September 29, 2025 • 49 mins
The Lincoln Project’s Rick Wilson examines the impending government shutdown.
Former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden details his new book The Formula for Better Health: How to Save Millions of Lives—Including Your Own.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And New York City Mayor Eric Adams
has dropped his reelection bid. We have such a great
show for you today and the Lincoln Project's owned with
Wilson joins us to talk about the impending government shutdown.
(00:23):
Then we'll talk to former CDC director doctor Tom Frieden
about his new book, The Formula for Better Health, How
to save millions of lives, including your own.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
But first the news Somalia. John Thune said the not
very quiet part out loud that the farmers need bailouts
because these stupid fucking tariffs.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yes, look, the farmers need bailouts. So does Argentina. We've
cut cancer funding, we've cut the weather services, we've cut
basically all you know, nih Greens for medical tests, for
different trials, for vaccines. We've cut this, we've cut that,
(01:05):
We've you know, But here's what we're going to do now,
because none of this makes any sense. We're going to
bail out the farmers because you know why they need
a bail out, can you guess? Because of Trump's terrible
policies because of the tariffs. The tariffs are hurting the farmers,
but also because of canceling USAID, which was only supposed
(01:27):
to kill people overseas. But it turns out that USAID
was set up to use these crops and send them
overseas to feed starving people. But Elon Musk, the richest
man in the world, didn't like that one bit. And
so since he was running our government, because he had
(01:49):
donated so much money to Trump, and because Trump liked him,
and because he sucked up to Trump, he decided to
cancel USAID, And because Marco Rubio is a complete cow,
he went along with it. And now we are here.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That sounds about right.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So farmers are gonna get money. By the way, this
happened in Trump's first term, and farmers don't actually like
it because they have these farms and they're doing this.
You know, it's just it undermines everything right to bail
people out in this way, it's just so fucked.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Very stupid. So, Molly, my personal TikTok is very a
buzz because there is much of the left organizing and
information comes on TikTok. Benjamin net Yahu recently described that
the new owners of TikTok will be one of their
great assets and weapons in the war with Palestine. The
(02:46):
left is not very happy about this, and there's a
lot of fuckery going on since it seems like the
owners of Fox News will be on the board as well.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, TikTok, which is basically owned by the Chinese government
and used to get our locations, maybe poison the brains
of our youth, including Jesse, no offense or anything.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
It's the evidence is clear on this podcast every day.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So TikTok was meant to just do that. Our guy
Joe Biden decided that he was going to ban it.
Good idea, very nonpartisan, and most people were not for it,
but both sides of the political aisle thought that banning
TikTok was a good idea. Why because there was no
transparency about the algorithm. So there was a question of
(03:32):
why the algorithm made Americans into psychos and Chinese children
into readers, right, I mean, there was certainly some difference there.
And then also there was all this data collection, which is,
you know, the Chinese government has basically malware on all
of our phones, which in itself seems kind of bad.
So there was the thought that they would shut down TikTok.
(03:54):
Now because Donald Trump then became president and realized he
could make money on it or whatever, realized like why
shut something down when there's some way to play it
for me. He has decided to allow his friends to
take shares in it. But again, like this, because of
Trump World, nothing has been thought out really well. So
America's taitan steaks in different public companies. This is what
(04:17):
we usually think of as communism, but when Trump does it,
it's called okay for some reason. So they have.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
We're all crony capitalists now.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Right, fifteen percent in Navidia trip Shale. And by the way,
because the law is not a thing anymore, we don't
even know what's really happening. We just know what they're
saying is happening. But the investors we think we have
been told are going to be in this TikTok dealer
Larry Allison, the Murdochs who you may remember from Fox News,
and Andreas and Horowitz. That guy has a very funny
(04:47):
shaped head. So we don't really quite understand what this means.
China has been really clear that they do not want
to give America any kind of trans parency on the algorithm.
Either way, this American government picking winners and losers. Maybe
Michael Dell's in it. We don't really know what's happening here,
(05:09):
but we do know one thing, which is that Benjamin Netanyaho,
she President of Israel, who recently spoke at the UN,
and many many, many world leaders just ran out because
they did not want to hear it. Benjamin Netanyaho was
recorded this week talking about how great it's going to
(05:29):
be that his allies will own TikTok and how happy
he is that his allies own X. In my mind,
that strikes me as probably an indication that this is
not going to be a free and fair media platform.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, I'm betting on it, but you know what I'm
not betting on. And you know I say this as
somebody who we all know is pretty far to the left,
is my fellow leftists are not going at leaving predatory apps,
as evidenced by that they are more present on Twitter
than most Democrats to their right.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
It's very disheartening.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
It's disheartening, but again, I think there is a world
in which the functionality of TikTok could be on Blue Sky,
the functionality of X. I mean, there's just the road
to Rome is paved with social media apps that have
been abandoned.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, this could be their MySpace moment for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I will say, despite me being a Debbie downer there,
we did see that Threads by Many Metrics is now
performing better at daily use than Twitter.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah, even though it's also terrible, it's fine for me.
I mean it's owned by again, Like, are we gonna
have a contest about who's.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I didn't mean in that context. I wasn't disgusting it
in that context. I agree with you. There's no argument
from here. Okay. Trump has announced tariffs on pharmaceuticals, furniture,
and heavy trucks starting October first.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, it's interesting that he's picked those three things.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
It's that crodi capitalism think of picking winners and losers.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Well, it's also man in camera remember that from season one?
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Never we'll forget it.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, no, look, I don't fucking know again. Pharmaceuticals, it's
very stupid because there are some pharmaceuticals that you can't like.
There will be patented drugs you can only get from
different countries that you won't be able to get. I
mean again, with all this stuff, you have to watch
for the cutouts because that's where a lot of the
cryptocracy happens. The cutouts are like Trump's little that is
(07:27):
where he picks the winners and losers. So you'll wait
and see on this again. I thought we had already
everything all of these tariffs, So I guess there will
be more tariffs, right because you know, one hundred percent
tariff on any branded or patented pharmaceutical product unless a
company is building their pharmaceutical manufacturing plants in America. Okay,
(07:49):
that is pretty vague. So we shall see. Are you
going to have ice arrest the people working in the plant,
because that's what you did at the Hondai plant in Georgia.
I mean, who wants to come here on open a
factory when you know that there's a non zero chance
that some of the people work in your factory will
get arrested. And you know, I mean remember that when
(08:11):
plane filled with South Koreans that was like two weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, so Bia, this one's pretty interesting. Oklahoma State Superintended
Ryan Walters has resigned. You may remember him from doing
many psychotic things in that office and bringing Oklahoma all
the way down to the bottom state in education. Great
work there, but he's leaving to pursue his passion, which
is getting rid of unions for teachers.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Wonder why he's leaving.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
He claims it's Charlie Kirk, right.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I mean, that doesn't make a ton of sense. A
lot of times you see stories like this and then
you see stories that make this story make sense. But
maybe it's just his love of Turning Point USA. He
did say that every high school will have a Turning
Point USA Club America chapter.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah. I think there's a very funny thing of this.
Is that maga thing of that. I did a terrible
job rutting it, so I should be elevated even higher.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Listen, man, certainly possible.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Okay, you're ready to go to a circle of hell
that is very very dark. No, well tough. Clarence Thomas
says President might not determine cases on upcoming Supreme Court docket.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
The irony here is President hasn't determined cases it. I mean, really,
you don't say I think my man is whatever you
think that the Supreme Court can do. That's bad. Clarence
Thomas is hoping you'll just know that he's playing something worse.
I don't know, and I do give perspective to the president,
(09:43):
but the president should be respectful of our legal tradition
and our country. Our laws are based on something not
just something somebody dreamt up and others went along with,
like gay marriage. Sorry he doesn't say gay marriage. But look,
things are gonna have to get worse before they get better,
and this is part of that. Rick Wilson is the
(10:09):
founder of the Lincoln Project and the host of the
Enemy's List.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Rick Wilson, Hello, comrade, are you reporting from the Antifa
Command and Control Bunker?
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Okay, So, Republican Donald Trump has decided that the left
is now illegal the left? How does that work?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
In good It doesn't work. Everybody should look at it
through two contextual lenses. One it's all Fox bait bullshit, right,
and two it's anything to stop the fact that people
are beginning to understand that he's going to shut down
the government this week to hide the Epstein files.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
We are hurtling towards the government. Shutdown could happen as
soon as Tuesday night at midnight. Put also not happen.
Donald Trump had a meeting with Jeffries and Schumer, he
canceled it. Then in his infinite wisdom, he remade it
art of the deal. Why cancel it and then say
(11:09):
they can he supposedly this was reported, he said they
can fuck off.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Look my take on it has always been, there's no
deal to be made with these people. Schumer and Jeffries
both think that they're going to protect people's healthcare by
making a deal that keeps the ACA subsidies in place.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
If they have not Republicans also want well, of.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Course they do, of course they do. But here's the thing.
If they don't understand that funding the CR continues to
fund all of Trump's other project twenty twenty five evils,
and that Trump has consistently violated the law and canceled
or changed the funding levels or reassign the funding of
(11:52):
congression right of congressionally appropriated and authorized expenditures over and
over again. And this is this isn't like Rick Wilson's
lib TRD opinion. This is in the constitution, however, and the.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Book pocket recision in August piece in New York Times,
reading it today, yeah, here's.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
What's gonna what I think what Trump would do. He
would go into the Jeffries and Schumer say well, fine,
all right, I'll keep the ACA stuff in and then
literally decide, oh, well, the Blue states are in rebellion,
so I'm canceling their part of the ACA preservation. If
he doesn't think they don't think that this is what
this guy's gonna do, or some similarly destructive, evil, crappy thing,
(12:36):
then they should not be in the offices they hold
right now.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Correct now, let's I want to go back to the
left being illegal. So this is like another one of
these Donald Trumpy proclamations that has no legal anything to it. Nope,
but he desperately wants to investigate George Soros and also
Reed Hoffmann, who is so afraid of being investigated by
(13:02):
Donald Trump he no longer even lives in this country.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Molly, Donald Trump understands one important thing that there is
no one in DC who is going to stop him.
