Allies wary of Trump admin's incompetence after scandal over military plan group chat

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Thanks, June Holm, as well for joining us this hour. You can't leave either.
I'm very happy to have you here. Have you met the new political leadership in this country? The people who may not have the title, may not have the, like, plate on the office door or whatever,

but these are the people who are actually getting it done.

We found them in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

Then I turned 65 on Sunday, and I just made a decision.

I woke up this morning and said, I gotta do something.

In Grand Rapids Wednesday afternoon, around two dozen people gathered in front of the Social Security Administration office

Thank you. The crowd mostly retirees and Social Security recipients.
They protested against recent moves by the Trump administration's Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, many of them feeling that access to Social Security benefits and Medicare could be at risk. Well, I am a retiree.
I worked for 50 years in all different trades of working, and I paid into my Social Security benefits all those years. Those protesting tell us they are against the Trump administration's moves to close dozens of SSA field offices across the country along with eliminating over the phone ID verification starting at the end of this month requiring people to verify their IDs online only or in person.
Let's say you're elderly and you have no way of coming physically to an office that's still open or if you live in a rural area. I mean it's just

ridiculous. They're trying to make it so difficult for people to get their own money back.
Those

protesting also wanting to show support to federal employees. Many saying they have been helped by

staff at this very location. And I just want them to know we are here to support them for their jobs.
The new political leadership of this country, the people actually getting it done. You saw them there in Grand Rapids, Michigan yesterday afternoon.
We also found them on the side of the road in Reno, Nevada. About two dozen protesters gathered outside the Social Security office in Reno at noon.
They carried signs critical of the Department of Government efficiency or held signs which expressed their concern about the future of Social Security. Marilyn Cho has depended upon Social Security for her disabled son, And she says she soon wants to start collecting her benefits.
Benefits she reminds everyone she paid for. It's an insurance that we've paid into this.
We've paid into Social Security. I've worked since I've been 15.
And so gutting it and making it, privatizing it, that is not the answer. Many, many seniors live paycheck to paycheck.
And our Social Security only comes in once a month. If they don't have that check, that money in their account, that means they don't get to pay their rent.
They don't get to buy food and they don't get to pay their utilities, there would be more people out in the street.

Plenty of car horns honked as drivers passed by the protest.

But as one woman told me today, better to shine a light than curse the darkness.

The new political leadership of this country.

That was the Reno, Nevada division.

These are the people who are actually getting it done and they're everywhere. We also found them in Livonia, Michigan.
A rally in Livonia Tuesday, bringing out dozens of seniors concerned about Social Security and Medicare. I'm terrified.
My life would change drastically without Social Security. And that's our money.
We put that in. Nobody gave us that money.
We loaned it to the government. Everything that that is happening right now is impacting so many people.
That's the new political leadership of this country showing up in Livonia, Michigan. We also found them in Nashville, Tennessee.
Protesters are pushing back tonight against possible staffing cuts at the National Social Security Office.

Thanks for joining us tonight at 10.

I'm Lauren Lowry.

Dozens of people rallied outside the office today.

Our Sharon Dankwa has a look at why they say cuts could directly affect them here in the mid-state.

No closures, no cuts.

Protect SSA.

Today, we're gathered here not just as individuals, but as a community of people who understand the vital role that Social Security plays in so many lives. Resources provided in this building, Jennifer Brinkman says, so many could be taken for granted.
I know firsthand how essential these offices are, especially this office right here. When my significant other, Greg, was diagnosed with cancer and could no longer work, we turned to this office for help.
So when she heard the Department of Government Efficiency could cut Social Security staffing nationwide by 50%, she organized this rally. That was Nashville, Tennessee.
You might remember last week we also found the new political leadership class in this country holding a political funeral for Social Security at the Social Security office in Gainesville, Georgia. They focused on their local Republican congressman there whose name is Andrew Clyde.
Clyde lies as Social Security office in Gainesville, Georgia. They focused on their local Republican congressman there, whose name is Andrew Clyde.
Clyde lies as Social Security dies. Clyde dozes while Social Security closes.
We've also found the new political leadership of this country fanning out to town halls, in-person town halls, online town halls, teletown halls, anywhere and anyhow,

they can get themselves in front of elected Republicans who are letting Trump take Social

