankings considered one of the best presidents of all

time, and I don't trust any ranking of United States presidents. He's usually given that because of America's victory in World War II. But he's also given that because so many of the writers and historians who look back on history appreciate the not just socialist, but communist vision championed by FDR. FDR is perhaps the most transformational president. in American history. LBJ and Barack Obama stood on the shoulders of FDR. Of course, there was the New Deal. He was handed the Great Depression.

Most estimates now, like famous author, Amdii Shlays, are that he exacerbated the Great Depression. Increasing government spending doubled the federal budget in a matter of years, expanded the size and scope of the government, and none of it pulled us out of the Great Depression. In fact, it hurt in the name of Schley's book, the title, The Forgotten Man, the Working man. The truth is, the only thing that pulled America out of the Great Depression was World War II. And there are some suggestions and some intelligence. He knew of the coming of World War II. But LBJ within his first hundred days of office threatened to pack the United States Supreme Court. The Constitution stood in his way. The Supreme Court stood in his way. And he would have no problem tearing down that institution of checks and balances for our republic of standing in the way of FDR. he uh he managed to to create a society where it would look beyond the united states constitution

which is founded on negative rights and looked toward the soviet constitution which was based upon positive rights he drafted a document that looked and resembled a Soviet constitution where man would have a right to a home to vacation to leisure positive rights which by the way are some of the most insidious concepts in the natural rights clause or the naturalized concept of man, that you have a right to things. Of course, things don't just grow on trees. A right to medicine comes from another man's labor. And if you have a right to his labor, you have reduced him to a slave. But for FDR, positive rights meant a vision of America more similar to that of the Soviet Union.

But the worst presidents of American history at number one is Woodrow Wilson. Woodrow Wilson was the beginning of the transformation of the American government, of the relationship of the individual to the state, of the role of the United States government. Woodrow Wilson is a person, like LBJ, but perhaps in different ways. by most modern historian's accounts terrible. A huge racist who saw blacks as subhuman. Woodrow Wilson set about creating the Federal Reserve, the Federal Trade Commission,

most of the administrative state that we today see as not just out of control, but the true power in permanent Washington. Woodrow Wilson, although he did not institute the first income tax. He brought in the Revenue Act. I believe it was of 1913. He brought in a graduated income tax, which is the backbone of building the federal Leviathan. Woodrow Wilson created the League of Nations, the precursor to the United Nations, and saw seeing this world beyond the nation state, beyond Americans, as a globalist vision of a utopia that he, I guess,

would be able to articulate and steer. Woodrow Wilson is the beginning of everything today we look at at the American government and say, we wish it were not. He's the beginning of FDR. He's the beginning of LBJ. He's the beginning of Obama. And you add to that, his low moral character. And Woodrow Wilson is the worst president of all time.

Coming up a little bit later in the show, we're going to talk to author Tim Barton about his book, The American Story, the Building of the Republic, as opposed to the worst presence of all time. We'll talk about some of the most influential, including Washington, Jefferson, Madison, and Jackson. And who is working on Project X right now, pandemic X? Who's tinkering in a lab, engineering the worst virus you can imagine to unleash right here, perhaps inadvertently, but right here at home in America? That's coming up next with Dr. Robert Redfield here on the Wilcane show. I'm Janice Dean. Join me every Sunday as I focus on stories of hope and people who are truly rays of sunshine in their community and across the world. Listen and follow now at Fox Newspodcast.com. Following Fox's initial donation to the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund, our generous viewers have answered the call to action across all Fox platforms and have helped raise $7 million. visit go dot fox forward slash tx flood relief to support relief and rebuilding efforts welcome back to the will cane show streaming live at foxnews.com and on the fox

news youtube channel i posted a poll on my instagram asking people who the worst presidents of all time were i only gave them a few options because polls are limited on outlets like Instagram, but I gave them Woodrow Wilson, FDR, Joe Biden, and Barack Obama. Joe Biden, the overwhelming winner at 79% of responses as the worst president of all time. We're often a prisoner of the moment, recent history more powerful in our lives than distant history, even if we live with the echoes and the ripple effects of things done long ago, things done a century ago of things done by Woodrow Wilson. That's not to absolve Joe Biden, just to say it didn't quite crack my top five.

