92. Trump vs. California: How Far Will He Go?

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Hello, and welcome to The Rest is Politics US with me, Katie Kay, still in London.

And I'm Anthony Scaramucci.

Good morning, Katy Kay.

Actually, I feel like we have been apart and we need to have a little reconnection because I had a week off

and somebody filled in for you.

We won't mention his name.

And then you had a week off with Stephanie, who was fantastic, I thought.

And I was so glad that she did it.

But it's nice to be back together.

You can mention Michael Steele.

I mean, I have a very sensitive eggshell ego, as we both know.

We've discovered this, but you can mention Michael Steele's name because he's a wonderful guy and he also did a great job.

But I'm glad to be back.

I'm glad you didn't fire me off the podcast.

Let's just put it that way.

I'm just happy to, I'm happy to be here.

Okay.

And like I said,

I could feel the sword of Damocles dangling

ready to hit me in the head.

So what do you want to talk about today?

So look, we're going to talk about the mass protests, obviously.

And I think mass is an interesting word because we'll talk about that too.

But anyway, the protests around immigration that have been happening in LA as a result of some of the more aggressive tactics that the White House is using to crack down on illegal immigrants.

And then after the break, I want to talk about what the Secretary of Health has been doing, RFK Jr., who has retired, I think is the word he used, the entire U.S.

vaccine committee to replace them with people who he thinks are more truthful vaccines and whether they're good for us or not, and what that means for American health.

And actually, I think also what that means for the American manufacturing industry of vaccines.

Because I had an interesting conversation with a doctor who does research on this about this subject.

But before we get to the day's news, everybody, the final episode of our Elon Musk mini-series is out now.

You can sign up, of course, to get it all at therestispoliticsus.com.

In the latest episode, we had so much to talk about.

We took a deep dive into one of the most surreal chapters in American governance.

After the creation of Doge, the federal agencies that were gutted, the humanitarian programs that were axed, and Elon Musk moving through Washington wielding, even, yes, a chainsaw.

But we really wanted to focus on what it all meant.

And what had Elon Musk done that had achieved something for American government and savings?

What had he done that was potentially damaging for the United States?

What was the lasting impact of this extraordinary kind of four-month period of Elon Musk in government wielding his chainsaw with his toddler in tow in the Oval Office?

And what did it all mean?

So that's what we dived into.

And then, of course, we looked at the very messy divorce between Elon Musk and Donald Trump that is still playing out even as we are recording this on Wednesday morning.

So

that's the series.

We do hope you'll join up.

What was your favorite episode, Anthony?

Well, I mean, I can't say it was necessarily my favorite episode, but my favorite part of the whole thing, and I just want to personally thank Elon Musk on behalf of TripUS for blowing things up before our last episode.

Because if he didn't blow things up before our last episode, we'd have to have another episode.

But it was brilliantly timed when you said Trump was on the Epstein file list.

Have a good day, DJT.

Now, he's out this morning tweeting that he regrets the overreach there there with some of the things that he was saying.

But

I think my favorite was the last episode, by the way, because I think, you know, I want to applaud our producers and want to thank these guys, India, Fiona, Dom, et cetera, for laying out a really good background, doing a lot of research into Elon's life.

Because if you listen to episode one and two, then you understand how episode...

five happened, you know, and so for me, I,

you know, I feel bad about the situation.

People say I have an overly soft spot for Elon.

My friend Scott Galloway is a little bit more edged up as it relates to Elon.

But I think Elon is coming back, and I think Elon is going to be

a force.

He may be back in the Trump administration.

He may be back with the Democrats.

Just two quick things, though, that I want to point out, Gaddy.

Number one, Trump threatened him.

Okay, that's fascism.

You can't, from your governmental position, say, hey, if you support Democrats, you're going to have consequences.

That's called fascism.

Can't do that.

You have a First Amendment right to support anybody that you want.

And then number two, Trump said something that really made me laugh.

So I have to share it with everybody.

Trump goes on local radio here in New York.

All these guys are my buds, you know, like Lem Berman, Sid Rosenberg.

He's on the radio last week.

He's like, I don't know what goes on here.

You know, these guys, they leave the White House and they go crazy on me.

They go crazy.

And he was about to say, like your friend.

He goes, oh, never mind.

You know, because he knows I'm always on the show, right?