Security apart. So the question was about Social Security and what she's accusing me of

is standing by while it is being dismantled by Doge. That is absolutely 100% untrue.
Absolutely 100% untrue. Doge is not dismantling Social Security.
I really want to know from you, will you protect Social Security in its current form? Next question. What are your plans to cut Social Security? I want to be very, this is a very easy question for me to answer.
Any changes to Social Security are not on the table and I will not cut your Social Security. It is a promise between you and the federal government.
Our next question is from Polly from a 288 zip code area. What are you doing to ensure the protection of our Social Security benefits? Good question.
Good question. This is regular Americans just pulling it together on their own to save Social Security.

That woman in Grand Rapids, Michigan yesterday saying, I woke up this morning and said, I got to do something. And by afternoon, there she was.
And Americans all over the country are waking up every day somewhere having that same feeling. And that political leadership from regular Americans is now starting to push over the right dominoes.
We are starting to see, for example, stirrings from big, powerful groups that at least used to have a lot of sway on issues like this, groups like AARP. AARP is fighting to protect your social Security.
You've worked hard and paid into Social Security with every paycheck your entire working life. But recently, we've heard from thousands of worried Americans.
That's why we're asking for three assurances right now. One, Social Security will make payments on time like it has for almost 90 years.

Two, claims will be processed on time and not backlogged for months.

Three, customer service will be a top priority.

Getting rid of phone service and asking tens of millions of Americans to jump through new hoops or drive hours to a local office is deeply unacceptable.

Join me in sending a loud and clear message to lawmakers.

Social Security must be protected.