No one, Supreme Court is not going to stop him.
Certainly House aren't going to stop him. John soon that
wet Mattress isn't going to stop him.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Well, today on the Sunday Shows, when Wilker said, do
you think it's okay that Trump sends troops into cities,
thus violating the Posse Act. Soon says, what.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Will stop him, and the only thing that's going to
stop him is losing the House. I don't buy the
argument that Trump wants to lose the House so he
can be a martyr again.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
No, absolutely not.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
What will stop him is losing the House. Now. The
reason we're not going to get a cr this week
is that Mike Johnson cannot have the House in session
without having since Grialva one in air Zona, he cannot
have the House in session without the discharge vote to House.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
So he has to he would swear, and there's been
a new seat, there's been a Democrat elected. Now Democrats
have the numbers to pass this Epstein bill that would
in fact make it.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
And by the way, on Friday, I spoke to somebody
in the Republican political orbit that expressed to me the
level of investment in the White House of panic in
this is through the roof. There's been some reporting on it,
but the way it was described to me of this
person was, this is an all hands on deck hole
(14:42):
of government effort to stop this. They're doing everything they
can and.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
That's why the House is at a session.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Yes, I was also told he may declare this information
to be classified to prevent its release next week, So
we'll see if he does that. I don't think it
works for him the way he thinks it works. The
more he does this, the more people go, what is
in this thing? Is it a dead Is it a
dead girl? Or a live boy? Or or or a
bunch of goats? What is it?
Speaker 1 (15:08):
I mean, it is the stri sand effect, right, that
you're going to hide something by making such a big
deal that everyone's going to be interested in it. I
thought Mike Johnson had said he might not seat that Congress.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
He no, he has. Alreay said he won't seat her
even though she won the race by almost forty points. Right,
he's always said he won't seat her because of of reasons.
He doesn't have a reason. He's just saying, you won't
do it. But he recognizes now that that the government
will shut down, and no one's going to say, by
(15:43):
the way that the Republican one is, you're trying to
give you legals healthcare and free money, nobody's gonna buy it.
Nobody buys it.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Is nobody gonna buy it. Because I feel like a
shutdown is a messaging war.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Here's the big part of it. If the economy was
booming and the government shut down, everyone would go damn
throw things off track. But Trump has already driven the
economy into the ditch. We're not reporting the inflation statistics
because do you think it's because they're great or terrible.
We're not reporting unemployment statistics because because they.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Shared the head, right, Yes.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
And this weird guy that he replaced him with is like,
now we're just not gonna report anything. Yeah, we're just
gonna stop. We're not doing anything.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Makes sense, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
But the left is illegal game.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
This hour is made. You're gonna meet with Trump also
does want a bailout for farmers who are being hurt
by his tariffs.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
You know what, Honest to god, Democrats, they do not
understand this yet. You notice all these articles these farmers
are like, our markets have collapsed, We're gonna lose our farms.
We're in economic calamity. Oh no, what was the reason
for that? Who caused that? What single individual cause that?
And I gotta tell you something, if Jeffries and Schumer
walk in there without a demand to Trump, yeah, we'll
(16:56):
pass relief for farmers, undo the tariffs, right, now, right now,
give respect the power to do its tariffs and to
set tariffs right now. They should not negotiate with a terrorist.
He is a terrorist. They don't understand this rule. We've
seen a lot of maga in the last week to
ten days, like trying to whip up this frenzy and
Tifa in Portland. We must invade the city, total war.
(17:19):
You know, I was in Portland, Brenanda were in Portland
in January, and the charming coffee shops and boutiques downtown
did not strike me as Mogadishu circa nineteen ninety one.
And it's but it's a sign of how desperate they
are and how bad Trump's political standing is right now.
He needs to shake the tree. He needs to shake
things up and do something so that people don't every
(17:42):
day focus on how bad the economy is. And by
the way, Democrats, if they do end up in this
messaging war about the shutdown and farmers, there's a very
simple answer. Have the day you voted for, We tried
to help you. Donald Trump is the one who did
this to you. Donald Trump is the one who did
this to you. Not a single Democrat set a tariff
that is screwed American farmers an egg. Not a single
(18:03):
Democrat set those terraffs.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Not a single Demoran canceled the foreign aid right.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Not a single Democrats decision killed the USA I D budget,
which paid American farmers an awful lot of money every
year to help feed impoverished people around the world. Not
a single one. So, I mean, I wish we could
declare stupidity to be illegal, but we clearly cannot in
this country. And what Trump has done is unbelievably stupid,
and the harm that is being done to these farmers.
(18:29):
You know, Look, the Democrats have this this health care,
health care. Health care is the only thing that matters.
They think it's the only they think it's the one
sharp knife in the entire tool of the drawer.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
They are tariffs.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
The people hate it and they feel it and it's
hurting them every single day. And if you don't put
the tariffs onto Trump, the White House will say we didn't,
we didn't, we didn't set those tears, we didn't cause
China to cancel the.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Contracts right right now, It's true.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
You're not to win back a lot of MAGA voters
if you're for the Democrats. By the way, by saying, oh,
poor babies, we'll we'll fix the problem Donald Trump caused
for you love us now because you know what they'll
do the second they do. They're like, well, I didn't
want to have them pedophiles we bail my farm out,
but I had to.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
I just wonder how you make a deal with a terrorist, right,
I mean, that's the question. How do you make a
deal with someone you know will reap? I mean, this
is the problem that all of our allies are having too.
How do you make a deal with the country you
can't trust?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Listen Schumer and Jeffreys. Like Schumer had a terrible tweet
on Sunday, it was like, oh, Donald Trump's any troops
to Portland. Maybe focus on preserving healthcare instead. It's so
tone deaf, it's so tone deaf.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Well, you don't have to choose, right, No.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
You don't. It's not an either or. They should walk
in that room and say, f you either undo the
tariffs right now, or you get no aid for your farmers.
And the Republicans in these red states whose people depend
on Medica Care, Medicaid, Social Security, and an ACA, they're
going to be coming to you pal, not us. We
(20:05):
didn't cut it a for it. You're the one who
cut those things. You're the one who has had the
stated desire from the very beginning of your first campaign
in twenty sixteen to burn the ACA to the ground.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Right us, Right, No, it's true, and there's and you
know Trump has said as much.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah. The other thing you mentioned is like, how do
you negotiate with the terrorists? How do you negotiate with
a person who's senior aide Stephen Miller, is calling all
Democrats part of a global terrorist effort to destroy America.
How do you negotiate with a White House that put
out a hit list of Democratic leaders now this week,
a hit list that MAGA has decided is a hit list.
(20:48):
How do you negotiate with people who say that you
are terrorists, traders, murderers, pedophiles, criminals, globalist, shills, whatever the
phrase you want to pick, they're going to use it
on you. Don't negotiate with those people. There can be
only one outcome if you negotiate with them is that
they will betray you, They will screw you over, they
will put you in the ground, and God forbid. I know,
(21:10):
I know as an ex Republic and a lot of
Democrats are like, well, we can win on policy, sir.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
No, No you can't.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Yeah, you can't.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
I mean, at least Jeffries and Humor are aligned that
they both want they both which they have that they
were not in March, so if any we have that.
But it's more like, I just think they can't explain
it in a way that you know, if you say tariffs,
we want you to end the tariffs and we'll give
(21:39):
you the bailout, that makes a lot of sense versus
like a twenty five line soliloquy on healthcare and premiums.
I'm not sure people understand premiums.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
No, they don't, of course, it's a classic Democratic bank
shot problem. Well, they'll they'll they'll see their bill rise,
and they'll understand that if we had negotiated a cr
with these provisions. They will never do that. Voters will
never do that. In fact, I'm going I'm gonna get
in trouble for saying this. I want voters to suffer
right now. I want them to experience the pain of
(22:10):
Donald Trump's mistakes. Democrats should not relieve Donald Trump of
the political burden he has placed on the Republican Party,
they should not save him. They're going to save him.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
And that's why a lot of Republicans want those subsidies.
And that's why, you know, the problem with the twenty
twenty four cycle was you would say to voters Trump
wants to take this stuff away, and they'd say, no,
he didn't last time, right, right, So if he didn't
do it last time, why would you do it this time?
And that created a lot of incentive structure for Trump.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
The other thing that Democrats, if they vote for the CR,
I know it's only a seven week CR, right right,
if they have this illusion that will fight the fight later.
That's seven more weeks of Stephen Miller's secret police forces
being in our streets funded fully. That's seven more weeks
of Russell Vought running the Project twenty twenty five the gen.
That's seven more weeks of Brendan Carr trying to shut
(23:03):
down free speech with broadcast networks. That's seven more weeks
of Donald Trump deploying Pete Hegseth to drag four hundred
generals into a room for whatever mysterious goddamn reason. That's
seven more weeks of Donald Trump burning down the economy.
They are there. If they relieve him of this, of
(23:24):
the pain he's going to cause American voters, they are
fools writ large.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
But if we hurtle into a shutdown, which is very possible,
then you have a question of who can withstand the
most pain.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
The Democrats are in the minority. They don't have any
responsibilities in Washington. The White House is controlled by MAGA.
The House is controlled by MAGA. The Senate is controlled
by MAGA. The Supreme Court is controlled by MAGA. Nobody
thinks the Democrats can do shit about fuck right now, Molly,
So they might as well just say let it burn.
It's all on you, Donald.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
But eventually someone's gonna I mean so Russ Vaughan has
this memo that he's going to fire everybody in the world.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah, I mean so, let him do it. Let him
do it, let them do it. It will hasten the
economic collapse into a massive recession. We're already teetering on it.