Who is working on Pandemic X? Is it being experimented on right here at home in the United States? Let's have a conversation about not just gain of function, but the risk to the world of what could be being done right here at home in the U.S. with Dr. Robert Redfield, the former director of the CDC, and he joins me now. on the Will Kane Show. Dr. Redfield, great to see you. Thanks to having me, Will. Let's start for a moment with COVID. It's suggested that the CDC may be reducing soon the isolation recommendations for people who are diagnosed with COVID. In the beginning, I believe it was 10 days. It's down to five days. States like California and Oregon have reduced it down to

24 hours after a fever breaks. But the CDC may meet in April and reduce their recommendations down from five days. Dr. Rayfield, I don't hear anybody talk about COVID in the world anymore. I have no idea how many people have COVID. I don't know if anybody's getting tested for COVID. Everybody gets sick, but I don't know. Does anybody have COVID? COVID's still a major problem. I just got news yesterday. My daughter and their whole household got COVID again. You know, people don't realize that COVID right now remains, if you take out the illicit drug use, COVID's the third leading cause of death in America right now. All right, that's a big deal. All right. A lot of people don't understand COVID really isn't a lung

disease. It's a blood vessel disease. And that's why people that are older or more risk for bad outcomes, people with hypertension, people with diabetes. So COVID's a big issue. It will continue to be a big issue, unfortunately, until the end of time. Lucky for us, it's largely not an illness that causes mortality or significant illness in those of us that are under 50, but it is a very significant cause of hospitalization and death and those of us at over 60, 65, 70. The projection for COVID from the beginning, and I believe this was something that you predicted as well, is that it would arrive at a place of community transmission. Basically, there's not much we can do, everyone will get COVID. But as it gains more contagion, it loses

its, as it gains its virality, it loses its danger. It becomes weaker and more easily spread. And that kind of goes back to where my anecdotal, just living in the world experience, seems to be playing out. I mean, I don't know. I don't know anybody who's getting tested anymore. This winter, it felt like a lot of people were sick. But I didn't have anybody say to me, I got COVID. So I don't know if everybody's just declining to get tested, which would make sense if it's dropping in mortality, right? If it's gaining virality but losing mortality, it becomes like a cold. Yeah, I think a lot of people, a lot of testing today is self-administered home testing, and that's really what drives it. There's very, not as much what you say, public health

testing, government-supported testing as there was, say, in the first year of the pandemic. And you are, I mean, there's an advantage to knowledge of infection in that you can take more steps not to infect other people, particularly because COVID largely in many people doesn't cause any symptoms. So you wouldn't know you had COVID. The only way you would know is if you actually tested yourself and found out you had COVID. My grandson right now, he's totally healthy. his mother has COVID, but they did test him. Of course, now he has COVID. If he was to go to school and there was a vulnerable teacher, say a teacher there with diabetes and hypertension that was over the age of 60, he could be a source of infecting that individual. So I think knowledge of

infection still matters, but I do agree with you, Will. I don't think it's being done with the rigor that it was done before. And I'm just trying to put our finger on the pulse of the current state of the American public when it comes to COVID. I saw a stat, and you can tell me if you think this is true, when it comes to the vaccine, there's so many different debates to be had around the vaccine, but it doesn't look like the American public is interested in keeping up with vaccine boosters and getting new shots.

The stat that I saw, Dr. Redfield, was at this point, 21% of the American population is up to date on the COVID vaccine. 12% of kids are up to date on the COVID vaccine. Yeah, I think, well, I think that data is pretty accurate. The real issue here is, you know, and I said this when I was CDC director, you know, we don't want to promote vaccine hesitancy. I do believe the push that people had on vaccine mandates, for example, that push people and reinforce vaccine hesitancy. I think vaccine hesitancy is at a high. I don't think we positioned the COVID vaccines correctly from the beginning.

I think people gave a false sense of what their capability was. I remember when it first was rolled out, people talked about getting two shots and you were completely vaccinated. Well, you were never completely vaccinated. We knew that this vaccine was going to be non-durable and that it would give you protection. People like myself tried to position the vaccine for the vulnerable, go after people that are in nursing homes, that are people that are in residential housing, people that have over the age of 60, let's get them vaccinated and let's keep them appropriately vaccinated. This vaccine doesn't last.

It's non-durable. Most people, and I'm back in clinical practice again, and a significant part of my clinical practice is COVID. And I would say many of us probably need probably to be vaccinated at least twice a year to be adequately protected, not against infection. Remember, the vaccine doesn't protect against infection, and that's one of the problems. It does protect, though, against serious illness and death.

So the vaccine still has a good role, but it shouldn't be, I think there are a lot of mistakes made early on about overrating the vaccine, not giving credit to natural immunity, mandating the vaccine, having certain people even lose their jobs as they didn't get vaccinated. Those are all big mistakes. And now, I would imagine it's part of your practice, risk reward. Yeah, we now need people that are highly vulnerable to realize that the vaccine could be life-saving. And, you know, as I mentioned, most people get cancer screened or heart screened. Those are the first two leading causes of death. Well, COVID now is the third leading cause

of death in America. So you ought to take it seriously if you're at risk for death. And that is those of us that are at risk for death really probably are over the age of 60, over the age of 65, over the age 70. I don't see the advantage of recurrent immunization of children. this virus doesn't really cause any significant illness in young children. And so, you know, I think the lack of that discrimination from the public health messaging to the American public has really confused a lot of people. And I do think you're right. I think the consequence of the COVID vaccine messaging, unfortunately, has been a big instrument