Take aarp.org slash pledge. Tell lawmakers it's your money.
You've earned it. I just hear her say there at the beginning, recently we've heard from thousands of worried Americans.
Hello, AARP. Honestly, by now, I thought you'd have like armored divisions outside the offices of every social security office in the country.
I thought you would be blanketing the nation with super effective ads and hounding every member of the administration every day up to and including the president. It's kind of what I have come to expect from AARP.
We are not seeing anything like that yet from AARP, but they are admitting that thousands of their own members are contacting them now and they are showing signs of life. And when you combine that with the real political leadership that we are seeing from regular Americans who just wake up one morning and say, I've got to do something, and then they go do something.
Well, you know what? It works. It has an impact.
It pushes over one domino that then pushes down another. For example, we had Trump's Social Security nominee have his desultory little confirmation hearing this week in the United States Senate.
But at that hearing, you had Republican senators, Republicans asking, hey, wait, how many social security offices are you closing in my state? My constituents are telling me that social security service is collapsing. And look, I had my staff confirm it after Trump fired all these people at social security.
Turns out it now takes hours to get through on the phone. And then even when you've waited on the phone for hours, you get cut off anyway.
Hey, Social Security nominee from the Trump administration, what's going on here? You got that this week, even from Republican senators. You have the top Republicans in the Senate who supposedly oversee Social Security, who until now have been totally silent as Trump has been firing thousands of people from the agency, as his top campaign donor has been given access to all the most sensitive systems at the agency, while he publicly calls it a Ponzi scheme that must be shut down as the service has started to palpably collapse.
They have been silent and have been doing nothing. But now you've got them having to admit to reporters and whining a little bit about it that maybe they should be in on some of this stuff.
NBC News, quote, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, the chairman of a key Senate subcommittee on Social Security, said he had not been told ahead of time about the Trump administration's moves at the agency. Quote, no, I have not been, Grassley told NBC News, asked if it would be helpful to his job if he were given a heads up.
Grassley repeated, I have not been, I have not been. Republican Senator Steve Daines, a Senate Finance Committee member, said in an interview that he too hasn't been in the loop for the Trump administration's changes.
Quote, no, we haven't. He said, quote, I haven't had any heads up.
Senator Daines said that he would appreciate advance notice about the changes the administration makes to Social Security. He said, quote, I'd like to know about it.
Yeah. Well, that's something.
I'd like to know about it. So those are the people in Washington, but it is the leaders of this country.
I see you plucky retirees in knitted hats on the side of the road in Reno. I see you.
After the real leaders of this country, after you guys took the wheel, it has started something. And so now, yes, if you are applying for Medicare or disability or SSI benefits through Social Security, they're no longer planning to mandate that you have to go in person to your local Social Security office, that they're probably closing anyway and or firing most of the staff.
And no, they are no longer killing the 1-800 line altogether, which they had previously been planning on doing. And no, they are not forcing through this verify your identity in person change that they were going to force through as of Monday, which would have forced immediately millions of people, millions of older and disabled people to have to go to these offices in person.
And they've apparently done no training for it at all. And oh, by the way, the new system they said they want to put in place doesn't exist.
But now they're not going to implement that on Monday. They need a little more time.
In no sense has Social Security been saved. This fight is absolutely on.
But it is regular Americans who have been fighting against Trump all over the country. Yes, in Washington, but honestly, all over the country.
And that's what's made the difference. It is working.
It is making a difference. And there is more to do, but it is working.
And look, here's another view of America's political and moral leadership at work. This is the protest that sprung up spontaneously and basically instantly yesterday afternoon in Somerville, Massachusetts.
Instantly, thousands of people gathered on no notice in the immediate aftermath of a Tufts University student with a valid student visa, a Fulbright Scholar PhD candidate with no criminal record, who'd had no notice from the government that they believed she had done anything wrong, she was nevertheless accosted and snatched off the street by a half dozen federal agents who were covering their faces, who then handcuffed her and stuffed her into an unmarked car. Donald Trump is now claiming the right to do this to anyone.
He is making the truly authoritarian claim that if you express an opinion that Donald Trump doesn't like, this is what will happen to you. In this case, it was a student writing an op-ed criticizing the war in the Middle East.
The Trump administration says that alone is the justification for revoking her student visa, which is insane. But even if signing an op-ed were grounds to revoke this young woman's visa, they could just tell her they were revoking her visa, tell her that she therefore needs to leave the country.
Instead, they didn't tell her anything.

They just sent masked goons to jump her on the street and throw her in an unmarked car and take her away.

And that will now be litigated.

But the kids at Tufts University and the community there just erupted yesterday.

Spontaneously, thousands of people turned out to respond in person. That was yesterday.
And then this is Somerville again tonight. ...in the case of a Tufts University student who was suddenly detained by ICE agents near her home in Somerville.
We now know why she was able to be transferred to a Louisiana detention center despite a court order to keep her here in Massachusetts. A court filing by the U.S.
Attorney's Office says she had already been moved out of the state by the time that order was issued. NBC10's Jericho Tran joining us live from Somerville where some of her supporters gathered tonight.
Jericho? Well, there's hundreds here today and I can tell you we are witnessing some very tense moments here outside of Somerville City Hall. There's a city council meeting that's going on right now, and you can see that these hundreds of protesters are trying to make their way inside.
Police have stopped them. It looks like there's some sort of fire code violation.
Once again, there are hundreds of people here. It doesn't look like all of them will be able to fit inside of the building.
Of course, all of this happening after Romesa Ozturk's arrest here in Somerville. On Tuesday, federal agents arrested Tufts University student Romesa Ozturk just steps away from the university.
Ozturk now waits inside the South Louisiana Ice Processing Center, which houses immigrants waiting for legal proceedings or deportations. You see it on TV, but when it gets home, it's a mile away from you.
And the terror in her face, in her voice, it's terrible. The Ph.D.
student and Fulbright scholar maintained a valid F-1 visa status. Now that visa has been terminated.
The Department of Homeland Security claims Ozturk engaged in activities in support of Hamas, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio saying the graduate student's presence in the U.S. could have, quote, potentially serious adverse foreign policy consequences and would compromise a compelling U.S.
foreign policy interest.