It will hasten the economic collapse. That Donald Trump owns
lock Stock and Beryl. He has done this to us.
There's been zero democratic voice or role in designing this
(24:33):
economic calamity. And this is where Trump's own arrogance, it
will doom him. He's I'm in charge of everything. I
run everything. No one can do anything without me and
my and my permission. Okay, you're right, boss, that's what
you did, has You're right, you burn it all down.
By the way, the idea that voters will reward Democrats
(24:55):
for being responsible leaders.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Right, that's never happened ever, right, I mean.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
That's yeah, never, that never in the history of that, right.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Right, And that's true. And I do think, yeah, voters
will never reward that kind of behavior. So you could
get into a shutdown and you think eventually Trump will cave,
because he has historically caved.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
The problem is the longer we're shut down the now.
The one upside for Trump in a shutdown is the
longer we're in a shutdown, he will just say, can't
release the Epstein file, So sorry, guys, shutdown. Right, That's
the only upside for Trump. And it should tell you
everything about this that they understand this very intimately. They
get the political delaying factor that this will cause.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
And you have voting in New Jersey, not New Jersey
yet coming.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Virginia, voting Virginias and New Jersey. I think his next
soon Wednesday soon.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I mean, how does that factor.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Well look in New Jersey. I think Cheryl's in pretty
good shape. In Virginia, the Republican candidate is historically bad, Yes,
and that is causing a lot. Yes, when the Republicans
picks winsomsters, they weren't sending their best.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yes, that is she's she's like, she's really up there
with the It proves.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
That point that it's really hard for MAGA to scale
when it's not Donald Trump. We've been talking in a
deep red state or district.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
We have been talking about MAGA scaling for like we've
been doing this for a fucking decade. Yeah, and it's
so sad, but it is true. We've gotten so much,
We've gotten so old. As much as trump Ism is
terrifying at this moment, there have been so many losses
that I don't think people have. I mean, I just
(26:40):
want for two seconds, because I was I was on
TV earlier and the block before me, there was like
a reporter, a White House reporter who came from the caller,
who was notching through all of Trump's wins, and I,
you know, and maybe he'll go to Portland, but like
he didn't go to Chicago. What he did in now
(27:00):
was considered illegal. I know he doesn't care about illegal,
but it was. He has He lost on the chemo fight, right,
lost against Sinclair. If there ever were a group that
wanted to the best for Donald Trump, who Claire Sinclair? Okay,
so these are already three big losses then, you know,
I mean there's been you know, in court again and again,
(27:24):
except when it comes to the Supreme Court because they're
his buddies. But I mean he has really this has
not been the cake walk he plays it to be.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
No, Molly, Look, I think this is really important to understand.
Donald Trump is a historically unpopular president. About a third
of America loves Donald Trump with the fire of a
billion suns. The rest of America is on a scale
somewhere between disappointment, dislike and would not piss on him
if he was on fire. This is not a popular president.
(27:54):
His numbers are in the mid thirties, now creeping toward
the low thirties. His numbers on the most important leadership
valence right now the economy are insanely underwater. He's twenty
to twenty seven points underwater on various economic scoring things
like the tariffs, like inflation, like prices, like jobs. No
(28:16):
one believes in the economic vision that Donald Trump has created,
including a majority of Republicans. Yeah, they understand that he
is an incompetent. The craziness was always excused in the past,
but now you can't excuse it anymore. You can't pretend
it doesn't exist anymore. You can't pretend it doesn't have
a direct and immediate impact anymore, because it does.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Luke Wilson, Molly John Fast. Tom Freeden is the former
director of the CDC and the author of the Formula
for Better Life, How to Save millions of lives, including
your own. Welcome to Fast Politics, Tom, great to speak
with you. You are former CDC director. Would be malpractice
(29:01):
if I did not ask you just quickly about these
Kennedy hearings. I know you're here to promote a book,
but talk to me about what is going on here.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
This isn't about democratic versus Republican. There's been plenty of
Republican and democratic partnership and successes in public health, both
in the US and globally. This is about fact versus fiction.
This is about simple, clear, plain truths versus debunked misinformation,
(29:31):
and what we're seeing is the systematic destruction of the
vaccine protections that Americans depend on. How far they'll go,
I don't know, but it's clearly a huge risk to kids, adults,
and seniors in this country.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Let's just talk for a minute about this risk we
live through the pandemic we are in this moment. I mean,
do you ever think, as a doctor who's specially I
was in public health and it has led many of
these agencies that you would live in a time when
there's such hostility towards science.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
I could never have believed that a day would come
when I can't trust what's on the CDC website. What
we see is really a hijacking of the CDC brand.
You have twelve or so political appointees and no career
officials running the agency at this point. So it's really
concerning what we're seeing, and of course it does reflect
(30:31):
a lot of suspicion, a lot of hostility, a lot
of lack of understanding, and real mistakes that public health
made at state, city, and national levels.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Your book focuses on sort of the macro the micro
of public health. Talk to me about the micro or
the macro with.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
This, well, what the Formula for Better Health outlines is
an approach that has been proven to save millions of
lives that can save millions more. Actually, is also quite
relevant for individual health decisions. It's to see, believe, and create,
to see things that are not obvious, that are not apparent,
(31:10):
whether it's trends in society, or whether programs are working
or failing, or what The real pathway to progress is
to believe we can make progress by recognizing past progress
and making phased progress now and maintaining optimism, which sounds
delusional today, but actually there are ways to do it
(31:32):
and it's evidence based. And finally, to create a healthier future,
which requires simplifying, organizing, communicating, and overcoming the inevitable barriers
that are in the way of public health progress.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
What are some of those barriers.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
Here's a conceptual thing that you may be interested in, Molly,
maybe not. There's something called the Cassandra curse, and the
Cassandra curse. Cassandra from Greek mythology could see the future,
but she was cursed. Nobody believed her, and so the
tragedies that she could foresee came to pass because people
didn't change their behavior to prevent them. Public health, individuals,
(32:08):
and society in general have had a Cassandrickers. We can
predict what's going to happen, but we can't stop it.
There are a lot of reasons for that curse, but
one of them is something called the prevention paradox. And
the prevention paradox basically says that the things that make
the biggest difference to the health of society only make
a very little difference to each individual. That might be
(32:32):
putting folid in your food, or iodine in the food,
or reducing transpat which we've done at my organization with
the World Health Organization that is going to prevent something
like nine million deaths. But those changes, because the benefits
are diffuse but the costs are concentrated, create a structural
challenge that most things that advance public health are good
(32:56):
for everyone a little bit and bad for a few
groups like tobacco executives a lot, and so in our
political system and in most political systems around the world,
there is a lot of opposition to things that are
good for everyone somewhat and can make a huge difference
to health.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
I would love you to talk about herd immunity because
this seems like a very important point in this Cassandra paradox. Right,
we know this is bad. We know something real bad's
coming on herd immunity. Talk us through what this.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Is and what this looks like for any one child.
You know, there are a lot of benefits to not
being vaccinated. It hurts, you have to take time out
of your schedule. It may cost some money or travel.
There's a one in a million chance that something bad
will happen, but only if all the other parents don't
say that and everyone else gets vaccinated. I started my
(33:53):
public health career in New York City on huge measles
outbreaks that were happening at the time. Thousands of cases,
hundreds of kids hospitalized, dozens of kids severely ill or dying.
And the only way we can stop measles is by
getting a very high immunity. We really all are connected.
Your health doesn't just depend on you, It also depends
(34:14):
on your community.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
I assume that this must be the same as it
was with the nineteen eighteen flu pandemic. Is there something
we can learn from history about how to win back
hearts and minds with this.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
One thing that's very consistent? If you look back at
the historical record, people just stop talking about the pandemic
right after it. They just didn't want to deal with it.
They didn't want to talk about it. And I think
that's what we're seeing with the current period and COVID.
The way public health succeeds is by communicating better, listening
(34:47):
to what people have to say, by making consistent winds,
small wins to rebuild a trust, progress on things that
people care about, and avoiding require anything unless it's really
essential to require.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
So what does that mean? Avoiding requiring anything unless it's essential.
That seems like could cover a lot.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
It could.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
I think when we look back on COVID, many of
the mandates really were bad ideas. When it came to vaccination,
Initially it looked like vaccination prevented you from getting and
spreading COVID. As more data came out, it became clear
that the primary benefit of COVID vaccination is to the
person vaccinated, and so it's more like a motorcycle helmet
(35:34):
law than it is like a school entry requirement to
get vaccinated so we don't have outbreaks in the schools.
That kind of mandate really alienated people and didn't actually
help us to reduce deaths in the longer term.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
I'm sort of surprised to hear you say this. You know,
it strikes me that you were just learning in real
time and you didn't know what you didn't know, So
I just wonder how you came to this.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
There's a lot of nuance, right the pandemic changed, vaccines
became available, immunity increased, our knowledge of the virus, and
the illness increased. But there's a big difference between requiring
individuals to do something and requiring harmful companies to do something.
So it's one thing to require the tobacco industry to
(36:25):
stop spiking cigarettes with the things that make it more addictive,
or stop food companies from adding a toxin called trans
that that was killing half a million people before. That
kind of requirement protects people, and the only real opposition
is the self interested companies that want to block it.
(36:45):
Whereas even all other industries will benefit because their workers
will be healthier, healthcare costs will be lower, productivity will
be higher. But when it comes to requiring things of individuals,
the key is that we just with time, there's a
lot of nuance, and to understand if we look back
at COVID, I'd divide the pandemic into three phases. In
(37:09):
the first there was no vaccine. In that phase, things
like closures of indoor spaces, masking requirements, distancing really did
make a big difference. In the second phase, when vaccine
became available, the quicker seniors were vaccinated, the better communities
did because the vast majority of deaths were in seniors.
(37:33):
And in the third phase, when the omicron wave hit,
it became impossible to really stop the spread through things
like contact tracing and quarantine and masks were less effective.