in broader vaccine hesitancy against measles, mumps, rebella, vaccines in general, and that's unfortunate. Well, I would love to see the statistics on all of that, all of those vaccines, including the annual flu vaccine. I'd love to see the statistics on that over the last five years to see if it's cratered, if the public acceptance of any of those vaccines has fallen because of the doubts sowed for all the reasons you just laid out when it came to the COVID vaccine. You were on Fox and Friends about a month ago, and it was a conversation I wanted to continue where we talked about gain of function research. whether or not COVID came from a lab, and you've openly expressed your opinion on what was probably the origins of COVID, as have I, but our opinions are almost of no consequence when it comes to this conversation. It's the value of gain of function research. Gain of function research undoubtedly happens across the globe. There is a great amount of evidence that COVID was the product of a gain of function process and experiment. And you wrote a column with Dr. Mark Siegel saying, hey, listen, after COVID, everyone needs to understand. This continues. This is, there's not, it's not like everybody hit the brakes after COVID.

In fact, right now we are conducting gain of function research, not just in China, but is it true that we are also doing it? I think there was a legislative moratorium or a presidential moratorium at some point here in the United States, but some forms of game of function research right here in the United States. Yes, I think gain of function research, unfortunately, is. still widely being conducted in university laboratories in the United States as well as around the world. And, you know, I have called on a moratorium in both the Wall Street Journal editorial I did with Mark Siegel a while back as well as the recent one year that I did in the Washington Examiner because I think that the gain of function research is most likely the cause of the pandemic that we've had with COVID. This virus was

educated in the laboratory to infect man. And I think it was made done for good reasons. People were trying to make a vaccine vector. But I think the scientific group was a little arrogant that they could somehow contain this. And we ended up with a pandemic now that's probably killed close to 20. I think our last numbers I've heard is 27 million people. So I think gain of function research is there was a moratorium under Obama. There was some exceptions to that that was made by NIH. That moratorium has now no longer in existence. People are doing gain of function research. And I think one of the challenges with that is that they can create pathogens that are more infectious or more pathogenic. And we really don't have

the biocontainment sophistication that you need to do it. So I've called on society to have to have the debate about whether gain of function research has any intrinsic value. you. They need to be broader debate than just a group of scientists. And if society thinks it has value and it needs to be pursued, then they have to figure out how do we do it in a safe, responsible, and effective way. But right now you are right. Well, it's being done in university laboratories, many of which that don't have the biocontainment that they should have, and it's being done around the world. You know, I wrote the... And I asked you at that time. Go ahead.

I asked you at that time, my presumption, and a lot of the things that I have. had read, it was that Chinese labs fall short of global safety standards, containment standards for doing these types of experiments. And I said, is it the most likely situation that we can call it pandemic X or whatever the next pathogen is, comes out of China? I think your answer to me was, no, Will. You should be just as concerned about the safety standards. I don't know where the nearest university laboratory to where I live here in Dallas might be that's experimenting on pathogens, but you told me, no, you should be concerned about what's happening right here in the U.S. Yeah, I remember that, and I say that again, that China has some highly notable episodes of containment

issues, both with SARS in the past, and obviously, I think with the COVID of the present, but I did say to you that I think your big concern should be the university labs that really don't have the biocontainment that they need. And this is why I think we really should, as a nation, call for a moratorium on gain of function research. You saw the recent article that we did with Mark Siegel in our recent op-ed that prodded it. It was a follow-up virus that had been manipulated in the laboratory that was a spinoff of COVID, which now was manipulated so that it was highly infectious for brain, and they made it so that it can infect humanized mice's brains.

And they actually, rather than increase the transmissibility this time, they increased the pathogenicity. So this virus now, when it was all said and done, was now 100% fatal for the mice. So the idea that we're trying to make virus is more pathogenic is problematic, right? And I think we have to be careful. There's not an arrogance that science has. they think that they can control the good and there is no downside. I remember Fauci said in the Washington Post in 2012 when I argued with them when some colleagues

of mine had figured out how to take bird flu, which I do believe is going to be the next pandemic. It's going to be a great pandemic. I call the COVID the lesser pandemic. The great pandemic is coming. It's going to be a bird flu pandemic. It's going to have at least a 5% mortality, if not much higher. And that what the bird flu has to do,

to become pandemic for us is it has to learn how to efficiently infect humans. It hasn't learned that yet. I will say it's gone into about 25 mammals species now in the United States, including dolphins and seals and bears and bobcats and others. So it's learning how to go into new mammals. When it learns how to go into the human mammal, then we got a big problem. That said, in 2012, this group of scientists figured out the five, six amino acids that you had to change to make it highly pathogenic for man. And I argued that they shouldn't publish that. They decided it was science it had to be published.