We revoked our visa.

Oz Turk wrote an op-ed for the university's paper calling for Tufts to divest from companies directly tied to Israel.

If you apply for a visa to enter the United States and be a student and you tell us that

the reason why you're coming to the United States is not just because you want to write

op-eds, but because you want to participate in movements that are involved in doing things

like vandalizing universities, harassing students, taking over buildings, creating a ruckus. We're not going to give you a visa.
On Tuesday night, a U.S. district court judge issued a order blocking the Trump administration from removing Ozturk from the state of Massachusetts without 48 hours notice.
The U.S. attorney's office suggests that Ozturk may have been moved before the court's involvement, offering to provide a timeline of Ozturk's arrest and transfer from Massachusetts.
Our neighborhoods are not safe, right? The people around us aren't safe. And you can hear those chants live right now.
They're asking police to let them in once again. You can see them kind of barricading the doors.
They have let some of these ralliers in, but it doesn't look like they're letting everybody in right now. This is one of several protests.
We were at a protest yesterday. We were at two of them today.
This is one of them. That city council meeting here in Somerville is happening as we speak.
We'll have more on that for you later. That's the very latest here in Somerville.
Jericho Tran, NBC10 Boston. That's happening tonight in Massachusetts.
Also in Massachusetts at Harvard University, we've just got word that Trump has apparently also grabbed a Russian scientist, a young woman who works at Harvard Medical School. She had been forced to leave Russia because she spoke out and criticized Putin's invasion of Ukraine.
Now Trump has had her arrested in the United States, has had her locked up in an ICE detention facility in Louisiana, and is threatening to ship her back to Russia. Again, a Harvard Medical School scientist, a GoFundMe, has been started to help her legal defense.
At the University of Alabama, it is a mechanical engineering doctoral student who has been taken. He's Iranian.
In this case, nobody seems to know why he has been taken. They've reportedly got him in a county jail in Alabama right now.
But again, we don't know why. College Democrats at the University of Alabama are protesting his arrest.
There's also a GoFundMe that's been set up to help his legal defense as well. How does the American people like all of this? How does the American population feel about how things are turning out with Donald Trump being back in the White House, given that this is sort of the daily news now? New polling from Gallup just out today shows that there is no issue on which the American people like what Trump is doing.
His disapproval ratings are higher than his approval ratings on everything. He is 18 points underwater on his handling of the economy.
He is 19 points underwater on his relations with Russia. He's underwater on his handling of the federal budget, on energy policy, on foreign affairs, on the Ukraine war, on the environment, on even his relations with the dreaded news media.
He is underwater on every single thing. New polling in the great state of Texas today shows that Trump's favorability rating in Texas has dropped 15 points since the election in November.
He is now underwater, specifically in Texas, and dropping like a stone. Today, Donald Trump polled the nomination of Congresswoman Elise Stefanik to be his new ambassador to the United Nations.
So congratulations to the United Nations.

But Trump admitted the reason why he pulled her nomination. He said the reason he pulled her nomination is because they don't want her to leave her seat in the House because the Republican majority is so thin.
Now, if Elise Stefanik had left her seat in the House and become UN ambassador, which was the original plan, they would just hold an election to put somebody else in that seat, right? If another Republican was going to replace her in the House, of course, it wouldn't affect the size of their majority at all. But you want to know why they pulled that nomination today? They pulled that nomination today, clearly, because they were worried that another Republican would not replace Elise Stefanik.
That if they had to hold an election for that seat, they were worried they were going to lose it and that a Democrat was going to flip that seat. Elise Stefanik won that seat in November by 24 points.
24 points. right now with what Trump is doing as president, right now with how the Republicans are performing with Trump as president, right now, 24 points is not a comfortable enough margin for Republicans, given how hard the country is swinging back against them.
24 points in November looks like it might be a blue seat right about now.