But, but the point is, Caddy, sometimes you got to look in the mirror and say, maybe it's me.

It could be me.

80 people have left the White House.

80 people have said the guy's a nut job, including Elon Musk.

Yeah.

I mean, it's so interesting because the story is still playing out, obviously, with what does Elon Musk do next?

And why did he send out all of those tweets suggesting that Donald Trump may be in the Epstein files?

We have had so many questions, by the way, about this series that next Tuesday, we're going to have a special Q ⁇ A to answer all of your Elon Musk's questions.

So tune in and listen to that as well.

Okay, let's get to this week's news because there's been an awful lot happening.

And some of it is around economic policy and immigration.

Some of it is around law.

and democracy issues.

And some of it is around, obviously, politics and what all of this means, both for the White House and for democracy.

So, quick recap.

We've had these protests in Los Angeles following a series of immigration raids that were targeting illegal migrants who were turning up to work at kind of it's a traditional thing that happens all over the country.

You go to a big DIY store like Home Depot and you'll see a crowd of kind of migrants there.

Many of them are not in the country legally, and they are looking for day jobs, painting jobs, construction jobs.

And the ICE enforcement officials started going to these home depots in Los Angeles.

And that resulted in protests in the city.

And we saw over the weekend that the protests did get violent.

There were cars set on fire, driverless taxis set on fire.

Everything kind of died down pretty quickly.

I spoke to people in California, both Republicans and Democrats ahead of this taping, who said, by the standards actually of California and of Los Angeles, which has seen very big riots over the last couple of decades, including back in 2020 with the Black Lives Matter protests, these were pretty minor.

I mean, it was very confined to downtown.

It was not that Los Angeles suddenly felt unruly, but Donald Trump called out the National Guard, or rather, he federalized the California Guard, and that's a question of legal dispute.

And he brought in Marines, and he said that the whole of the city was going to blow up if he didn't act.

And the White House, my understanding is, is delighted to have been given this opportunity on a subject they feel they have overwhelming support on.

And it gives the president the chance to do what he didn't do in 2020, which is bring out the American military.

onto the streets in protection of federal buildings.

So he hasn't actually used the military yet to go after American citizens because that would be illegal, but he's brought them out in protection of federal buildings and federal officers.

And this has caused a legal issue, an immigration issue, and a political issue.

So let's dive into some of that.

What do you make of it, Anthony?

Well, I'm going to say a few things that are perhaps controversial.

The first thing I'm going to say is that the people are on the side of Donald Trump.

And so I want you to look at the polling, Gaddy, disagree if you find a poll against it.

But I've looked at a cross-section of polls.

CNN had a great poll out yesterday.

It would point people towards that, that the people are for

ending illegal immigration.

And when you ask people on the margin, they're for deportation.

And I think what's happening here is this crudeness.

If you had an American leader that got to the podium and said, listen, we have too many illegal aliens who are criminals in the country.

And I'm going to work on with my team to get illegal aliens that have perpetrated criminal activity in the country out of the country.

And we're going to do it in the most humane way possible.

I don't think you get protests.

Isn't that kind of what Donald Trump said during the campaign?

You warned us of this.

I remember you saying he's going to deport millions of people illegally.

And the president, while he was on the campaign trail, was saying he was going to go after people, suggested very firmly he was going to go after people that had a violent criminal history.

And there was widespread support for that.

But this is going clearly now what ICE is doing is going beyond that, right?

But this is what happens, right?

Because, you know, he said that he didn't know who the people were on Project 2025.

We're four months in his administration.

He's on page 400 of a 900-page document going through the document, doing exactly what's in the document.

He said he was only going to deport the illegal criminals, the aliens that were perpetrating crimes, and they're going after everybody.

And so, this is the problem that Americans have.

If you tell me something abstractly, okay,

should people that are committing crimes in the country who got here illegally, should they be deported?

Yes.

Should illegal immigrants be deported?

Americans are going to say yes.

Should your neighbor who lives down the block that got here illegally, they're paying all their taxes, they are raising children in your school district, they're best friends with your children.

And they work 24-7.

And they're law-abiding people that love America.

Should they be deported?

And then all of a sudden the Americans say, well, wait, wait, what?

So what's going on here is there's a cruelty to the approach.

And I think this is going to get the president in a lot of trouble.