Fauci argued it had to be published. And that's when he wrote that piece in the Washington Post. It said, you know, if the price of gain of function research is that we have a pandemic, it's worth the price. Well, I don't think it's worth the price. I think we really need to recognize that this is extremely dangerous to try to be manipulating these pathogens in a way outside of nature and that we can create a pathogen that becomes the source of a major pandemic for the human species.

Like I do believe COVID was, but I think the next pandemic, which would be a bird flu pandemic, which can come naturally from evolution, but it may take decades, if not centuries, but it's on the move. As I said, it's in 25 new mammals now, so it's moving. Or it could come unnaturally through gain of function research that could really happen in weeks, months, a year. So two points really quickly of sort of background and context. So when you say you fear or you think that the next big pandemic will be a bird flu,

and you said with a 5% mortality, I just want for my sake and for the audience's sake to compare that to COVID, what did COVID's mortality end up? Was it 1% less than 1% as compared to the 5% you're saying for the bird flu? Yeah, it's definitely less than 1. It's probably closer to 0.1% when you look at it all said and done. Yeah, if you look at all said and done, you'll see things published 1%, less than 1%, but if you really take the whole denominator, because right now if you look at the United States, we've probably had over, I'd say over 300 million infections in the United States.

We've had a little over a million deaths. So that'd be about 0.3% if you went across the board in the U.S. So you're talking about something 15 times more dangerous in terms of mortality. If you look at bird flu's mortality right now, there's a bird flu, and one of the CDC, we follow it all over. There's a bird flu, you know, there's two different viruses that have emerged, an H7 and H11, that could potentially become the next bird flu pandemic. They very rarely go into humans, and the humans that have been infected have been people that are chicken farmers, all right? And when they get infected, they don't take the virus home and infect their family because it doesn't know how to go human to human. It really goes bird to human and then it stops.

But of the humans that have gotten infected, and there's been about a thousand so far that have been infected, 40 to 50 percent of them have died. Now, as this virus gains, the ability to affect humans, as you pointed out when you started your podcast today, as the virus becomes, as it becomes, it's pathogenic, as it becomes able to transmit better to humans, it probably will become a little less pathogenic. That's why I say, I'm pretty confident it's going to be greater than 5%. The truth is, well, it could be 20%. More now.

The one other point of background and context I want to get here, and this is kind of a big one, but let me see if I can set this up, and I listened to what you had to say. and we'll use bird flu as avian bird flu as an illustration of this point you said two things and please don't rebut them until I get all of this out but I want to see if I can fully understand you said you think the next big pandemic will be bird flu you also said it could take a century for it to evolve so next and a century is a big timeline that we're talking about here and the reason I bring that up is I want to also understand stand and steal man, not straw man, but steel man the argument for gain of function.

And the argument, I believe, Dr. Redfield, which you're in favor of a moratorium on this, is that we need to get ahead of that. For example, we need to get ahead of bird flu. I've always been like, how do you know what's coming next? You're shooting in the dark. So you're creating all these different pathogenic viruses in labs in North Carolina or in China, and one of them escapes. And you create a pandemic while shooting in the dark at stopping the next big pandemic.

Because the idea of gain and function is to create something that you would then have the vaccine for, right? So you create it, then you kill it with a vaccine is the idea, I assume. So, I mean, even granting them the best premises, we're trying to get ahead of the next big pandemic. I mean, it could be in a couple years, to your point. It could be a century. And it feels like you're shooting in the dark, not you, but those conducting gain of function, feels like you're shooting in the dark on developing a vaccine for something. You have no idea what's coming. And you'd have to set that off against the risk of it escaping the lab and creating its own pandemic. Yeah, I think the big issue here for me and the big concern, like when these, my colleagues

published to how to make bird flu, how to make the amino acid changes you need to make in 2012 to make a pathogenic for humans, that was published. So the recipe's out there. And the truth is, well, I could do it in, you know, for a couple hundred thousand dollars with a couple postdocs, we could create that virus within probably less than two or three months, right? So, It's there. I personally, you know, I haven't believed in God. I think it's a miracle that hasn't happened already, particularly by bioterrorist. I think it's a great risk for bioterrorism. Secondly, what I said is the ability for science to be so arrogant that they can manipulate these viruses thinking they're doing it to help prevent a problem in the future where they

actually create a problem. That could happen in months, not 10 years and not centuries. And so I do believe our risk in terms of our own biosecurity. And I will argue that our number one national security risks of the United States, I happen to believe is not China, Russia, North Korea, or Iran. I think it's biosecurity. I think these pathogens can really bring our nation to the knees. And we're not prepared for it. So I think one of the ways for us to start is to at least put a moratorium. I don't agree with my colleagues that support gain of function research. And they're, you know, real. Tony Fauci and Francis Collins and NIH, big supporters of gain of function research.