The real political leaders of this country are the people who are willing to get up in the morning and go do something. They're doing it.
And in many ways, they are winning. Stay with us.
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Terms and conditions apply. It's President Trump's first 100 days, and MSNBC's Alex Wagner will be covering it all from the front lines.
What issue matters to you the most? Join her as she travels the country to talk to the people at the center of the president's policies and promises. Do you think now that he's pardoned everybody, he can count on this group of people again? Search for Trump Land with Alex Wagner wherever you're listening and follow.
Subscribe to MSNBC Premium on Apple Podcasts to listen ad-free. We just talked a little bit about what's going on in public polling right now in terms of how

the American people are feeling about the Trump administration and President Trump this far into

his second term. Here's a little bit more on a specific subject.
YouGov asked Americans how

serious a problem they think it is that a whole bunch of senior Trump administration officials

shared military plans in a group chat on a commercial messaging app, which accidentally

included a journalist, even though they didn't notice he was part of the chat. The proportion of Americans who say this is a, quote, very serious or somewhat serious problem is nearly three quarters of respondents, 74% of the country.
The percentage of people who say that's no big deal is only 13%. This scandal is a serious problem, even according to 60% of Republicans.
On the long list of things that are dumb and bad and potentially illegal about sharing imminent military attack plans on a messaging app with a large group where you don't know who's even on there. There is the matter of Trump's national security advisor setting those group chat messages to disappear.
You can do that on the Signal app. And some of the messages were set to disappear four weeks after they were sent.
Others were set to disappear after just one week, which might mean that some of them are already gone. The reason that's a problem is that there are real laws that get enforced about preserving federal records, which belong to the American people.
The vice president and cabinet secretaries and the White House chief of staff discussing imminent military strikes definitely counts as a federal record, even if you do it in a chat app, and it therefore must be preserved. You can't set it to disappear.
The government transparency group American Oversight filed a lawsuit on that part of this story. Today, in that case, a federal judge ordered multiple Trump cabinet officials that they must preserve those signal messages.
Then there's the fact that at least one member of the group chat, Trump's real estate friend, who says he's now very, very personally close with Vladimir Putin. They have a really, really intense emotional personal friendship.
Steve Witkoff has now confirmed publicly, I think kind of despite himself, I think he sort of accidentally confirmed publicly that he participated in this group chat on his personal cell phone, not on a government-issued device. Now that matters because personal devices generally have much less robust cyber protections against things like spyware, which raises a whole new level of security concerns about this, separate and apart from what they were discussing here.
If these guys are doing sensitive, potentially classified government business on their personal devices, if their personal devices have been compromised, then it doesn't matter what the encryption level is of the app that they're using. If their personal devices have been compromised, it's possible that any sort of bad actor might have access to every single thing they type or see on their phone.
Now, we know that at least one of them was participating in this signal chat about imminent military attack plans on his personal phone. How many of the rest of you were doing that? What they were discussing, though, turns out to be the really big problem in terms of what specifically these guys were blurting out in this insecure group chat.
After the operation they had been discussing, these airstrikes in Yemen, after that was over, Trump National Security Advisor Mike Waltz wrote this in the chat. He said, quote, the first target, their top missile guy, we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend's building and it is now collapsed.
Well, the Wall Street Journal reports today that that positive ID of the guy they were targeting, that was, according to the Wall Street Journal, sensitive intelligence from a human source in Yemen, intelligence that had been provided to the United States by Israel. In other words, Israel had a source on the ground feeding them very specific information in real time, and Mike Waltz referenced that information in a way that effectively described the source in this group chat on a commercial app.
According to one U.S. official, quote, Israeli officials complained privately to U.S.
officials that Waltz's texts became public. Quote, Israel's role in supplying information that helped track the militant highlights the sensitivity of some disclosures in the texts and raises questions about the Trump administration's contention that no classified information was shared on the Signal chat.
The identity of a person in Yemen who was supplying information in real time about the strikes would likely be carefully protected. Yeah, you think? I mean, these guys may not get it, but the American people seem to.
I mean, three quarters of Americans say this seems like a really serious problem. Anybody can see that this is not stuff you should be texting about with a large group, right? Or maybe texting about at all? I guess not these guys.
Joining us now is one of the authors of this Wall Street Journal scoop, Alexander Ward. He's a Wall Street Journal national security reporter.
He's author of the book, The Internationalists, the Fight to Restore American Foreign Policy After Trump. Mr.
Ward, thank you so much for being here. I really appreciate it.
Yeah, thanks for having me. Let me just ask you if I got the basics right there about your reporting here.
Mike Waltz didn't describe like the name of the source, but he did describe with some specificity the type of information this source was able to provide. That's what Israeli officials are worried about? Right.
So we should note that this information was provided in real time, right? And if you look at those texts on Signal, you saw that Pete Hegg set, the defense secretary, was saying, you know, planes in the air, bombs are going to happen at this time.