And by the way, Gavin Newsom, to his credit, is showing some backbone here.

And they're going to try to tar Gavin and they're going to say the, you you know, the, you know, the stuff that gets said on right-wing media that Gavin is defending illegal aliens who are criminals.

He's not.

He's basically saying we've got to take a humane approach to the thing.

Listen to what he's saying.

And he's basically saying that the National Guard is to be deployed in my state at my suggestion as the governor.

And the fact that he is overriding the governor and inserting the National Guard into the state is an intrusion, hasn't happened, I think, in 40 or 50 years.

And now he's talking about a Marine deployment.

I just want to make this one point.

I'd like you to react to it.

Marines are deployed against our enemies.

That's what they're deployed against.

Police are deployed against civil unrest and citizens that are harming each other in your country.

If you got to take it one step further, you use the National Guard if there is a riot breaking out.

Understood.

But you're crossing the line going with the Marines and you're doing that because you're an asshole.

Okay.

And you just have to understand that's why you're doing that.

I think your point about the Marines is really interesting.

And Marines are not trained to fight American citizens or people on American soil.

They are not trained to go into ICE raid type situation in a family where there are, you know, where the dad is in the country illegally, but there could be kids in the house as well.

That is not something that Marines are trained to handle.

They are trained to shoot people and they carry weapons in many cases.

And these are the most elite of them.

And I don't think the Marines necessarily want to be in this position.

This puts American Marines in an incredibly difficult position.

Imagine that they get to a situation where they are actually helping with those ICE raids.

At the moment, they're not.

At the moment, they're there to protect the buildings.

Donald Trump has decided not to invoke the Insurrection Act.

He's gone with something slightly less than that, which gives these national law enforcement officers, these soldiers, the ability to protect buildings, but not actually to conduct raids.

But if they were to get into a position, as is the case, and we know of stories where people are being picked up who are here illegally and they've got their wife and their kids in the car, what do the Marines do who are just not trained to handle that?

So the Marines have been brought from their base.

They arrived in LA in armored vehicles, looking like military force, that's what they are, but they're having to be trained in ICE tactics, which takes a certain amount of, you know, it takes a long time to train these ICE officers to know what they're doing.

And Marines are having to get a kind of speed training for the prospect of being out on the streets of Los Angeles.

And this is exactly what General Milley warned against.

from the first administration around the Black Lives Matter when we know that Donald Trump wanted to bring out military personnel and shoot protesters in the knees.

And Millie was saying, but this is a volatile situation that you're dealing with because this is not how Marines are trained.

So you could end up with something far more explosive.

Now, I think we don't know for Democrats yet how this turns out.

And, you know, correct me if you think I'm wrong.

I think we don't know because we don't know what's going to happen on the ground.

If these protests spread around the country and become more violent, I actually think the White House will be able to to make a public case for bringing out the National Guard and even potentially bringing out the Marines.

If the protests die down and they're small and they're not violent, then there is a risk that for the White House that this looks like overkill and Donald Trump has jumped the shock.

He's kind of, you know, as he does in these situations, he has a good set of cards, but he's overplaying them.

And I don't know.

I don't think we know yet, Anthony, which way this goes.

Democrats are clearly I've interviewed several in the last couple of days.

I interviewed Mikey Sherrill this morning, who's just won the Democratic primary for the race for governor of New Jersey.

And she's walking this fine line between protecting American rights to protest, but also keeping law and order on the streets.

And people still have the memory of 2020 and the Black Lives Matter protests, and it's quite near the surface.

And I think people don't want to see that again in the country.

I don't think they want those violent images.

And that works for the White House at the moment.

I mean, listen, I like Mikey Sherrill, and congratulations to her.

She's been to many of my conferences.

She's also a U.S.

veteran

helicopter pilot for Navy, for the U.S.

Navy.

God bless her.

Superman.

And she's a very smart, very pragmatic person.

And I think that's what we need.

We need people who are pragmatic and we need people that are humane.

And

I guess the thing that troubles me is the misinformation that's out there.

So there's, you know, again, one of my Italian buddies, very close to, to, he sent me something this morning because he listens to our podcast and he's, you know, he's right of center, a right of center person.

And he's saying to me that, you know, the $150 billion

a year is getting spent on services from the government, net loss of $150 billion a year.

And there was recent testimony in the Congress

shading statistics like that.