They think we need this so we can respond to the next pathogen more effectively when a bad pathogen comes. I would argue that we have the scientific technology now, that particularly now with the new mRNA technology, a lot of the molecular technology, we can develop the countermeasures for new challenges literally within months, you know, probably four, six, eight, 12 weeks, we can develop them. We don't have the manufacturing capability to make them available to the American public, and that should be something we focus on.

But science is at the point that I think we can solve these problems scientifically, quickly. We don't have to create the problem to solve it. I think that's the mistake my colleagues are making. They believe that if we do this research and we learn how these viruses change to make more pathogenic for man, and then we know how it happens, that somehow that's going to help us in the future. I think the odds are it's going to harm us in the future. Dr. Robert Redfield, it was great to have a deeper, longer conversation with you, former CDC director, here on the Will Kane Show.

Thank you so much, Doctor. Thanks, Will. God bless you. All right. Take care. We've already discussed the worst presidents in American history. How about the seven biggest builders of importance in creating this great world? Republic. That's next on the Will Cain Show. This is Jimmy Fala, inviting you to join me for Fox Across America, where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding. It's only a three-hour show. Listen live at

noon Eastern or get the podcast at Fox Across America.com. The presidents who built America. It's the Will Cain Show streaming live at Fox News.com and on demand at the Will Cain Show on YouTube. or Apple, Spotify, or a Fox News podcast. We also stream live on Facebook and on YouTube every day at 12 o'clock Eastern Time. We've discussed the worst presidents in American history. What about the historical presidents who built the Republic? Tim Barton is the president of Wall Builders.

He's also the author of a new book, The American Story, Building the Republic. And he joins me now here on The Will Kane Show. Hey, Tim. Hey, thanks so much for having me on. Good to be with you. I'm glad to have you on. This new book you have out with your dad focuses in on seven presidents, the first really seven presidents of the United States and how they helped build the republic. I want to talk about various aspects of each of these men and the cultural landscape where they built this American experiment.

But what was it about these seven that you found incredibly unique when you survey American presidents? Specifically, all seven of these were involved in the American Revolution. Andrew Jackson being the seventh president, he was the youngest. He was a teenager at the time. It was actually, he was too young to legally be a soldier, but he found his way in as a young teenager. He was a spy for a little while. He was actually captured. It was a prisoner of war.

There was a British officer who wanted to really kind of demean Andrew Jackson as a young teenager and told him to get down his polished his boots. Andrew Jackson wasn't going to do it. So the officer raised his sword and strikes down at Andrew Jackson. He put up his hand and he had a scar on his hand. his face that he carried with him the rest of his life from that moment well all that to say is all of them actively partook in america becoming a nation so once you get past andrew jackson none of the other presidents were actively part of america becoming a nation in the american

revolution so all of these individuals were unique because they all knew the founding fathers they largely knew each other they had worked together or against each other in some situations so these are the ones who had the best understanding when we talk about the constant and maybe how to apply it, how it would work, and maybe how not to do things. They're the ones that had the best perspective. And so we just kind of walk through and journey through their lives in this book. Tim, what did they have in common in terms of their vision for America? Because these men, I just went through my seven worst presidents in American history.

And I will tell you in the audience, there is a fundamental philosophical background to who I think were the worst presidents in America. and it's really beyond left and right. It's beyond Republican and Democrat. It actually comes down to rights, this vision of rights. Basically, it comes down to negative rights versus positive rights. There are many presidents who've believed in the idea of positive rights, a positive health care, a job, a leisure. And those presidents, Wilson and FDR and LBJ said about the government in providing that to the people. Of course, it has to come from somewhere. You have to take it from other people. Whereas other presidents, and I would argue our Constitution, focus on negative rights, your frees, your freedoms, freedom of speech, freedom of religion. These are rights granted by God. The implication is natural law. There are some things men have a right to that can't be provided by others but can only be provided by God. What was it about those seven? Because they all had different visions of America. Jefferson Adams hated each other, right? So what was the common vision for America? Well, probably the thing that all seven of them had in common as they loved

America. They didn't see America as fundamentally flawed or evil. And I say that because in the current context, right, that's a huge ideology, huge philosophy in American politics today. And the early presidents had a love for the nation. Now, even mentioning someone like a John Adams or a Thomas Jefferson, they actually had been pretty close. And under George Washington, they had been friends and it was during George Washington they had their falling out and then of course their presidential campaigns against each other and lots of issues that came from that but they're falling out with something that if you go back to George Washington in his farewell address it's so profound the things that he saw coming it was like he's he's the dad in the room and his cabinet

were all his kids now this is not how it was but this is kind of the perspective and he saw his kids start to argue and his farewell address he was giving them guidance of like now kids keeping in mind, don't be distracted by foreign entanglements. Focus on America. Why? Because one of the biggest divisions that was happening during his administration is France and England were going through another one of their bloody fights and their bloody wars. And America never could have won the revolution had it not been for France being an ally. But we were largely English individuals. And so we had incredible connections in England. And so his administration was divided. Some of them were just loyal, loved France, and some of them were loyal to England because the revolution was decades earlier at that point.