And then Walt chimes in and goes, hey, we effectively have an assessment here.

We've seen that one of these people we were tracking, one of this Houthi top missile man, went into his girlfriend's house and we've seen it destroyed.

And this was a positive ID that they ID'd this person going into the building and it's unclear if ID'd afterwards. But point is, that's real-time information, right? And that was provided by the Israelis to the U.S.
And we should note, the U.S. has other ways to positively ID.
Waltz does say in those texts, you know, there were multiple IDs. So it's not like it was wholly reliant on Israeli intelligence, but it's fair to say that Israeli intelligence provided to the U.S.
informed, at a minimum, the text that Mike Waltz put into Signal, which, of course, as you said, is a publicly available non-governmental app on what seemed to be unclassified networks. Now, everything that I know about spying, I basically learned from, like, Len Dayton novels.
Like, I don't really, like, I don't know. Who am? I'm just a person who reads the news.
Like I have no expertise in this other than spy movies and spy novels. But it seems to me like when we talk about protecting sources and methods, this is kind of like almost an elementary school level case study because you can infer from that statement from Mike Waltz, which went to this large group in a commercial app, that somebody has a source on the ground in the capital of Yemen who can see that apartment building and who can also communicate to some intelligence service somewhere in the world what he or she is seeing at that building and what the physical consequences have been of the strike that are being described.
I mean, that seems to me like for anybody in Sana'a who's trying to figure out who that source is or what they have to worry about in their network, they've now been essentially given a template to find that person. Yeah, at a minimum, there are now Houthi operatives who know that there could be a spy among them or within their networks more generally.
Now, whether they learned that from our reporting or whether there was a way they could see that information from the, if the Signal chat was spied on and released to the Houthis, I doubt that that was the case, to be honest. But who's to say? The point is we don't know, but the possibility exists because it was put on signal, which is the point here, right?

These kinds of conversations should be happening in secure facilities in the Pentagon, in the Situation Room, or, you know, as government officials, high-level government officials, are provided SCIFs or other kinds of communications tools in order to have these conversations at home. or if they have to, they have to leave their families at home,

go into their government buildings, go into the secure facility and have these conversations at home, or if they have to, they have to leave their families at home, go into their government buildings, go into the secure facility, and have these kinds of conversations on weekends, late nights. It's not efficient or ideal, but it's how you protect these secrets.
And so sure, it is more efficient to put this kind of stuff on signal. You can do that.
But you do open yourself up to the possibility that that becomes public or is intercepted in some way by adversaries.

Does that mean it's likely?

I can't say that with any sense of certainty, but I can say it's definitely not zero percent.

Right. And so this is the issue now is, of course, now it's out in public in our story.

But at a minimum, one could assume that that intelligence went in there.