And that infuriates the American people.

But if you go to Elon Musk's AI and you go to Grok and you ask Grok.

Grok is your new best friend, Anthony.

Yeah, but I like Grock.

I love Grok.

I do.

I think it's important because Grok can keep you honest.

Okay, so if you go to Grock and you ask the question,

it's more complicated than that.

So what ends up happening is the right picks out certain stats, which are very accurate, and they say the stat.

And then the left picks out certain stats, which are accurate, and they say the stat.

And now we're arguing over the facts because they're not conjoining them.

But when you put them in the mixer, it turns out on a net basis,

the immigrants that have gotten here illegally have been a net positive to the Social Security taxation, to the American tax structure, to American consumption.

They've added economic growth.

I'll say this.

It's a little crude.

People please forgive me.

They have done the work that my fellow Americans don't want to do.

Don't want to do.

So, oh my God, that's so right.

So, a really smart politician would say,

I understand there's xenophobia in the country.

I understand there's elements of isolationism.

I understand there's the tribalism,

but we are a united country.

We are an experiment for the rest of the world.

We're based on an idea, and the people are here.

We should knit the place together, frankly, the way Marco Rubio wanted to do in 2008, 9, and 10.

Moreover, and I've said this before on our podcast, but it's worth repeating because it's directly related to this issue.

If the Gang of Eight, you remember the Gang of Eight?

I do.

Okay, so tell our viewers and listeners who were the Gang of Eight?

What was their proposal?

The Gang of Eight were four Republican and four Democratic senators who put together a proposal to give immigrants who are in the country illegally a pathway to being in America legally.

So gave them a pathway to citizenship.

And they got as close as any group has got in America in the last few decades to resolving America's immigration issue.

But in the end, they failed.

They couldn't quite get it across the line.

Right.

There were hard-right

senators that stopped it.

Yeah.

But Marco Rubio was one of that gang of eight.

Yeah.

And I think Cruz was actually involved with that, if I remember correctly.

But here's what I would say.

We then lost the 2012 election, right?

Remember, I was a Republican back then, right?

Mitt Romney.

So we lost the election.

So you were still a Republican.

Yeah, I'm still a Republican, but I'm not a Trump Republican.

You know, I'm like, you're actually in the party.

Yeah, I'm in exile.

I'm like fucking de Gaulle somewhere.

I'm like hiding somewhere trying to get the party.

Come and join me in London.

It's fine.

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

I'm trying to figure out what the hell to do here.

But my point is, after the 2012 election, we said we got to soften our stance on immigration.

We're going to lose the next election if we don't soften our stance.

And then we got Trump.

And Trump hardened our stance on immigration.

And it plays to our weaknesses, right?

Lincoln said that there are better angels in our nature that we have to appeal to.

But Trump is appealing to the weaker instincts in our nature.

And this is an unhealable situation unless you get a transformative political leader into the mix to tell the American people the truth.

The people that are here and they're working and they're adding to the economy, we got to take care of.

And we got to make them citizens or give them a path to citizenship.

Even if you think it's unfair, that's what we got to do.

That's what the pardon process is about.

That's the real politic of it.

Can I pick up on the immigration bit of this?

Because I think you're right.

I don't think any of this is about immigration.

I think it's really about it's a culture war thing.

And it's Donald Trump kind of tapping into a very powerful culture war with us with a sense of isolationism, a sense of security, a sense of fear, a sense of nativism.

But what it's not about is immigration for the very reason that you just pointed out, which is that it's not that Americans are lining up to do the jobs that these illegal migrants are doing.

And if he was to go ahead and really deport the whatever it is, 14 million people who are in the country, America, there would be a total crisis in the American economy because these people make up they're 5% of the workforce, they're 25% of the agricultural workforce, they're 15% of the construction workforce, they're 10% of the leisure workforce.

They contribute $100 billion in taxes every year.

I mean, I think if I were...

being democratic strategist, which you sometimes ask me to play, I would say really try to tone down the protests, certainly tone down any of the violence that people are committing out in the protests, and wait for the crisis that would happen in the American labor force.

I was told by a Republican strategist in Northern California that there were not enough workers to pick this winter's citrus harvest in California, not because people have been deported, but because they were too afraid to turn up to work in case there were raids at the citrus farms.

