Share This Podcast

• Call Congress – 202-224-3121
• Subscribe to the What A Day Newsletter – https://tinyurl.com/3kk4nyz8
• What A Day – YouTube – https://www.youtube.com/@whatadaypodcast

Follow us on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/crookedmedia/

TRANSCRIPT

Jane Coaston: It’s Friday, August 8th. I’m Jane Coaston, and this is What a Day, the show that wants to know the audience for a podcast from Katie Miller, also known as Elon Musk’s lapdog or Mrs. White House Deputy Chief of Staff and noted terrible person, Stephen Miller. 

[clip of Katie Miller] Hi, I’m Katie Miller. Welcome to my podcast and welcome to my living room. You may be wondering what I’m doing here hosting a podcast. 

Jane Coaston: I am wondering. I’m wondering about a lot of things, but I am definitely wondering about that. [music break] On today’s show, President Donald Trump says he wants a new census, but mercifully, that might be difficult. And after months of back and forth, the president’s tariffs are now in effect. But let’s start by talking about vaccines, specifically mRNA vaccines. If you got a COVID-19 vaccine made by Moderna or Pfizer, congratulations! You got a vaccine that uses mRNA to teach yourselves how to fight the disease. But, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says, no more of that. On Tuesday, he announced the cancelation of half a billion dollars in grants and contracts to help develop more of these kinds of vaccines. And he says that’s good? He posted a video about his decision. 

[clip of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.] Most of these shots are for flu or COVID, but as the pandemic showed us, mRNA vaccines don’t perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract. Here’s the problem. MRNA only codes for a small part of the viral proteins, usually a single antigen. One mutation and the vaccine becomes ineffective. 

Jane Coaston: This is not true. I cannot say this enough. This is a lie, caged in just enough technical medical jargon to make Kennedy sound reasonable. An HHS statement says, going forward, the department will lean toward other, more established kinds of vaccines, but canceling these grants and contracts is extremely bad, like unspeakably extremely bad. And that’s not just me saying that. An epidemiologist at the University of Michigan told the Associated Press, quote, “I don’t think I’ve seen a more dangerous decision in public health in my 50 years in the business.” Even Jerome Adams, who served as Surgeon General during Trump’s first term, said of the decision on Twitter, quote, “I’ve tried to be objective and non-alarmist in response to current HHS actions, but quite frankly, this move is going to cost lives.” He’s right, mRNA technology has a ton of potential uses, from averting bird flu to preventing HIV and tuberculosis. At the White House in January, Oracle CEO Larry Ellison talked about how mRNA technology even has the potential to be part of a cancer vaccine. 

[clip of Larry Ellison] Once we gene sequence that cancer tumor, you can then vaccinate the person, design a vaccine for every individual person to vaccinate them against that cancer. 

Jane Coaston: And as I mentioned earlier, mRNA vaccines were critical to preventing millions of deaths from COVID-19. Fast-tracking their development in 2020 was legitimately one of the few great things Trump did in his first term, which could be why he seemed a little conflicted Wednesday when asked why his current administration was axing mRNA research funds. Should he brag about a major accomplishment or should he just pretend that it never happened? 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Research on what? 

[clip of unknown reporter] Into mRNA vaccines. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] Well, we’re going to look at that. We’re talking about it, and they’re doing a very good job. And you know, that is a pass. Operation Warp Speed was, whether you’re Republican or Democrat, considered one of the most incredible things ever done in this country. The efficiency, the way it was done, the distribution, everything about it was has been amazing. But you know that was now a long time ago, and we’re on to other things. 

Jane Coaston: He went with neither. So to talk more about mRNA, and yes, ask what an mRNA vaccine actually does, I spoke with Dr. Fiona Havers. She’s an infectious disease doctor at the Atlanta Veterans Affairs Medical Center. And she served as a senior advisor on vaccine policy for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Dr. Havers, welcome back to What a Day. 

Dr. Fiona Havers: Thank you very much for having me on. I appreciate it. 

Jane Coaston: I think it’s fair to assume you are not a fan of Secretary Kennedy’s decision here to cancel half a billion dollars in contracts to develop mRNA vaccines. So can you tell us why this is such a terrible idea? 

Dr. Fiona Havers: It’s a terrible idea for a whole bunch of reasons. One is that I think it is gonna hurt vaccine development and scientific innovation in the US if the government is just kind of willy nilly canceling scientific contracts that have already been awarded. But second of all, it’s gonna make us a lot less prepared if there’s another pandemic. 