And if it were to somehow, some way, make it to the intended targets, they would go, ah, there is a spy among us. Right.
Mr. Ward, briefly, one of the things that we hear about in intelligence reporting is that our allies with whom we share intelligence may be less likely to do so in the future if they feel that we in the United States are mishandling it or handling it in a way that is cavalier.
Briefly, do you have any sense that that risk is essentially coming to fruition right now, either with Israel or other allies based on this scandal? Well, we have heard even before this, right, just because of President Trump's own views on the war in Ukraine and his talking to Russia, because of Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard and her views on Syria and Russia and others, there has just been some hesitation about sharing as much intelligence as before with the United States. You can imagine after this now there'll be even more pods.
Now, whether that actually leads to a slowdown of intelligence sharing, I don't know. I haven't seen any direct evidence at the moment.
But I have heard from foreign officials who are already wary of providing as much intel, as much in-depth intel to the U.S. as before.
And I can't imagine that this episode helps. Wow.
Alexander Ward, national security reporter at The Wall Street Journal. This is really, really interesting and important reporting.
Thank you for helping us understand it. Thanks for having me.
All right. More news ahead.
Stay with us. cemetery in the middle of the ocean.
Every day, the Atlas Obscura podcast will blow your mind in 15 minutes. You can find it on the SiriusXM app, Pandora, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Terms and conditions apply. As President Donald Trump returns to the White House, follow along as his agenda takes shape with the new MSNBC newsletter, Trump's First 100 Days.
Weekly expert insight on key issues sent straight to your inbox. Sign up at msnbc.com slash trump100.
So this is a story we covered last night. Got a really big reaction.
The story is developing further today. So tonight we wanted to go back to it and also bring in a little expert perspective on what's going on here.
Just in part because we got such a strong reaction from you guys, from our viewers, when we covered this last night. Here's the headline we showed you last night.
Quote, remedy supported by Kennedy leaves some measles patients more ill. Parents in Gaines County, Texas, the center of a raging measles outbreak, have increasingly turned to supplements and unproven treatments to protect their children, many of whom are unvaccinated.
One of those supplements is cod liver oil containing vitamin A, which Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump's health secretary, has promoted in the media as a near miraculous cure for measles.
Physicians at Covenant Children's Hospital in Lubbock, Texas, say they've now treated unvaccinated children who were given so much vitamin A that they had signs of liver damage. The nation's health secretary promoting vitamin A as a miracle cure for measles is a problem for a few reasons.
Vitamin A, unlike some other vitamins, is not something that you can flush out of your body by peeing it out. Forgive me.

Vitamin A is a vitamin that doesn't get processed through your body that way. It stays in your body, gets stored in your body fat.
And high doses of it can damage your liver or worse. I mean, they can put you in a coma.
Beyond the dangerousness of overdosing on vitamin A, it's also the case that vitamin A supplements just don't work to protect you from measles. I mean, if you don't have enough vitamin A and you catch the measles, then a doctor might give it to you for what they call supportive care.
That happens mainly in countries where kids are malnourished. But here, less than 1% of the American population is deficient in vitamin A, so adding tons of extra vitamin A basically is only just harmful.
Despite that, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in his role as America's Health and Human Services Secretary, has repeatedly in the media promoted vitamin A and other supplements for treating the measles, while this measles outbreak is spreading across big parts of this country.
And now, thanks to him, kids in West Texas are showing up at the hospital with signs of liver damage from taking vitamin A. This week, the communications director at the CDC, a man named Kevin Griffiths, said he resigned from the CDC in part because of this type of irresponsibility.
In an op-ed for The Washington Post, Mr. Griffiths wrote this, quote, Instead of seeking guidance about how to combat the measles outbreak in Texas and New Mexico from the world-leading epidemiologists and virologists he oversees, Kennedy is listening to fringe voices who reinforce his personal beliefs.
Kennedy has promoted unproven treatments for measles. He suggested distributing vitamin A, which does not prevent measles.
Meanwhile, Griffiths says, in my final weeks at the CDC, I watched as career infectious disease experts were tasked with spending precious hours searching medical literature in vain for data to support Kennedy's preferred treatments. Quote,

all this misdirection is a waste of federal dollars that will do nothing to control the

outbreak. It also could cost lives.
President of the American Academy of Pediatrics is going