Well, that pretty quickly starts having an impact on labor prices and on people's ability to do their businesses.

So wait for that to happen.

And then you're also going to get alongside that the stories of, you know, the grandmother, the abuela who works in the dress shop getting deported and separated from her crying grandchildren.

And that's where I think Americans will start to change.

That's where this could flip against.

the White House, because people don't want, like you say, they don't want the heartbreaking stories of families being separated.

But we saw that from the first Trump administration.

And they need to be able to carry on doing their businesses.

I mean, combine this with tariffs.

How much harder is it going to get for American small businesses if both of those economic programs were to go through?

I think it's so well said.

I guess what I would say to you, living in the United States my entire life, I mean, do a lot of travel, but I live here in the 70s.

When I was an early teenager in the 70s, my

family used to go, my dad used to go to the Knights of Columbus, Columbus, like the, you know, or the sons of Italy.

And I'd have to go in there and they'd have like a skeeting ball thing and stuff.

You'd sit there.

And these old Italians who were all war veterans,

they would say pridefully, they would say pridefully, ready?

We went to Europe.

We defended Europe against the Nazis.

We pushed the Nazis back.

And then we went in and rebuilt Europe.

You know, the Marshall Plan, the trade agreements, the alliance, the NATO NATO alliance.

And they said it pridefully.

I can remember this, like it was yesterday, and I was like thinking, okay, we're a good country.

You know, we must be a good country.

We're trying to do the right thing on the world stage.

And we're going to fast forward 50 years.

And now we're sitting here.

We have people in the country that are working, that are contributing to the society.

They may have not gotten here correctly.

Okay.

And listen, my grandparents got here correctly.

I have all the evidence because I applied for Italian citizenship for my daughter.

And so I have all the evidence they got here correctly.

But some people didn't get here correctly.

What do you want to do, Caddy?

What should we do?

You want to throw them out of the country at this moment?

And by the way, by the way,

it would be a martial plan for the country itself.

If you had a very smart, transformative, futuristic leader that would say to the American people, look, I'm doing this.

You can hate me for doing this.

You can be xenophobic.

You could be tribalistic, but this is what we're doing.

And when we have illegal people who are committing crimes, I'm going to work with the police forces and the different places around the country, the FBI, to get those people deported as quickly as possible.

But to deport people and to scare the daylights out of people that actually love the country, that are sitting sitting here in the country working,

doing the best that they can.

I think it is a really big mistake for the country.

And it's the opposite.

It's antipodal to where we were 50 years ago in the way we thought about ourselves.

Yeah.

And I mean, you've got reports of kids not being able to turn up for their high school graduation because they're afraid of immigration raids in their high schools.

And you do have already families being separated.

And I think the more of those stories that come out, the more concerned people will be.

Just before we take a break quickly, I want to talk about the kind of crude democratic politics of this.

And that I feel a bit crass doing that, Anthony, after that

very nice tribute that you just paid to America.

But what do you think this means for Gavin Newsom?

Because you mentioned that he's been out there.

He's kind of had a backbone.

Obviously, Newsom.

is this is tricky i think that it's quite interesting how there's a split between democrats and newsom on this because i think this is a tricky situation for democrats The White House is very happy with how this is going at the moment for them, in crude political terms.

But for Newsom, who is obviously really focused on the Democratic primary for president for 2028,

and

that's his next objective, I think he comes out of this sounding authentic

and

genuine and like you say, taking the fight to Donald Trump.

I think all of that is good for him in the primary.

Now, one

Republican strategist said to me this week, well, yeah, but if Newsom gets elected, that's very helpful for J.D.

Vance because we will hang around Newsom's neck, the Sanctuary City stuff, the riots in LA, all of these images, and that will make it harder for the Democrats to win back the White House.

I don't know if that's the case or not the case, but I can see that argument.

But do you think this is helping Newsom with his bid to become the Democratic nominee, which, let's face it, is no secret.

That's what he wants.

Okay.

So so I do think it's helping him.

I did Gavin's podcast a few weeks ago.

People want to listen to a conversation that Gavin and I had about how the Democrats could transform themselves.

It's out there on YouTube.

I would say this.

I think the California branding needs some work.

It needs some refurbishing.

So California is now the fourth largest economy in the world.

If you take it out of the United States, you put it up against the other economies, fourth largest in the world.