Jane Coaston: Dr. Havers, I took AP Bio a long time ago. 

Dr. Fiona Havers: Yeah. 

Jane Coaston: Can you remind me again what the difference is between an mRNA vaccine and a traditional vaccine, like for polio, for example? 

Dr. Fiona Havers: Yeah, so most vaccines that we’ve historically used have kind of taken a part of, like say a virus that they’re trying to, you know, that you want the vaccine against. And then that is sort of directly injected into someone to stimulate the immune response. The mRNA technology is pretty cool because it basically takes like a really small segment of the mRNA, which is the code. The cell takes that up and then the cell itself, like your cell will then make the protein that that little tiny slice of genetic material codes for. And so it’s a pretty revolutionary technology in that you can use this platform, which has been like decades in development to kind of take any genetic sequence and like very specifically code for, you know, a new virus, for example, and develop a vaccine. And that was how we were able to get the COVID vaccines so quickly. 

Jane Coaston: Are there other upsides of mRNA vaccines? Like you said they are, obviously there’s been years of research, but they’re a relatively new development. What benefit do they offer over more traditional ways to develop vaccines? 

Dr. Fiona Havers: I mean, basically one of the huge reasons why they were developed is the speed with which you can develop a new, like a vaccine to a new virus, or you can tweak the vaccine as like you know, for example, like the strain of coronaviruses there of COVID-2 which causes COVID is circulating. So as the strains sort of change, you can like tweak it and just like tweak what’s on the vaccine. So it’s basically a really flexible platform. I mean I will say that like the fact that we had vaccines that were ready to roll out to the U.S. population having within a year of SARS-CoV-2 being discovered was like staggering. And that’s in large part because the mRNA technology existed and it was kind of ready to go pretty much just before the pandemic. 

Jane Coaston: Can this kind of vaccine research survive without federal money? 

Dr. Fiona Havers: I mean, I think federal money is hugely important. And I mean federal money developed a lot of the technology that happened. I mean like there are private companies that are marketing the specific vaccines that are approved, but like there’s a ton of research going on with mRNA to use for a lot of different other purposes. There’s an RSV vaccine that’s now an mRNA vaccine that’s approved now, but there was a lot of other things in the pipeline using this technology. And that’s kind of pretty much all dead in the water, at least in the United States. I think that what we’re gonna see is that it’s a really promising technology, but other countries are gonna step in to fill the void if the U.S. yanks funding. And so this is one more area where we’re going to lose our scientific leadership globally. 

Jane Coaston: Fantastic.

Dr. Fiona Havers: Yeah, it’s not good. 

Jane Coaston: When Secretary Kennedy announced this decision, he also spouted, I will say this, you don’t have to say it this way, some absolute bullshit. He said, quote, “As the pandemic showed us, mRNA vaccines don’t perform well against viruses that infect the upper respiratory tract.” This is bullshit. I had an mRNA vaccine because I got I was a Pfizer person. Deaths from COVID plummeted thanks to these vaccines, and yet, here we are. I don’t have a specific question, but I just kind of wanted to give you the floor to say what you want to say about that. 

Dr. Fiona Havers: So I would not disagree with your wording in terms of what he was saying. What I will say is, okay, so they’re not perfect vaccines in that you can still get vaccinated and still get infected. And we learned that, but that is you know the same with the flu vaccines and other vaccines. It’s not, these aren’t measles where you get like your dose as a child and you’re like good for life. But yeah, they save millions of lives and are still having a huge impact. Like when I was at CDC, the platform that I ran, we did a study, and we used the data from it to estimate like how many lives were like saved and averted from vaccines recently. And even like last year in the ’23, ’24 season, which is you know we probably estimated that people getting COVID vaccines averted 70,000 hospitalizations in the U.S. Because a lot of older adults in particular are still getting hospitalized for COVID. But yeah, they are lifesaving. They estimated they saved millions of lives during the pandemic and to throw that all out and to say that is not correct. 

Jane Coaston: Last week, government officials also told groups like the American Medical Association, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Infectious Disease Society of America that they would be kicked out of the CDC’s vaccine working groups. These groups help establish vaccine recommendations that affect all of us and can determine what kinds of treatments insurance covers. What could this mean for vaccine recommendations more broadly? Are we just going to get vaccine recommendations from, like, the most annoying person on the internet now? 