to join us here on this live next. The measles outbreak that began in West Texas now includes more than 400 measles cases in multiple states.
And as that outbreak continues to spread, kids in West Texas are now starting to show up in hospitals with signs of liver damage from taking too much vitamin A. Vitamin A neither cures nor prevents measles.
It is vaccination that prevents measles. But the Trump administration's health secretary, Robert F.
Kennedy Jr., has been promoting vitamin A as a miraculous measles treatment. Sue Kressley is the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
She says in a statement, quote, in fact, relying on vitamin A instead of a vaccine is not only dangerous and ineffective, but it puts children at serious risk. Taking too much vitamin A can cause serious health problems, including liver damage.
Joining us now is Dr. Sue Cressley.
She's president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. Dr.
Kressley, it is a real honor to have some time with you tonight. Thank you for being here.
It's a pleasure to be here. Can you tell me about the dangerousness of vitamin A? I don't think we're used to thinking of vitamins as having any potential negative effects, but these reports from Texas about kids turning up in the hospital having taken way too much vitamin A and it being harmful to them are alarming.
Can you just tell us medically what that means? Yeah, but first I'd like to say, Rachel, that the single most important message that your audience should hear, and I can't overemphasize this, is the only way out of this measles epidemic is through vaccination. And the measles vaccine is safe and effective.
And I want to reiterate that there's a difference between preventing measles, and the only way we can prevent measles is through vaccination, and how we support patients and families and children who have measles. And that is supportive care.
There is no cure for measles. There is supportive care, just like there is for other viruses and other viral illnesses.
That includes taking appropriate dosing of medications like fever reducers. And so vitamin A in patients in the right dose in consultation with a healthcare provider can help mitigate in some patients the seriousness of the measles virus, but it will not prevent the measles virus.
It will not prevent you from getting sick. And too much of any medication and vitamin A is a medication can be dangerous and make children and patients sick, as we're seeing in Texas now.
And that's true whether or not people are finding supplements themselves, taking cod liver oil, otherwise trying to sort of gin up their own treatment regime based on things they're getting in the media. There isn't some safe way to administer the kinds of doses that the health secretary is talking about.
No, it should be done in consultation with a trusted medical provider so that appropriate dosing and it's weight-based dosing. And it's also important for your healthcare provider to understand any underlying illnesses because that may impact whether vitamin A is actually appropriate for your care.
Let's talk about vaccination. When you say it is a safe and effective vaccine, Secretary Kennedy has been among the loudest voices who has been assailing the measles vaccine, talking about it as dangerous and causing injuries and being implicated in all sorts of nefarious things.
When you describe it as safe and effective, can you tell us a little bit about the track record of the measles vaccine, both in terms of how effective it is at preventing measles, but also how we know that it's safe and how long it's been used safely in the United States? So I don't have the exact year when measles vaccine came out, but I can tell you that I was in training and saw a measles outbreak in Philadelphia. And it's been around for a long time, and it has shown over studies over time that it is safe.
We know that two doses of vaccine, given at the appropriate intervals, are 97 percent effective in preventing measles. Nothing is 100% effective, which is why we count on community immunity and as many people to get vaccinated as possible.
And Rachel, I do believe that parents really deserve accurate, factual information that strengthens their confidence in vaccines from all of our leaders. And they don't need any undue anxiety or worry about distracting information.
We should be strengthening their confidence so that we can get on top of this outbreak. Yeah.
Anytime there's a measles outbreak, it should be an all-hands-on-deck vaccination effort for everybody who is at risk. Dr.
Sue Kressley, president of the

American Academy of Pediatrics, it is an honor to have you here on our show tonight. Thank you for taking time, doctor.
Thank you for having me. We'll be right back.
Stay with us. Remember when Lawrence said he was going away on vacation for a week and a day and I got all mad? it has been longer than a week and a day and he's still gone.

But it turns out that's because he got an infection while he was away. So that's why we haven't seen him back yet.
He is fighting it off. He says he's going to be fine.
I was texting with him about it just last night. But that is why we do not expect him back until next week.
Don't worry. He's going to be fine.
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