$83 billion

are leaving California, the highest of any state, and going to the federal government.

So on a net basis, California is contributing to the government.

New York, the irony is these big blue states are contributing more to the federal government than they're taking out.

Where is the money from California going, Caddy?

To red states, Caddy.

They're going into the welfare programs,

social services.

Tennessee.

Yeah, they're going into red states.

So, so, Gavin, wake up, Gavin.

You got the fourth largest economy.

You are the font of innovation.

Everything starts in California as it relates to American culture, including McDonald's, okay, and In-N-Out Burger and Disneyland.

Everything starts there.

Southern California, the idea factory for the culture through Hollywood.

Northern California, the tech, and all of the future for the world is in California.

So start speaking that way because the right is very smart.

The right wants to pin on California, the homeless issue, the Sanctuary City issue, the stupid bail reform, which they should reform, the bail reform, where people can walk into stores and steal $900 worth of stuff.

And all they've done is provided a license for organized petty criminals to go into these stores.

So you got some problems.

Fix those problems and speak truth to power about what California.

Yeah, or what California means to the rest of the country.

He has your number, Anthony, so he can call you to get that advice directly, by the way.

Yeah, I've already laid it on him on his podcast, but I'm just letting you know if Tom Holman and Donald Trump,

okay, who both look like open spam cans, like, I mean, they are whiter than white, Gaddy.

When you open a spam can, I see Tom Holman and I'm going to.

I'm going to make you the image of a Donald Trump.

I just want to make sure you've got the image you've got.

If the two open spam cans arrest Gavin Newsome, if they arrest Gavin Newsom, he's going to be president.

He's going to be president.

Okay, so it's just, come and arrest me.

That's why he's saying it.

That's why he's saying it.

You got to glock me up.

You got to lock me up because you're going to turn me.

into a political martyr.

Yeah.

And please come and do it.

I'm Gavin.

Please come and do it.

He knows how to write a political ad.

Okay, we're going to come back and talk about RFK Jr.,

which I think has got less attention than it should be getting because I think actually one of the big long-term threats to America, as I've said before, is all the threats to science and scientific research and manufacturing.

So we will be back in just a minute.

Hello, I'm Gordon Carrera, national security journalist, and I'm David McClarski, CIA analyst, turned spy novelist.

Together, we're the co-hosts of another goal hanger show called The Rest is Classified, where we bring you the best stories from the world of secrets and spies.

We have just released a series on the decades-long battle between the CIA and Osama bin Laden, and this week we are stepping into the devastation of the 9-11 terror attacks to understand how Osama bin Laden was able to carry out such a plot right under the nose of the CIA.

It was a moment that changed global politics forever, shifting the focus of spy agencies away from nation states towards hunting for terrorists and understanding the extremist ideology that drove them.

We will then go into the decade-long manhunt for Osama bin Laden, which culminated in a dramatic raid at his compound in Pakistan in 2011, which killed the world's most wanted terrorist.

So, if all of this sounds good, we've got a clip waiting for you at the end of the episode.

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Welcome back to the Rest is Politics U.S.

I'm Anthony Scaramucci.

I'm Katie Kaye.

So, Katie, I want to talk about RFK.

RFK Jr., of course,

he took out the entire U.S.

vaccine committee.

He removed all 17 members of the committee who issue official government recommendations on immunizations.

And he's going jihad now on what I would describe as traditional medicine.

So this is

why you lived.

Why are you living that?

Going, because the idea of Kennedy going jihad, I mean, jihad is so specific.

This is like when you talk about fascism.

I just, these mixed metaphors of extreme

violence.

Anyway, let's forget that.

Look, look, you could say what you are.

You're in the Brit in the podcast.

I'm not.

When Trump threatens Elon Musk, that's fascism.

Sorry.

And when this idiot is doing this, this is a g-od, okay, this because it's a holy war that's not pinned to science.

Yeah, because it's not pinned to science.

It's irrational.

Yes.

Okay, go ahead.

Okay, there's this thing called ASIP, which now everybody's talking about, which nobody had ever heard about, but this is the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and they are responsible for giving guidance on vaccines.

They've been fired.

I asked a doctor friend of mine who does research about this, and he had a kind of really interesting take on this.