It was really going to spread through society. In that phase,
How effective communities were reaching everyone really made a huge difference.
(37:53):
But fundamentally, public health succeeds when it can see the
problems and path forward, telling people together to believe that
it's stoppable, and then systematically organize, simplify, communicate and overcome
the challenges.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
If you were CDC director right now, what would you
do to restore public face in public health?
Speaker 4 (38:14):
I would always be clear about what we know, what
we don't know, how we know it, what we recommended.
I would start every recommendation based on based on what
we know. Now here's what we're saying and what we
know now is if you're over sixty five or you
have an immune problem or rather vulnerability, the evidence from
the past few years is very clear that getting a
(38:36):
booster with the COVID vaccine will reduce your chances of
being seriously ill or dying. We're not recommending that anyone
be required to get a COVID booster, but we want
to make sure that everyone can get one. For people
who are younger, you're not likely to die from COVID.
You are likely to have less severe illness if you
(38:58):
get vaccinated, So I think that you should have the
availability of that vaccine.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah. How worried are you about having someone who's heading
this huge public health organization who's sort of antathetical to
medicine the way we've known it.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
I think what you have to do with the current
leadership of HHS is to always look at what they're
doing versus what they're saying. I mean, a lot of
the things they say I agree with, they're really important. Right.
They're saying they want to restore confidence, but they're undermined confidence.
They're saying they want to restore gold standard science, but
(39:39):
they're actually undermining gold standard science. They're saying they want
to eliminate conflicts of interest, but they're actually inserting huge
conflicts of interest. They say they want to address chronic disease. Great,
except they just eliminated the entire tobacco control, cardiovascular health,
and cancer programs at CDC. They say they want to
(39:59):
reduce environmental contamination, but they've rolled back laws and regulations
on forever chemicals like pfas on deadly soot, particulate matter
two point five on mercury and arsenic poisoning. They say
they want to make America healthier, but they're undermining our
protections against measles, influenza, COVID and other threats.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Do you have a sense for the food safety stuff,
because that seems like a big deal too.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
It is amazing. They are defunding something called food net.
It's a national network that tracks if there are contaminants
in your food, and therefore we won't be able to
track things like campelobacter and listeria, which happened to be
two bacterial infections which are spread by guess what raw
(40:47):
milk and what are they cause? They cause miscarriages, meningitis, weakness,
big problems with people who get infections, and a lot
of minor illnesses of people who misswork, school, economic cost.
The thing that does give me hope is that facts
are stubborn things. Even if you deny them, misuse them,
(41:08):
suppress them, ignore them, try to prevent people from finding
them out, they remain facts. And also people want to
be healthy. A lot of the concerns we're hearing from
the MAHA movement they're valid concerns. A lot of the
concerns about money in medicine, those are valid concerns. And
(41:29):
what I would say to the general public is if
anyone is trying to tell you anything, don't believe anything
they say about.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Health right And that is a big part of MAHA.
There's a lot of financial incentives.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Huge, but I think the concerns are real. People don't
know who to trust. One out of three Americans doesn't
have a primary care clinician, no doctor who they can trust,
they can choose, they can trust, who can interpret what's
happening for them. And one of the things I get
to in the book is thinking about what does public
(42:06):
health tell us about individual health? If you want to
live a longer, healthier life with a lower risk of dementia.
There are proven ways to do that, and they're not
that complicated, and most of them are pretty inexpensive and
can be done either on your own or with the
help of a good primary care doctor, a family physician.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
I mean, are they doing anything to get the food
dies out to work on that, which seems like an
important issue.
Speaker 4 (42:35):
This is really performative. You look at the switch from
high fruct corn syrup to regular sugar, essentially zero difference
in terms of health. I don't know if it tastes differently.
That's not my area of expertise, but these are things
that sound good. One thing that we know absolutely from
our work in food policy is that anything that's voluntary
(42:59):
with industry will fail. We've tried over and over again.
It just doesn't work. And if you look at the
things that really work on nutrition policy, they're things like
soda taxes very effective. They're like front of pack warnings
that many countries in Latin America have done very effective.
(43:21):
There are things like limiting sodium in processed food or
strengthening healthy food requirements for grocery stores that participate in
the SNAP program. None of those things are even mentioned,
let alone done, And when they talk about things like
getting junk food out of our school meals, they talk
(43:41):
about working to improve it, not about a timeline or
a focus. So I think the diagnosis is not bad,
the intent is not bad, or the stated intent is
not bad, but the actions don't meet the words right.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
And that sounds like a lot of what we know
in Trump world. If there's one thing if you're listening
to this, because a lot of the people who listen
this podcasts are like me, they're just trying to keep
their own family safe, what would you say are sort
of the most important things if you're listening to this
just to keep your family safe.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
Well? For personal health, there are really six keys to
personal health. The first is under emphasized. It's blood pressure,
keeping your blood pressure in control ideally under one twenty
over eighty. The second is healthy cholesterol. Lots more people
should frankly be honest that than are well. I'm on
(44:37):
a stat okay, getting regular physical activity, which doesn't have
to mean go to the gym. You know, only five
percent of people are ever going to go to the gym,
But if you take four thirty minute risk walks a week,
it's a miracle. Drug you do more good than most
of medicines that you can take. There's also importance of
(44:59):
getting enough sleep seven hours of sleep, avoiding toxins, including tobacco, alcohol,
and some of the newer things that are real concerns. Well,
the big three I think of as endocrine disruptors, nanoparticles,
and microplastics. They are all over our environment, and we
really don't know how severe the harms are. We know
(45:20):
that they can cause hans, but we don't know how
big a problem it is. And there are so many
of them. How do you focus? How do you be
getting them out? We need to have a lot of research,
We need to have a lot of action. We need
to work with industry to understand what's in there, because
it's everywhere and you can't turn our backs on all
of this stuff. But you do want to make sure
(45:42):
that the things that are actually harming people you get
out of the environment so we don't have the next
asbestos or the next trans fat, because those two things
were introduced because they were thought to be more convenient
and healthier. And the last thing, and maybe the most complicated,
is nutrition. Healthy nutrition. On an individual basis, people can
do a few things. One is have more potassium than sodium.
(46:06):
We actually have a potassium deficiency. It's our most important
dietary deficiency. Most people only consume a half to two
thirds the amount of potassium they need. If you consume
more potassium than sodium, your heart will be much healthier
and you'll have more energy. So reducing sodium increasing potassium
is important. Limiting free sugars and limiting processed meat. All
(46:30):
three of those things are really proven to improve. There
are lots of other things, like increasing fiber that probably
can help your health significantly. And there's another whole set
of things in addition to those six that can reduce
your risk of dementia.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Diet coke, yes or now that's.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
A yellow lage, right, We really don't know. This is
one of the areas where we have to be frank
about what we know and what we don't know. It's
probably not as bad as regular coke. It's definitely worse
than one.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Oh wait, it's not as bad as regular kroke. But
what about the artificial sweetener.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
It's probably not as bad. I wouldn't say definitely. There's
really just not that much evidence. And one of the
things that we have to do clearly, And what I
outline in the book is be clear about how certain
we are. There's certain things that we're essentially certain of.
There are other things that are likely correct, but we
should be humble because in the future we may find
something different out There are other things that are maybes,
(47:27):
but there's some evidence, and then there are wild guesses
where we really don't know what the reality is. And
when it comes to artificial sweeteners, they're not healthy. They
may be better for you than sugar because they have
fewer calories, and calories are a big problem, but it's
a lot better not to have them to have them.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Tom. I feel pretty
good that I can go off a die coke.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
Now that's a hard question, not simple. You would find
a pretty vigorous debate among the people who really study
this stuff.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Oh, I believe it. Thank you, Tom, Thank you, thank you.
I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
I would love to.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
No moment, Rick Wilson, Molly dug Fast, what is your
moment of huckery?
Speaker 3 (48:12):
My moment of fuckery is Stephen Miller this week whining
like a stuck hog because he got his feefees hurt
to grab a Newsome called him a fascist. He got
very angry about it, right so much, and it's just mean.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
It's so funny because it's like this guy says stuff
that we're like, you know, he's up there like doing
his best gurbls and then someone calls him he's a fascist,
and he's so offended.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
You know what if the jack boot fits, wear it, motherfucker.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Ooh, luckily you're allowed to curse here.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Thank goodness, Thank.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
You for joining us.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
See you soon.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Hi, I'm Molly John Fast and this is Fast Politics,
where we discussed the top political headlines with some of
today's best minds. And New York City Mayor Eric Adams
has dropped his reelection bid. We have such a great
show for you today and the Lincoln Project's owned with
Wilson joins us to talk about the impending government shutdown.
(00:23):
Then we'll talk to former CDC director doctor Tom Frieden
about his new book, The Formula for Better Health, How
to save millions of lives, including your own.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
But first the news Somalia. John Thune said the not
very quiet part out loud that the farmers need bailouts
because these stupid fucking tariffs.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Yes, look, the farmers need bailouts. So does Argentina. We've
cut cancer funding, we've cut the weather services, we've cut
basically all you know, nih Greens for medical tests, for
different trials, for vaccines. We've cut this, we've cut that,
(01:05):
We've you know, But here's what we're going to do now,
because none of this makes any sense. We're going to
bail out the farmers because you know why they need
a bail out, can you guess? Because of Trump's terrible
policies because of the tariffs. The tariffs are hurting the farmers,
but also because of canceling USAID, which was only supposed
(01:27):
to kill people overseas. But it turns out that USAID
was set up to use these crops and send them
overseas to feed starving people. But Elon Musk, the richest
man in the world, didn't like that one bit. And
so since he was running our government, because he had
(01:49):
donated so much money to Trump, and because Trump liked him,
and because he sucked up to Trump, he decided to
cancel USAID, And because Marco Rubio is a complete cow,
he went along with it. And now we are here.