And we've largely kind of come back together and we're friends again. And Washington wisely said, guys, don't allow other people's problems to become American problems and divide us. And I think it's interesting now considering things like Ukraine and Russia and other issues in the world. And we could argue, I get it. Like there's a reason America should be concerned and pay attention to those things. But Washington very wisely pointed out, don't focus all your time and attention there. He goes on in his farewell address, and he explains to not let political partisanship be what drives you. Focus on priority philosophy over your party, right?

That the idea behind who we are as Americans don't become divided in party. Well, of course, then you have Adams and Jefferson that all they care about is their party and their side winning. But it's interesting if you walk through Washington's farewell address. it was the advice he was giving again kind of like to his kids really they were his friends they were his allies but he's giving advice for success for the nation and as we walk through our book the american story building the republic we we tell the story the background of all their lives you kind of see them as a kid growing up each of them independent and you learn a lot of the story of america through their eyes but then you see a lot of what would define their

success and failure as a president really would be how well did they follow the advice george Washington gave them and we would point out not least being among those Washington said that the political pillars of or the pillars rather of our political prosperity were the pillars of religion and morality he said if we ever lose religion and morality that America would not work and function when John Adams became president the following year he actually wrote a letter and said that our constitution was made only for a moral and religious people and one of the things we do in the book is walk through when when they understood the moral foundation when the founding father's years earlier and said we all these truths to be self-evident all men are created equal but they go through

this idea of truth but where do they get the idea of truth there was a common foundation they also all had that was a foundation largely learned through religion and morality but going back to the Bible that even though we might argue not all of these men were Christians because they weren't they maybe didn't all believe in Jesus they all had learned the same similar moral values from the Bible and so just several of those thoughts and ideas if we look at what brought them together They had a similar upbringing in a moral structural sense. They had a similar love for America, and they had a similar guidance given to them by George Washington. And their success and failures largely centered around how well do they follow his advice

and how well do they follow the guidelines, the outlines of the Declaration and the Constitution. You know, something we talk a lot about today is the people versus the elites. It seems to be a dividing line with an American society. I'm curious, these men, were they from what, you talked about, that you write about their background and how they were raised? Yes. Were all of the, they were all well, I think, at least the founding father generation of Washington, Adams, Jefferson, Madison, were obviously well educated? Were these men the elite of their time? Were they wealthy?

Were they studied as compared to the common man in America? so there's a lot in those questions because even the idea of well-educated George Washington said that his two greatest embarrassments in his life were his lack of education and his bad teeth by the time he was president he only had one actual real tooth all the rest were fake teeth he eventually lost that to this president so he finished his presidency with no real teeth he was wearing dentures lots of things surrounding that but Washington never had the the formal proper education that someone like a Jefferson or John Adams did. And if you read his farewell address, you would

never know that. Partly because what they did in early education, even if you only went for three or four or five or six years or kind of they did grades or not grades actually levels. They did levels. We know them as grades. But if you went through three or four or five levels, what they accomplished was so much more than what we generally accomplish in three or four or five grades. So they all had different educational backgrounds. Most of them ended up becoming wealthy, but it wasn't wealthy in the way that a Nancy Pelosi or Mitch McConnell might have become wealthy, that they were able to do some insider trading deals in Congress and enrich themselves. That was not what they did. George Washington inherited a lot of things from his brother, from his father. He made a lot of

wise business decisions. John Adams was an attorney, was a very successful attorney. Jefferson was also someone who inherited a lot, although he had a lot of debt. And so when you go through their lives, they were not a political ruling elite. The reason they were chosen initially early on going back maybe even for many of them to like the Continental Congress. The reason leaders were chosen is because of their character, because of their ability to stand and maybe clearly articulate, maybe clearly write something, but having the courage and boldness to stand up, if you go back for example kind of more founding era a guy like sam adams is a really fun guy to think about most people today know the name sam adams because there's a beer named after sam

adams and that's really all they know sam adams was one of the most outspoken patriots for the cause of liberty but sam adams was one of the poorest people at the time when the word spread that different communities say sin leaders this was the continental congress time that very first time they met in 1774. Communities were told, send a leader to represent you to come and let's get all our leaders together from all 13 colonies. Let's talk through this. And Sam Adams was the obvious choice for that area of Massachusetts. But his town was embarrassed of him because he only had one suit. It had holes in it. He had one pair of stockings that had holes in it. So the town did a fundraiser to raise money for Sam Adams. They bought him a new suit. They bought him seven pairs