And his take was that the long-term risk of this for the United States and for American taxpayers and for American voters and for American people is that if America kind of pulls back from research around vaccines, from promoting vaccines, from all that it takes to fund vaccines in the world, which this is a sort of signal of,

then when the next pandemic hits, guess who will not be first in line for the vaccine that saves us from the next pandemic?

It will not be Americans.

And so we will end up being second, third, fourth in line.

And we will have to pay a lot more.

Because behind this is a kind of push to try to bring manufacturing of vaccines back into the United States.

But that actually just doesn't make sense.

It's too expensive.

It's not going to happen.

So all of this knowledge and research and manufacturing is going to be picked up by China, by India, by the European Union.

What he did this week was more than just remove people from a committee.

He kind of sent a signal that America is getting out of the vaccine game and the vaccine race.

And once you get out of the game, you don't get to get the trophy when the trophy comes along.

And I think that is the risk here.

Here's what I worry about.

There's so much medical disinformation in the world.

I mean, people think that certain drugs cure cancer and there's a conspiracy to prevent the cure of cancer And people think that vaccines are causing different things

that they don't cause.

And I'm not saying that there aren't problems with vaccines, and I'm not saying that people can't get a reaction or a vaccine injury.

They certainly can.

But it's a low percentage of people, Caddy.

And I think that

you're looking at this from a public health and safety perspective.

Did the smallpox vaccine save human lives in Europe in the 18th and 19th century?

The answer is yes.

Did the polio vaccine prevent infantile paralysis around the world?

I think the answer is yes.

And I think the notion that vaccines, which prepare and boost your immune system and get antibodies geared up to fight disease, has worked.

And I can tell you that one of my friends is suffering from a rare form of cancer and has had experimental treatment where they've actually given the patient a vaccine, which has developed antibodies to affect and beat back the cancer.

And so I would say to you that for me,

we got to get the information right on this.

I know we're going to fight about everything.

We're going to be tribal, but science is science, Caddy.

We got to get this information right and not do crazy things.

It's exactly how Kennedy uses this argument because he says, yeah, science is science and the science has been corrupt.

And all of these people on this committee, I mean, the Wall Street Journal published his op-ed, which honestly had things that were misinformation about the people on this committee and how they were corrupt.

And I've had doctors say to me this week, why did the Wall Street Journal allow that op-ed to be published with that misinformation?

Because it exacerbates exactly what you're saying, the kind of lack of confidence in doctors and in science and in the experts in this field, and that they the journal actually, which has now come out with its own editorial saying this was a bad idea, this firing all of all these people, that the journal should have been more careful about allowing itself to be used to spread misinformation.

I mean, doctors say it's super hard, Anthony, to reach people on this.

We know that the numbers of people that believe in vaccines is declining in America.

The number of people who have skepticism about vaccines is growing and then when you have somebody at the figurehead like kennedy with his vaccine skepticism that increases those numbers and for doctors that leaves them in the position of how do you i mean if you role play this with me if you are a doctor a mother comes in with her child and she doesn't want to get vaccines but you know that you have to have a certain number of people to be vaccinated to have herd immunity against measles for example or even you know flu shots or whatever you have to try to persuade them that the science is

right on this.

But you've only got a kind of 15-minute window.

Pediatricians are saying we have literally a 15-minute window for our appointments in many cases.

How can we possibly debunk all the misinformation that's out there?

And what Kennedy is doing when he sends the signal of firing these people is saying, don't trust the people who have told you.

that you should get your kid vaccinated for measles.

And that's basically what this message is.

And that he's, we don't know who he's going to bring in, the 17 people are that he's going to bring in to replace them But I'm assuming he wouldn't have as he called it retired these 17 people if he was going to replace them with the same people.

I don't know how doctors handle this.

I don't know.

Is it Dr.

Quack and Puss?

I mean who are we bringing in?

Dr.

Frankenstein?

I'm just saying that.

I mean, I mean, I'm trying to come up with some quack names here of people.

Well, you already came up with a can of spam in the first half.

That was, you know, that was enough.

Quack and pussy.

Two cans.

Two cans of spam.

Two cans of spam.

Why have one can of spam where you can have Tom Holman also be a can of spam second okay

you know and i know tom a long time this guy's roman catholic okay i know tom

from the romney days okay and and my last trip on air force one i was sitting with tom in july of 2017 dude what are you doing you know better than this Okay, you know better than this.