Speaker 2 (02:03):
That sounds about right.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
So farmers are gonna get money. By the way, this
happened in Trump's first term, and farmers don't actually like
it because they have these farms and they're doing this.
You know, it's just it undermines everything right to bail
people out in this way, it's just so fucked.
Speaker 2 (02:26):
Very stupid. So, Molly, my personal TikTok is very a
buzz because there is much of the left organizing and
information comes on TikTok. Benjamin net Yahu recently described that
the new owners of TikTok will be one of their
great assets and weapons in the war with Palestine. The
(02:46):
left is not very happy about this, and there's a
lot of fuckery going on since it seems like the
owners of Fox News will be on the board as well.
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Yeah, TikTok, which is basically owned by the Chinese government
and used to get our locations, maybe poison the brains
of our youth, including Jesse, no offense or anything.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
It's the evidence is clear on this podcast every day.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
So TikTok was meant to just do that. Our guy
Joe Biden decided that he was going to ban it.
Good idea, very nonpartisan, and most people were not for it,
but both sides of the political aisle thought that banning
TikTok was a good idea. Why because there was no
transparency about the algorithm. So there was a question of
(03:32):
why the algorithm made Americans into psychos and Chinese children
into readers, right, I mean, there was certainly some difference there.
And then also there was all this data collection, which is,
you know, the Chinese government has basically malware on all
of our phones, which in itself seems kind of bad.
So there was the thought that they would shut down TikTok.
(03:54):
Now because Donald Trump then became president and realized he
could make money on it or whatever, realized like why
shut something down when there's some way to play it
for me. He has decided to allow his friends to
take shares in it. But again, like this, because of
Trump World, nothing has been thought out really well. So
America's taitan steaks in different public companies. This is what
(04:17):
we usually think of as communism, but when Trump does it,
it's called okay for some reason. So they have.
Speaker 2 (04:24):
We're all crony capitalists now.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Right, fifteen percent in Navidia trip Shale. And by the way,
because the law is not a thing anymore, we don't
even know what's really happening. We just know what they're
saying is happening. But the investors we think we have
been told are going to be in this TikTok dealer
Larry Allison, the Murdochs who you may remember from Fox News,
and Andreas and Horowitz. That guy has a very funny
(04:47):
shaped head. So we don't really quite understand what this means.
China has been really clear that they do not want
to give America any kind of trans parency on the algorithm.
Either way, this American government picking winners and losers. Maybe
Michael Dell's in it. We don't really know what's happening here,
(05:09):
but we do know one thing, which is that Benjamin Netanyaho,
she President of Israel, who recently spoke at the UN,
and many many, many world leaders just ran out because
they did not want to hear it. Benjamin Netanyaho was
recorded this week talking about how great it's going to
(05:29):
be that his allies will own TikTok and how happy
he is that his allies own X. In my mind,
that strikes me as probably an indication that this is
not going to be a free and fair media platform.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah, I'm betting on it, but you know what I'm
not betting on. And you know I say this as
somebody who we all know is pretty far to the left,
is my fellow leftists are not going at leaving predatory apps,
as evidenced by that they are more present on Twitter
than most Democrats to their right.
Speaker 1 (06:01):
Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (06:03):
It's very disheartening.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
It's disheartening, but again, I think there is a world
in which the functionality of TikTok could be on Blue Sky,
the functionality of X. I mean, there's just the road
to Rome is paved with social media apps that have
been abandoned.
Speaker 2 (06:21):
Yeah, this could be their MySpace moment for sure.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:24):
I will say, despite me being a Debbie downer there,
we did see that Threads by Many Metrics is now
performing better at daily use than Twitter.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Yeah, even though it's also terrible, it's fine for me.
I mean it's owned by again, Like, are we gonna
have a contest about who's.
Speaker 2 (06:40):
I didn't mean in that context. I wasn't disgusting it
in that context. I agree with you. There's no argument
from here. Okay. Trump has announced tariffs on pharmaceuticals, furniture,
and heavy trucks starting October first.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Yeah, it's interesting that he's picked those three things.
Speaker 2 (06:55):
It's that crodi capitalism think of picking winners and losers.
Speaker 1 (06:58):
Well, it's also man in camera remember that from season one?
Speaker 2 (07:03):
Never we'll forget it.
Speaker 1 (07:04):
Yeah, no, look, I don't fucking know again. Pharmaceuticals, it's
very stupid because there are some pharmaceuticals that you can't like.
There will be patented drugs you can only get from
different countries that you won't be able to get. I
mean again, with all this stuff, you have to watch
for the cutouts because that's where a lot of the
cryptocracy happens. The cutouts are like Trump's little that is
(07:27):
where he picks the winners and losers. So you'll wait
and see on this again. I thought we had already
everything all of these tariffs, So I guess there will
be more tariffs, right because you know, one hundred percent
tariff on any branded or patented pharmaceutical product unless a
company is building their pharmaceutical manufacturing plants in America. Okay,
(07:49):
that is pretty vague. So we shall see. Are you
going to have ice arrest the people working in the plant,
because that's what you did at the Hondai plant in Georgia.
I mean, who wants to come here on open a
factory when you know that there's a non zero chance
that some of the people work in your factory will
get arrested. And you know, I mean remember that when
(08:11):
plane filled with South Koreans that was like two weeks ago.
Speaker 2 (08:15):
Yeah, so Bia, this one's pretty interesting. Oklahoma State Superintended
Ryan Walters has resigned. You may remember him from doing
many psychotic things in that office and bringing Oklahoma all
the way down to the bottom state in education. Great
work there, but he's leaving to pursue his passion, which
is getting rid of unions for teachers.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
Wonder why he's leaving.
Speaker 2 (08:37):
He claims it's Charlie Kirk, right.
Speaker 1 (08:39):
I mean, that doesn't make a ton of sense. A
lot of times you see stories like this and then
you see stories that make this story make sense. But
maybe it's just his love of Turning Point USA. He
did say that every high school will have a Turning
Point USA Club America chapter.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Yeah. I think there's a very funny thing of this.
Is that maga thing of that. I did a terrible
job rutting it, so I should be elevated even higher.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Listen, man, certainly possible.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Okay, you're ready to go to a circle of hell
that is very very dark. No, well tough. Clarence Thomas
says President might not determine cases on upcoming Supreme Court docket.
Speaker 1 (09:21):
The irony here is President hasn't determined cases it. I mean, really,
you don't say I think my man is whatever you
think that the Supreme Court can do. That's bad. Clarence
Thomas is hoping you'll just know that he's playing something worse.
I don't know, and I do give perspective to the president,
(09:43):
but the president should be respectful of our legal tradition
and our country. Our laws are based on something not
just something somebody dreamt up and others went along with,
like gay marriage. Sorry he doesn't say gay marriage. But look,
things are gonna have to get worse before they get better,
and this is part of that. Rick Wilson is the
(10:09):
founder of the Lincoln Project and the host of the
Enemy's List.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Rick Wilson, Hello, comrade, are you reporting from the Antifa
Command and Control Bunker?
Speaker 1 (10:18):
Okay, So, Republican Donald Trump has decided that the left
is now illegal the left? How does that work?
Speaker 3 (10:26):
In good It doesn't work. Everybody should look at it
through two contextual lenses. One it's all Fox bait bullshit, right,
and two it's anything to stop the fact that people
are beginning to understand that he's going to shut down
the government this week to hide the Epstein files.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
We are hurtling towards the government. Shutdown could happen as
soon as Tuesday night at midnight. Put also not happen.
Donald Trump had a meeting with Jeffries and Schumer, he
canceled it. Then in his infinite wisdom, he remade it
art of the deal. Why cancel it and then say
(11:09):
they can he supposedly this was reported, he said they
can fuck off.
Speaker 3 (11:13):
Look my take on it has always been, there's no
deal to be made with these people. Schumer and Jeffries
both think that they're going to protect people's healthcare by
making a deal that keeps the ACA subsidies in place.
Speaker 1 (11:28):
If they have not Republicans also want well, of.
Speaker 3 (11:31):
Course they do, of course they do. But here's the thing.
If they don't understand that funding the CR continues to
fund all of Trump's other project twenty twenty five evils,
and that Trump has consistently violated the law and canceled
or changed the funding levels or reassign the funding of
(11:52):
congression right of congressionally appropriated and authorized expenditures over and
over again. And this is this isn't like Rick Wilson's
lib TRD opinion. This is in the constitution, however, and the.
Speaker 1 (12:06):
Book pocket recision in August piece in New York Times,
reading it today, yeah, here's.
Speaker 3 (12:13):
What's gonna what I think what Trump would do. He
would go into the Jeffries and Schumer say well, fine,
all right, I'll keep the ACA stuff in and then
literally decide, oh, well, the Blue states are in rebellion,
so I'm canceling their part of the ACA preservation. If
he doesn't think they don't think that this is what
this guy's gonna do, or some similarly destructive, evil, crappy thing,
(12:36):
then they should not be in the offices they hold
right now.
Speaker 1 (12:39):
Correct now, let's I want to go back to the
left being illegal. So this is like another one of
these Donald Trumpy proclamations that has no legal anything to it. Nope,
but he desperately wants to investigate George Soros and also
Reed Hoffmann, who is so afraid of being investigated by
(13:02):
Donald Trump he no longer even lives in this country.
Speaker 3 (13:04):
Molly, Donald Trump understands one important thing that there is
no one in DC who is going to stop him.
No one, Supreme Court is not going to stop him.
Certainly House aren't going to stop him. John soon that
wet Mattress isn't going to stop him.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Well, today on the Sunday Shows, when Wilker said, do
you think it's okay that Trump sends troops into cities,
thus violating the Posse Act. Soon says, what.
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Will stop him, and the only thing that's going to
stop him is losing the House. I don't buy the
argument that Trump wants to lose the House so he
can be a martyr again.
Speaker 1 (13:46):
No, absolutely not.