of stockings. The town was kind of poor as well. Sam Adams did not have a horse. They didn't have a horse to loan him. And so they wrote a letter to John Adams's cousin and said, would you be willing to loan your cousin a horse so he doesn't have to walk to Philadelphia. And I say this to give context because so often we have the founding fathers in this position that all of them were the same and they weren't. You had farmers. You had doctors. You had military individuals. You had kind of across the board of lawyers, whatever kind of practices teachers that we would see today, they were just normal people but they were individuals who were very clear on their positions of the overreach of the king and the limitations of what government should have and our inalienable rights they were given to us by

our creator the founding fathers were such a unique diverse collection so even in the first seven presidents you had some that came from dire poverty some that came from a pretty well off position some that were farmers some that were attorneys some that were military individuals it's a pretty wide spectrum, but they are a very accurate representation of we the people and reflective of the opportunities that America offered to an individual who had high character, who would work hard, who had potential ability, and could develop that. This was what the American dream was all about. You know, you brought up, and it's absolutely true, the idea of a free society with constitutionally enshrined rights, even in the founder's vision, could only exist, set against

the backdrop of a moral society, of some other cultural enforcement mechanism of teaching people how they should and should not behave, not just how they can and cannot behave. And so the Judeo-Christian ethic sat there as the foundation for all the freedoms that we have today or that we enshrined then that we would enjoy today. You can't go, again, a parallel to today, Tim, you can't go but a couple of paragraphs in any of the founding documents or those that served as the backdrop like the Federalist Papers without hearing the word factions. It's constantly, it's a source of concern for for the first presidents. Factions, factions, people with competing interests taking over or set against one another here

in America. Man, it seems like a diagnosis for where we arrived at in 2023. There's no doubt. The division in America today, the fact the founding fathers were able to unite, And there's a really fun letter from John Adams to Thomas Jefferson in 1813, where they're reflective at this point that they've both gone through their presidencies. They've been reunited. One of the other founding fathers, Benjamin Franklin, helps them become friends again in their old age. And actually, their letters in old age are kind of funny. They're grumpy old men, writing letters back and forth, complaining about things they don't

like this rising generation. But in 1813, John Adams writes a letter to Thomas Jefferson and says, remember when we were young men and we were all together, the thing that brought us together, he's the thing that brought us together, said we were so diverse in our ideas and our interests but the thing that brought us together they were the general principles of christianity and the letters much longer but that phrase is super interesting because when the founding fathers identified that we hold these truths to be self-evident where did they come up with the idea of truth and i say that only to give contrast in modern culture we live in a culture where we're we're being told truth is subjective that it's up to

each individual and maybe it could be collective but but everybody has to determine for themselves and this is where it becomes really challenging because how do you unite how do you unite a culture when you have maybe half the culture that believes just as an example right i'm not trying to get super controversial right now but as as a contrast example when you have half the culture for example that believes that boys and girls are real things right that x and y chromosomes are real things and then you have a huge portion rising portion of culture that believes that no gender sexuality like it's fluid you can be what you want and however many genders you want to be, that's going to be really hard to find a common ground to unite when

truth has become so subjective that if you think you're a cat, right, you think you're a furry, you can be a furry. And whether or not I think it's crazy or not is not the point other than to say, how are you going to unite as a nation when truth has become so subjective that we're not going to have common ground to unite around? This is where the founding fathers, where it was so different for them is they were able to find common ground in the midst of the craziness in the midst of the diversity of views and opinions they still found common ground and this is where i think one of the major challenges we have to work on our culture is finding that common ground again i think for so many right parents are going hey i care about our kids i think there

is common ground but this is where we're not hearing it from a news media it's something i so appreciate about podcasts like this that are a long form podcast we can have an honest conversation and not just have a sound bite where the media is trying to gin up hype and controversy to get their ratings and clicks and views that are doing things that are fragmenting further the American population instead of recognizing look for most of us man we love our families we we want freedom we don't want the government to get all involved in our lives we want a limited government there is common ground for the majority of American people That's what the founding fathers were able to unite around.

In the midst of their factions, they found common ground. And I think, Will, that's one of the biggest challenges for us today, is trying to help find common ground that people can unite around. Well, I think that example that you gave is a perfect illustration of factions, by the way, because that's not a 50-50 proposition. You're talking about a small minority, very vested, very passionate, who can wield factually their power against the greater populace that might have a lot more common ground.

in the truth. And that's just only one illustration. That one issue, I think, is actually one illustration of so many where you have small, loud minority that is the activated faction. Last thing I'd love to ask you is this. So, you know, it's kind of, I want to give, I've always liked Jefferson because, one, I like his, you know, I like his federalist vision of, or rather, not federalist vision, but his federalism vision of America.