JD Vance, you know better than this.

You know, J.D.

Vance, when you do the research on him, he's more Catholic than me because he converted.

You know, when people convert, Caddy, they get a little bit more evangelical about their faith.

What are you doing?

That's why he keeps flying back and forth to the Vatican.

He knows.

He knows that Bob Prevost, now Leo XIV, is mad at him.

What are you guys doing?

Tommy, what do you think the Pope would say about these raids, dummy boy?

What do you think he would say?

He would say, knock it off.

Be humane, Caddy.

Show grace.

Show kindness when you have strength over others.

That's the message.

Talking of grace, one thing a doctor said to me this week was that they hoped that if this committee, the new committee, says, okay, we don't recommend flu shots anymore, or we don't recommend COVID shots for the elderly anymore.

We are now in the hands of insurance companies and hoping that the insurance companies don't suddenly say, oh, well, look, this committee says you don't need a flu shot or this committee says you don't need a COVID shot.

So you know what, guys?

We're not going to finance them anymore.

We're not going to reimburse you for those vaccine shots anymore.

Now, maybe the insurance companies realize that their public standing would decline, and it's not like they're in great shape anyway.

So, they won't follow that.

But that's the kind of thing that's at risk here.

This has a real-life impact, and I think that's why it's important to talk about it because this could have a real-life impact for the health of Americans and for America's long-term competitiveness in the whole vaccine space.

I'm going to designate myself as a doctor, and I'm going to ask Bobby.

Wouldn't you love to be a doctor?

I would kind of

self-declare.

You know, I did get a Juris Doctor.

I'm just going to designate myself as a doctor.

Bobby, I'm here for you.

If you've got a seat on that 17-person committee, I'll give you the science.

I'll give you the weird.

I'm going to give you a flirtation with wanting to become a doctor.

I had a boyfriend who was a doctor when I was in university, training to become a doctor.

And I kind of thought, oh, God, that would be cool.

It would be like, you know, you'd immediately feel like you had a role in life.

Did he break up with you or you broke up with him?

What do you think?

You broke up with him.

That's why I get nervous if I take a vacation.

I get blown out of the seat.

Can I just say, Stephanie Ruhl did a brilliant job last week, and I texted her and said, Thank you very much.

Do you hear me saying, oh my God, I can't go on holiday because Stephanie Rule is going to tame my seat?

You're always flowing.

You're more secure, Caddy.

You're more secure.

We're going to leave it there.

We'll be back next week, obviously.

Do tune into our Elon Musk series if you would like to.

And we'll have have that question and answer next Tuesday for that.

And also, we will be back on Sunday with our regular question and answer for our members.

If you'd like to sign up, therestispoliticsus.com.

You know where to find us, and we love having you.

Thank you very much, everyone, for listening.

It's good to be here with you guys.

Thank you.

I'm Gordon Carrera, and I'm David McClarkey.

Together, we're the co-hosts of another goal hanger show called The Rest is Classified.

Here's that clip we mentioned earlier on.

When I look back on it now, you still see that, you know, there's plans, there's memoranda, there's notifications, there's all these things,

but they're never actually executed.

They never actually kind of pull the trigger on anything, do they?

I'm a little bit of two minds on this because I agree with you that the theme of this episode really is a series of missed opportunities to get Osama bin Laden prior to 9-11.

Yeah.

But we should also note that once Tenet and the CIA

understand that Osama bin Laden is

coming for us, in particular after the East Africa bombings, there is a push to improve.

our collection and our understanding of Al-Qaeda pretty significantly.

I mean, there's a bunch of human sources who get recruited in this period.

There's a lot more technical collection.

Alex Station is beefed up to more than 40 people.

There's a bunch of connections with foreign partners on Al-Qaeda that hadn't existed before.

I mean, interestingly, there's a PDB, President's Daily Brief, in December, December the 4th of 1998, which is titled, quote, Bin Laden Preparing to Hijack U.S.

Aircraft and Other Attacks.

And so there's a lot of...

strategic warning, I think you could say, about what al-Qaeda is up to.

And yet there's an inability, I think, to translate that into

practical efforts and operations to stop these attacks and to stop al-Qaeda from ultimately carrying out 9-11.

If you want to hear the full episode, listen to the rest is classified wherever you get your podcasts.