Speaker 3 (13:47):
What will stop him is losing the House. Now. The
reason we're not going to get a cr this week
is that Mike Johnson cannot have the House in session
without having since Grialva one in air Zona, he cannot
have the House in session without the discharge vote to House.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
So he has to he would swear, and there's been
a new seat, there's been a Democrat elected. Now Democrats
have the numbers to pass this Epstein bill that would
in fact make it.
Speaker 3 (14:20):
And by the way, on Friday, I spoke to somebody
in the Republican political orbit that expressed to me the
level of investment in the White House of panic in
this is through the roof. There's been some reporting on it,
but the way it was described to me of this
person was, this is an all hands on deck hole
(14:42):
of government effort to stop this. They're doing everything they
can and.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
That's why the House is at a session.
Speaker 3 (14:48):
Yes, I was also told he may declare this information
to be classified to prevent its release next week, So
we'll see if he does that. I don't think it
works for him the way he thinks it works. The
more he does this, the more people go, what is
in this thing? Is it a dead Is it a
dead girl? Or a live boy? Or or or a
bunch of goats? What is it?
Speaker 1 (15:08):
I mean, it is the stri sand effect, right, that
you're going to hide something by making such a big
deal that everyone's going to be interested in it. I
thought Mike Johnson had said he might not seat that Congress.
Speaker 3 (15:21):
He no, he has. Alreay said he won't seat her
even though she won the race by almost forty points. Right,
he's always said he won't seat her because of of reasons.
He doesn't have a reason. He's just saying, you won't
do it. But he recognizes now that that the government
will shut down, and no one's going to say, by
(15:43):
the way that the Republican one is, you're trying to
give you legals healthcare and free money, nobody's gonna buy it.
Nobody buys it.
Speaker 1 (15:49):
Is nobody gonna buy it. Because I feel like a
shutdown is a messaging war.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Here's the big part of it. If the economy was
booming and the government shut down, everyone would go damn
throw things off track. But Trump has already driven the
economy into the ditch. We're not reporting the inflation statistics
because do you think it's because they're great or terrible.
We're not reporting unemployment statistics because because they.
Speaker 1 (16:13):
Shared the head, right, Yes.
Speaker 3 (16:16):
And this weird guy that he replaced him with is like,
now we're just not gonna report anything. Yeah, we're just
gonna stop. We're not doing anything.
Speaker 1 (16:22):
Makes sense, you know.
Speaker 3 (16:23):
But the left is illegal game.
Speaker 1 (16:26):
This hour is made. You're gonna meet with Trump also
does want a bailout for farmers who are being hurt
by his tariffs.
Speaker 3 (16:34):
You know what, Honest to god, Democrats, they do not
understand this yet. You notice all these articles these farmers
are like, our markets have collapsed, We're gonna lose our farms.
We're in economic calamity. Oh no, what was the reason
for that? Who caused that? What single individual cause that?
And I gotta tell you something, if Jeffries and Schumer
walk in there without a demand to Trump, yeah, we'll
(16:56):
pass relief for farmers, undo the tariffs, right, now, right now,
give respect the power to do its tariffs and to
set tariffs right now. They should not negotiate with a terrorist.
He is a terrorist. They don't understand this rule. We've
seen a lot of maga in the last week to
ten days, like trying to whip up this frenzy and
Tifa in Portland. We must invade the city, total war.
(17:19):
You know, I was in Portland, Brenanda were in Portland
in January, and the charming coffee shops and boutiques downtown
did not strike me as Mogadishu circa nineteen ninety one.
And it's but it's a sign of how desperate they
are and how bad Trump's political standing is right now.
He needs to shake the tree. He needs to shake
things up and do something so that people don't every
(17:42):
day focus on how bad the economy is. And by
the way, Democrats, if they do end up in this
messaging war about the shutdown and farmers, there's a very
simple answer. Have the day you voted for, We tried
to help you. Donald Trump is the one who did
this to you. Donald Trump is the one who did
this to you. Not a single Democrat set a tariff
that is screwed American farmers an egg. Not a single
(18:03):
Democrat set those terraffs.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
Not a single Demoran canceled the foreign aid right.
Speaker 3 (18:07):
Not a single Democrats decision killed the USA I D budget,
which paid American farmers an awful lot of money every
year to help feed impoverished people around the world. Not
a single one. So, I mean, I wish we could
declare stupidity to be illegal, but we clearly cannot in
this country. And what Trump has done is unbelievably stupid,
and the harm that is being done to these farmers.
(18:29):
You know, Look, the Democrats have this this health care,
health care. Health care is the only thing that matters.
They think it's the only they think it's the one
sharp knife in the entire tool of the drawer.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
They are tariffs.
Speaker 3 (18:42):
The people hate it and they feel it and it's
hurting them every single day. And if you don't put
the tariffs onto Trump, the White House will say we didn't,
we didn't, we didn't set those tears, we didn't cause
China to cancel the.
Speaker 1 (18:56):
Contracts right right now, It's true.
Speaker 3 (18:59):
You're not to win back a lot of MAGA voters
if you're for the Democrats. By the way, by saying, oh,
poor babies, we'll we'll fix the problem Donald Trump caused
for you love us now because you know what they'll
do the second they do. They're like, well, I didn't
want to have them pedophiles we bail my farm out,
but I had to.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
I just wonder how you make a deal with a terrorist, right,
I mean, that's the question. How do you make a
deal with someone you know will reap? I mean, this
is the problem that all of our allies are having too.
How do you make a deal with the country you
can't trust?
Speaker 3 (19:30):
Listen Schumer and Jeffreys. Like Schumer had a terrible tweet
on Sunday, it was like, oh, Donald Trump's any troops
to Portland. Maybe focus on preserving healthcare instead. It's so
tone deaf, it's so tone deaf.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
Well, you don't have to choose, right, No.
Speaker 3 (19:45):
You don't. It's not an either or. They should walk
in that room and say, f you either undo the
tariffs right now, or you get no aid for your farmers.
And the Republicans in these red states whose people depend
on Medica Care, Medicaid, Social Security, and an ACA, they're
going to be coming to you pal, not us. We
(20:05):
didn't cut it a for it. You're the one who
cut those things. You're the one who has had the
stated desire from the very beginning of your first campaign
in twenty sixteen to burn the ACA to the ground.
Speaker 1 (20:19):
Right us, Right, No, it's true, and there's and you
know Trump has said as much.
Speaker 4 (20:25):
You know.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
Yeah. The other thing you mentioned is like, how do
you negotiate with the terrorists? How do you negotiate with
a person who's senior aide Stephen Miller, is calling all
Democrats part of a global terrorist effort to destroy America.
How do you negotiate with a White House that put
out a hit list of Democratic leaders now this week,
a hit list that MAGA has decided is a hit list.
(20:48):
How do you negotiate with people who say that you
are terrorists, traders, murderers, pedophiles, criminals, globalist, shills, whatever the
phrase you want to pick, they're going to use it
on you. Don't negotiate with those people. There can be
only one outcome if you negotiate with them is that
they will betray you, They will screw you over, they
will put you in the ground, and God forbid. I know,
(21:10):
I know as an ex Republic and a lot of
Democrats are like, well, we can win on policy, sir.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
No, No you can't.
Speaker 4 (21:16):
Yeah, you can't.
Speaker 1 (21:18):
I mean, at least Jeffries and Humor are aligned that
they both want they both which they have that they
were not in March, so if any we have that.
But it's more like, I just think they can't explain
it in a way that you know, if you say tariffs,
we want you to end the tariffs and we'll give
(21:39):
you the bailout, that makes a lot of sense versus
like a twenty five line soliloquy on healthcare and premiums.
I'm not sure people understand premiums.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
No, they don't, of course, it's a classic Democratic bank
shot problem. Well, they'll they'll they'll see their bill rise,
and they'll understand that if we had negotiated a cr
with these provisions. They will never do that. Voters will
never do that. In fact, I'm going I'm gonna get
in trouble for saying this. I want voters to suffer
right now. I want them to experience the pain of
(22:10):
Donald Trump's mistakes. Democrats should not relieve Donald Trump of
the political burden he has placed on the Republican Party,
they should not save him. They're going to save him.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
And that's why a lot of Republicans want those subsidies.
And that's why, you know, the problem with the twenty
twenty four cycle was you would say to voters Trump
wants to take this stuff away, and they'd say, no,
he didn't last time, right, right, So if he didn't
do it last time, why would you do it this time?
And that created a lot of incentive structure for Trump.
Speaker 3 (22:42):
The other thing that Democrats, if they vote for the CR,
I know it's only a seven week CR, right right,
if they have this illusion that will fight the fight later.
That's seven more weeks of Stephen Miller's secret police forces
being in our streets funded fully. That's seven more weeks
of Russell Vought running the Project twenty twenty five the gen.
That's seven more weeks of Brendan Carr trying to shut
(23:03):
down free speech with broadcast networks. That's seven more weeks
of Donald Trump deploying Pete Hegseth to drag four hundred
generals into a room for whatever mysterious goddamn reason. That's
seven more weeks of Donald Trump burning down the economy.
They are there. If they relieve him of this, of
(23:24):
the pain he's going to cause American voters, they are
fools writ large.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
But if we hurtle into a shutdown, which is very possible,
then you have a question of who can withstand the
most pain.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
The Democrats are in the minority. They don't have any
responsibilities in Washington. The White House is controlled by MAGA.
The House is controlled by MAGA. The Senate is controlled
by MAGA. The Supreme Court is controlled by MAGA. Nobody
thinks the Democrats can do shit about fuck right now, Molly,
So they might as well just say let it burn.
It's all on you, Donald.
Speaker 1 (24:03):
But eventually someone's gonna I mean so Russ Vaughan has
this memo that he's going to fire everybody in the world.
Speaker 3 (24:10):
Yeah, I mean so, let him do it. Let him
do it, let them do it. It will hasten the
economic collapse into a massive recession. We're already teetering on it.