I like the idea of small, sovereign, you know, communities where you build your vision of America and then come together for national defense, as opposed to Hamiltonian or Adams' vision of a more strong, centralized government. And I think Madison doesn't get near enough attention. I think Madison was a genius. But I keep going back. And it's like, why I won't root for the New York Yankees, it's like, okay, everybody talks about Washington. Let me think about Madison.

Let me think about Jefferson. But sooner or later, you've got to recognize that the Yankees are actually great, you know, and Washington is phenomenal. And what you described earlier, you know, he easily could have been king. And it's hard for any of us to live back in that moment or that time or be that man and know, wow, this guy turned it all down and actually set the stage. As much as the founding documents, the execution of the founding documents, set the stage for what would become really the most successful revolution in human history. when you look at all of these guys then tim and you kind of started about this earlier let's apply it to today what did they have that we need today in a leader that is probably the most important question and really that's something we dive into in our book is when we look back it's easy as you mentioned

and think of george washington as man this incredible person and i say that in the context knowing that there's people today and cancel culture that want to cancel him and it's one of the reasons that As we go through our book, we have more than 1,000 footnotes in our book because we want people to know that the things we're suggesting is not just a perspective that, right, in modern academics, a professor might say, hey, I have a PhD. That's my credentials. You need to believe what I say. And we would go the exact opposite direction. We would say, please, don't just take our word for it. Go back and read this document. Read what they actually wrote because there's so many things we believe about these individuals that are not historically grounded. that are not historically accurate, but it's become the modern narrative. And like so many lies, if you repeat it long enough and loud enough, people believe it.

And if you go back to their leadership ideas, Jefferson is such a great example. His position was that the federal government should only do for people what they cannot do for themselves. And even more specifically in the Constitution, there are specific enumerated powers that are the federal government's power.

Beyond that, you have in the Bill of Rights, you have the Ninth and Tenth Amendment, the Ninth Amendment, says that there are more rights that belong to the people than just what's identified earlier in the Bill of Rights. And the 10th Amendment says that anything not specifically given to the federal government in the U.S. Constitution belongs to the states. When Jefferson was president, that's the way he ran his presidency. There were certain things. He said the federal government can't do that. And people are going, you have to do it. He said, nope, we can't do it. It's not in the

Constitution. And the Constitution is what tells us exactly we can and can't do. This is so different from the notion of we have a pen and a phone. These were people that were grounded in moral truth that limited often themselves to the Constitution. And we do in our book, we go through and we try to tell the honest story where there's good, bad, and ugly in people's lives, right? Every one of us, we're not perfect people. We have good moments and sometimes we have really bad moments. And for some people, their good moments are far more significant, far more outshining their bad moments. And some, it's the opposite. And I think if you look at someone, for example, like a Jackson, where Jackson, this amazing leader, up until really he becomes

president. And then he begins to do things that begin to trample on the rights of individuals. And he begins to do things that are so partisan. He made the post office a cabinet level position. He took somebody that was one of his political advisors, puts him in charge of the post office, and he tells them that they don't have to deliver any mail that is sent by abolitionists. He gives a post office full authority to start censor. the mail, and there's very famous pictures and stories from that time of different people that worked for the post office that were throwing or ripping or burning mail from abolitionists that were promoting the idea of how evil slavery was. Jackson was a guy who went a very different

direction. And so in our book, we try to go back and point out, when our nation was the strongest is when there were people who were our leaders who had a moral compass outlined for them from the ideas of the Bible, because frankly, I would argue there's no greater moral teacher than Jesus, no better morals outlined those in the Bible, and those who limited themselves by the Constitution and knew the federal government's job is limited according to the Constitution. The federal government's only supposed to do very specific things, enumerated in the Constitution, and the government really, the idea from the Founding Fathers in Declaration, they said that to secure these rights, to secure our God-given rights, governments instituted among men.

Government exists to protect American citizens, to protect their rights, to protect our ability to function, to thrive, to have a job. to raise families, to do business, the government shouldn't be micromanaging, interfering in our lives, taking all of our money. They've lost that idea. So we would encourage the kind of leaders we need are those that have a moral foundation rooted probably in the Bible and scripture and those that understand the Constitution. If we could restore those two things, America would be a far better place. The American story, building the republic. Wonderful answer there on the type of leader that we should search for based upon those that we had to create this great experiment of the United States

of America. Tim Barton, thanks so much for being with us here on the Will Cain Show. Well, thanks so much for having me on. I appreciate it. All right, check it out, the American story, building the Republicans on sale now. All right, that's going to do it for me today. Tomorrow we have an interesting conversation deep on the economy with Dr. Peter St. Ange right here on the Will Cain Show.

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