It will hasten the economic collapse. That Donald Trump owns
lock Stock and Beryl. He has done this to us.
There's been zero democratic voice or role in designing this
(24:33):
economic calamity. And this is where Trump's own arrogance, it
will doom him. He's I'm in charge of everything. I
run everything. No one can do anything without me and
my and my permission. Okay, you're right, boss, that's what
you did, has You're right, you burn it all down.
By the way, the idea that voters will reward Democrats
(24:55):
for being responsible leaders.
Speaker 1 (24:57):
Right, that's never happened ever, right, I mean.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
That's yeah, never, that never in the history of that, right.
Speaker 1 (25:03):
Right, And that's true. And I do think, yeah, voters
will never reward that kind of behavior. So you could
get into a shutdown and you think eventually Trump will cave,
because he has historically caved.
Speaker 3 (25:17):
The problem is the longer we're shut down the now.
The one upside for Trump in a shutdown is the
longer we're in a shutdown, he will just say, can't
release the Epstein file, So sorry, guys, shutdown. Right, That's
the only upside for Trump. And it should tell you
everything about this that they understand this very intimately. They
get the political delaying factor that this will cause.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
And you have voting in New Jersey, not New Jersey
yet coming.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
Virginia, voting Virginias and New Jersey. I think his next
soon Wednesday soon.
Speaker 1 (25:49):
I mean, how does that factor.
Speaker 3 (25:51):
Well look in New Jersey. I think Cheryl's in pretty
good shape. In Virginia, the Republican candidate is historically bad, Yes,
and that is causing a lot. Yes, when the Republicans
picks winsomsters, they weren't sending their best.
Speaker 1 (26:06):
Yes, that is she's she's like, she's really up there
with the It proves.
Speaker 3 (26:12):
That point that it's really hard for MAGA to scale
when it's not Donald Trump. We've been talking in a
deep red state or district.
Speaker 1 (26:19):
We have been talking about MAGA scaling for like we've
been doing this for a fucking decade. Yeah, and it's
so sad, but it is true. We've gotten so much,
We've gotten so old. As much as trump Ism is
terrifying at this moment, there have been so many losses
that I don't think people have. I mean, I just
(26:40):
want for two seconds, because I was I was on
TV earlier and the block before me, there was like
a reporter, a White House reporter who came from the caller,
who was notching through all of Trump's wins, and I,
you know, and maybe he'll go to Portland, but like
he didn't go to Chicago. What he did in now
(27:00):
was considered illegal. I know he doesn't care about illegal,
but it was. He has He lost on the chemo fight, right,
lost against Sinclair. If there ever were a group that
wanted to the best for Donald Trump, who Claire Sinclair? Okay,
so these are already three big losses then, you know,
I mean there's been you know, in court again and again,
(27:24):
except when it comes to the Supreme Court because they're
his buddies. But I mean he has really this has
not been the cake walk he plays it to be.
Speaker 3 (27:33):
No, Molly, Look, I think this is really important to understand.
Donald Trump is a historically unpopular president. About a third
of America loves Donald Trump with the fire of a
billion suns. The rest of America is on a scale
somewhere between disappointment, dislike and would not piss on him
if he was on fire. This is not a popular president.
(27:54):
His numbers are in the mid thirties, now creeping toward
the low thirties. His numbers on the most important leadership
valence right now the economy are insanely underwater. He's twenty
to twenty seven points underwater on various economic scoring things
like the tariffs, like inflation, like prices, like jobs. No
(28:16):
one believes in the economic vision that Donald Trump has created,
including a majority of Republicans. Yeah, they understand that he
is an incompetent. The craziness was always excused in the past,
but now you can't excuse it anymore. You can't pretend
it doesn't exist anymore. You can't pretend it doesn't have
a direct and immediate impact anymore, because it does.
Speaker 1 (28:38):
Luke Wilson, Molly John Fast. Tom Freeden is the former
director of the CDC and the author of the Formula
for Better Life, How to Save millions of lives, including
your own. Welcome to Fast Politics, Tom, great to speak
with you. You are former CDC director. Would be malpractice
(29:01):
if I did not ask you just quickly about these
Kennedy hearings. I know you're here to promote a book,
but talk to me about what is going on here.
Speaker 4 (29:10):
This isn't about democratic versus Republican. There's been plenty of
Republican and democratic partnership and successes in public health, both
in the US and globally. This is about fact versus fiction.
This is about simple, clear, plain truths versus debunked misinformation,
(29:31):
and what we're seeing is the systematic destruction of the
vaccine protections that Americans depend on. How far they'll go,
I don't know, but it's clearly a huge risk to kids, adults,
and seniors in this country.
Speaker 1 (29:49):
Let's just talk for a minute about this risk we
live through the pandemic we are in this moment. I mean,
do you ever think, as a doctor who's specially I
was in public health and it has led many of
these agencies that you would live in a time when
there's such hostility towards science.
Speaker 4 (30:08):
I could never have believed that a day would come
when I can't trust what's on the CDC website. What
we see is really a hijacking of the CDC brand.
You have twelve or so political appointees and no career
officials running the agency at this point. So it's really
concerning what we're seeing, and of course it does reflect
(30:31):
a lot of suspicion, a lot of hostility, a lot
of lack of understanding, and real mistakes that public health
made at state, city, and national levels.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
Your book focuses on sort of the macro the micro
of public health. Talk to me about the micro or
the macro with.
Speaker 4 (30:49):
This, well, what the Formula for Better Health outlines is
an approach that has been proven to save millions of
lives that can save millions more. Actually, is also quite
relevant for individual health decisions. It's to see, believe, and create,
to see things that are not obvious, that are not apparent,
(31:10):
whether it's trends in society, or whether programs are working
or failing, or what The real pathway to progress is
to believe we can make progress by recognizing past progress
and making phased progress now and maintaining optimism, which sounds
delusional today, but actually there are ways to do it
(31:32):
and it's evidence based. And finally, to create a healthier future,
which requires simplifying, organizing, communicating, and overcoming the inevitable barriers
that are in the way of public health progress.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
What are some of those barriers.
Speaker 4 (31:47):
Here's a conceptual thing that you may be interested in, Molly,
maybe not. There's something called the Cassandra curse, and the
Cassandra curse. Cassandra from Greek mythology could see the future,
but she was cursed. Nobody believed her, and so the
tragedies that she could foresee came to pass because people
didn't change their behavior to prevent them. Public health, individuals,
(32:08):
and society in general have had a Cassandrickers. We can
predict what's going to happen, but we can't stop it.
There are a lot of reasons for that curse, but
one of them is something called the prevention paradox. And
the prevention paradox basically says that the things that make
the biggest difference to the health of society only make
a very little difference to each individual. That might be
(32:32):
putting folid in your food, or iodine in the food,
or reducing transpat which we've done at my organization with
the World Health Organization that is going to prevent something
like nine million deaths. But those changes, because the benefits
are diffuse but the costs are concentrated, create a structural
challenge that most things that advance public health are good
(32:56):
for everyone a little bit and bad for a few
groups like tobacco executives a lot, and so in our
political system and in most political systems around the world,
there is a lot of opposition to things that are
good for everyone somewhat and can make a huge difference
to health.
Speaker 1 (33:15):
I would love you to talk about herd immunity because
this seems like a very important point in this Cassandra paradox. Right,
we know this is bad. We know something real bad's
coming on herd immunity. Talk us through what this.
Speaker 4 (33:31):
Is and what this looks like for any one child.
You know, there are a lot of benefits to not
being vaccinated. It hurts, you have to take time out
of your schedule. It may cost some money or travel.
There's a one in a million chance that something bad
will happen, but only if all the other parents don't
say that and everyone else gets vaccinated. I started my
(33:53):
public health career in New York City on huge measles
outbreaks that were happening at the time. Thousands of cases,
hundreds of kids hospitalized, dozens of kids severely ill or dying.
And the only way we can stop measles is by
getting a very high immunity. We really all are connected.
Your health doesn't just depend on you, It also depends
(34:14):
on your community.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
I assume that this must be the same as it
was with the nineteen eighteen flu pandemic. Is there something
we can learn from history about how to win back
hearts and minds with this.
Speaker 4 (34:26):
One thing that's very consistent? If you look back at
the historical record, people just stop talking about the pandemic
right after it. They just didn't want to deal with it.
They didn't want to talk about it. And I think
that's what we're seeing with the current period and COVID.
The way public health succeeds is by communicating better, listening
(34:47):
to what people have to say, by making consistent winds,
small wins to rebuild a trust, progress on things that
people care about, and avoiding require anything unless it's really
essential to require.
Speaker 1 (35:03):
So what does that mean? Avoiding requiring anything unless it's essential.
That seems like could cover a lot.
Speaker 3 (35:11):
It could.
Speaker 4 (35:11):
I think when we look back on COVID, many of
the mandates really were bad ideas. When it came to vaccination,
Initially it looked like vaccination prevented you from getting and
spreading COVID. As more data came out, it became clear
that the primary benefit of COVID vaccination is to the
person vaccinated, and so it's more like a motorcycle helmet
(35:34):
law than it is like a school entry requirement to
get vaccinated so we don't have outbreaks in the schools.
That kind of mandate really alienated people and didn't actually
help us to reduce deaths in the longer term.
Speaker 1 (35:47):
I'm sort of surprised to hear you say this. You know,
it strikes me that you were just learning in real
time and you didn't know what you didn't know, So
I just wonder how you came to this.
Speaker 4 (36:00):
There's a lot of nuance, right the pandemic changed, vaccines
became available, immunity increased, our knowledge of the virus, and
the illness increased. But there's a big difference between requiring
individuals to do something and requiring harmful companies to do something.
So it's one thing to require the tobacco industry to
(36:25):
stop spiking cigarettes with the things that make it more addictive,
or stop food companies from adding a toxin called trans
that that was killing half a million people before. That
kind of requirement protects people, and the only real opposition
is the self interested companies that want to block it.
(36:45):
Whereas even all other industries will benefit because their workers
will be healthier, healthcare costs will be lower, productivity will
be higher. But when it comes to requiring things of individuals,
the key is that we just with time, there's a
lot of nuance, and to understand if we look back
at COVID, I'd divide the pandemic into three phases. In
(37:09):
the first there was no vaccine. In that phase, things
like closures of indoor spaces, masking requirements, distancing really did
make a big difference. In the second phase, when vaccine
became available, the quicker seniors were vaccinated, the better communities
did because the vast majority of deaths were in seniors.
(37:33):
And in the third phase, when the omicron wave hit,
it became impossible to really stop the spread through things
like contact tracing and quarantine and masks were less effective.
It was really going to spread through society. In that phase,
How effective communities were reaching everyone really made a huge difference.
(37:53):
But fundamentally, public health succeeds when it can see the
problems and path forward, telling people together to believe that
it's stoppable, and then systematically organize, simplify, communicate and overcome
the challenges.
Speaker 1 (38:09):
If you were CDC director right now, what would you
do to restore public face in public health?
Speaker 4 (38:14):
I would always be clear about what we know, what
we don't know, how we know it, what we recommended.
I would start every recommendation based on based on what
we know. Now here's what we're saying and what we
know now is if you're over sixty five or you
have an immune problem or rather vulnerability, the evidence from
the past few years is very clear that getting a
(38:36):
booster with the COVID vaccine will reduce your chances of
being seriously ill or dying. We're not recommending that anyone
be required to get a COVID booster, but we want
to make sure that everyone can get one. For people
who are younger, you're not likely to die from COVID.
You are likely to have less severe illness if you
(38:58):
get vaccinated, So I think that you should have the
availability of that vaccine.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
Yeah. How worried are you about having someone who's heading
this huge public health organization who's sort of antathetical to
medicine the way we've known it.
Speaker 4 (39:16):
I think what you have to do with the current
leadership of HHS is to always look at what they're
doing versus what they're saying. I mean, a lot of
the things they say I agree with, they're really important. Right.
They're saying they want to restore confidence, but they're undermined confidence.
They're saying they want to restore gold standard science, but
(39:39):
they're actually undermining gold standard science. They're saying they want
to eliminate conflicts of interest, but they're actually inserting huge
conflicts of interest. They say they want to address chronic disease. Great,
except they just eliminated the entire tobacco control, cardiovascular health,
and cancer programs at CDC. They say they want to
(39:59):
reduce environmental contamination, but they've rolled back laws and regulations
on forever chemicals like pfas on deadly soot, particulate matter
two point five on mercury and arsenic poisoning. They say
they want to make America healthier, but they're undermining our
protections against measles, influenza, COVID and other threats.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
Do you have a sense for the food safety stuff,
because that seems like a big deal too.
Speaker 4 (40:26):
It is amazing. They are defunding something called food net.
It's a national network that tracks if there are contaminants
in your food, and therefore we won't be able to
track things like campelobacter and listeria, which happened to be
two bacterial infections which are spread by guess what raw
(40:47):
milk and what are they cause? They cause miscarriages, meningitis, weakness,
big problems with people who get infections, and a lot
of minor illnesses of people who misswork, school, economic cost.
The thing that does give me hope is that facts
are stubborn things. Even if you deny them, misuse them,
(41:08):
suppress them, ignore them, try to prevent people from finding
them out, they remain facts. And also people want to
be healthy. A lot of the concerns we're hearing from
the MAHA movement they're valid concerns. A lot of the
concerns about money in medicine, those are valid concerns. And
(41:29):
what I would say to the general public is if
anyone is trying to tell you anything, don't believe anything
they say about.
Speaker 1 (41:37):
Health right And that is a big part of MAHA.
There's a lot of financial incentives.
Speaker 4 (41:44):
Huge, but I think the concerns are real. People don't
know who to trust. One out of three Americans doesn't
have a primary care clinician, no doctor who they can trust,
they can choose, they can trust, who can interpret what's
happening for them. And one of the things I get
to in the book is thinking about what does public
(42:06):
health tell us about individual health? If you want to
live a longer, healthier life with a lower risk of dementia.
There are proven ways to do that, and they're not
that complicated, and most of them are pretty inexpensive and
can be done either on your own or with the
help of a good primary care doctor, a family physician.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
I mean, are they doing anything to get the food
dies out to work on that, which seems like an
important issue.
Speaker 4 (42:35):
This is really performative. You look at the switch from
high fruct corn syrup to regular sugar, essentially zero difference
in terms of health. I don't know if it tastes differently.
That's not my area of expertise, but these are things
that sound good. One thing that we know absolutely from
our work in food policy is that anything that's voluntary
(42:59):
with industry will fail. We've tried over and over again.
It just doesn't work. And if you look at the
things that really work on nutrition policy, they're things like
soda taxes very effective. They're like front of pack warnings
that many countries in Latin America have done very effective.
(43:21):
There are things like limiting sodium in processed food or
strengthening healthy food requirements for grocery stores that participate in
the SNAP program. None of those things are even mentioned,
let alone done, And when they talk about things like
getting junk food out of our school meals, they talk
(43:41):
about working to improve it, not about a timeline or
a focus. So I think the diagnosis is not bad,
the intent is not bad, or the stated intent is
not bad, but the actions don't meet the words right.
Speaker 1 (43:57):
And that sounds like a lot of what we know
in Trump world. If there's one thing if you're listening
to this, because a lot of the people who listen
this podcasts are like me, they're just trying to keep
their own family safe, what would you say are sort
of the most important things if you're listening to this
just to keep your family safe.
Speaker 4 (44:17):
Well? For personal health, there are really six keys to
personal health. The first is under emphasized. It's blood pressure,
keeping your blood pressure in control ideally under one twenty
over eighty. The second is healthy cholesterol. Lots more people
should frankly be honest that than are well. I'm on
(44:37):
a stat okay, getting regular physical activity, which doesn't have
to mean go to the gym. You know, only five
percent of people are ever going to go to the gym,
But if you take four thirty minute risk walks a week,
it's a miracle. Drug you do more good than most
of medicines that you can take. There's also importance of
(44:59):
getting enough sleep seven hours of sleep, avoiding toxins, including tobacco, alcohol,
and some of the newer things that are real concerns. Well,
the big three I think of as endocrine disruptors, nanoparticles,
and microplastics. They are all over our environment, and we
really don't know how severe the harms are. We know
(45:20):
that they can cause hans, but we don't know how
big a problem it is. And there are so many
of them. How do you focus? How do you be
getting them out? We need to have a lot of research,
We need to have a lot of action. We need
to work with industry to understand what's in there, because
it's everywhere and you can't turn our backs on all
of this stuff. But you do want to make sure
(45:42):
that the things that are actually harming people you get
out of the environment so we don't have the next
asbestos or the next trans fat, because those two things
were introduced because they were thought to be more convenient
and healthier. And the last thing, and maybe the most complicated,
is nutrition. Healthy nutrition. On an individual basis, people can
do a few things. One is have more potassium than sodium.
(46:06):
We actually have a potassium deficiency. It's our most important
dietary deficiency. Most people only consume a half to two
thirds the amount of potassium they need. If you consume
more potassium than sodium, your heart will be much healthier
and you'll have more energy. So reducing sodium increasing potassium
is important. Limiting free sugars and limiting processed meat. All
(46:30):
three of those things are really proven to improve. There
are lots of other things, like increasing fiber that probably
can help your health significantly. And there's another whole set
of things in addition to those six that can reduce
your risk of dementia.
Speaker 1 (46:44):
Diet coke, yes or now that's.
Speaker 4 (46:47):
A yellow lage, right, We really don't know. This is
one of the areas where we have to be frank
about what we know and what we don't know. It's
probably not as bad as regular coke. It's definitely worse
than one.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Oh wait, it's not as bad as regular kroke. But
what about the artificial sweetener.
Speaker 4 (47:05):
It's probably not as bad. I wouldn't say definitely. There's
really just not that much evidence. And one of the
things that we have to do clearly, And what I
outline in the book is be clear about how certain
we are. There's certain things that we're essentially certain of.
There are other things that are likely correct, but we
should be humble because in the future we may find
something different out There are other things that are maybes,
(47:27):
but there's some evidence, and then there are wild guesses
where we really don't know what the reality is. And
when it comes to artificial sweeteners, they're not healthy. They
may be better for you than sugar because they have
fewer calories, and calories are a big problem, but it's
a lot better not to have them to have them.
Speaker 1 (47:45):
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you, Tom. I feel pretty
good that I can go off a die coke.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
Now that's a hard question, not simple. You would find
a pretty vigorous debate among the people who really study
this stuff.
Speaker 1 (47:58):
Oh, I believe it. Thank you, Tom, Thank you, thank you.
I hope you'll come back.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
I would love to.
Speaker 1 (48:05):
No moment, Rick Wilson, Molly dug Fast, what is your
moment of huckery?
Speaker 3 (48:12):
My moment of fuckery is Stephen Miller this week whining
like a stuck hog because he got his feefees hurt
to grab a Newsome called him a fascist. He got
very angry about it, right so much, and it's just mean.
Speaker 1 (48:25):
It's so funny because it's like this guy says stuff
that we're like, you know, he's up there like doing
his best gurbls and then someone calls him he's a fascist,
and he's so offended.
Speaker 3 (48:37):
You know what if the jack boot fits, wear it, motherfucker.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
Ooh, luckily you're allowed to curse here.
Speaker 3 (48:42):
Thank goodness, Thank.
Speaker 1 (48:44):
You for joining us.
Speaker 3 (48:45):
See you soon.
Speaker 1 (48:46):
That's it for this episode of Fast Politics. Tune in
every Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday to hear the best
minds and politics make sense of all this chaos. If
you enjoy this podcast, please send it to a friend
and keep the conversation going. Thanks for listening.
Host
Molly Jong-Fast
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