Dr. Fiona Havers: Um, that whole thing where they kick the liaison organizations out of the advisory committee meetings is a huge problem and is also sort of another signal of RFK Jr. and his anti-vax group basically taking control of the entire vaccine approval process in the U.S. And, you know, as someone who’s been on a lot of those work group calls and all of that, like the input from those organizations, like the American Academy of Pediatrics and you know the American College of Pharmacy, like all of these other groups really add a lot of value um to whether or not the vaccines or recommendations coming out of CDC are valid and if they’re good and if their implementable. But the fact that they are no longer being allowed to join the work groups means, I mean it’s just another way of undercutting the vaccine recommendations. And they are, it’s making them much less transparent, much less evidence-based. And I’m really concerned that the group that is now in charge of making decisions, namely the people that he put on the advisory committee. Especially if the work groups are kneecapped as well, are gonna come up with some pretty bad recommendations. 

Jane Coaston: Yeah, I mean, I want to ask, how do we fight back against this? Like, this doesn’t feel like something you go to a protest or call your representatives about. Diseases don’t care how you voted and vaccine science is complicated. And it feels like all that’s standing between the crazy person at the helm of federal health policy and us is the insurance companies and just like whether they decide to keep on covering these certain vaccines it’s terrifying. What’s your sense? Who are the people still in a position to push back against Kennedy’s dismantling of our public health system? 

Dr. Fiona Havers: I mean, he was dangerous on the outside, but now that he’s the head of the Health and Human Services, like it’s really hard to know how to push back. Um. I mean I don’t feel comfortable trusting my child’s access to vaccines to the goodwill of the insurance companies. If the CDC doesn’t recommend it going forward, they don’t have to cover it. And they could also um limit approval by FDA. And so vaccines may not even be available. They’re also doing things like they’re going after the vaccine compensation program, like the injury compensation program. So if they start adding other conditions, like autism to that, vaccine manufacturers will not sell their product in the U.S. And we may just no longer have access to vaccines. Like they have a lot of different avenues where they’re just coming after vaccines in general. How do you push back? I mean, I think people need to make a lot more noise with their representatives, particularly if they’re you know in red states or they have Republican representatives because and you know talking to like older adults, even if they aren’t politically aligned with if they are politically aligned with this administration, do understand that like they’ve seen their friends end up in the hospital from flu and COVID. And like this is a bad idea, particularly for many of them who are vulnerable. And so I think, I don’t know, I think sort of sounding the alarm about it. Talking about the real cost to like human lives that’s gonna happen in the United States as a result of this. But without him being replaced as HHS secretary, I think it’s gonna be really hard to push back. They’ve been very politically savvy in terms of the amount of damage they’ve done to all of the processes that were put in place to have like science-based vaccine policy, and which is terrifying and depressing. 

Jane Coaston: But we do have beef tallow french fries. Dr. Havers, thank you so much for joining me. 

Dr. Fiona Havers: Well, thank you very much for having me on. 

Jane Coaston: That was my conversation with Dr. Fiona Havers. She’s a former senior advisor on vaccine policy for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We’ll get to more of the news in a moment, but if you like the show, make sure to subscribe, leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts, and share with your friends. More to come after some ads. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: Here’s what else we’re following today. 

[sung] Headlines. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] We have a country that is going to be very rich. It’s a country that we’re very proud of, but it’s going to be very rich. 

Jane Coaston: Dozens of U.S. trading partners around the world were slapped with higher import taxes on Thursday, some as high as 50%. Here’s looking at you, Brazil and India. Most goods coming into the U. S. have been hit with a baseline 10% tax while products from places like South Korea, Vietnam, and Japan face higher tariffs of around 15-20%. This covers stuff that we all think we need and do truly enjoy, from coffee and clothes to electronics and toys. Even wine. Bummer. Trump has long planned for these sweeping tariffs. He was clearly so excited for this day, he pounced on Truth Social at 11:58 p.m. Wednesday to post in all caps with several exclamation points, quote, “It’s midnight. Billions of dollars in tariffs are now flowing into the United States of America.” Like a weird child waiting for tariff Santa. He’s not wrong. These tariffs have meant big money for the U.S., some 30 billion dollars just last month. But the businesses that rely on those goods are not feeling so ecstatic. NPR reports even corporations like McDonald’s are starting to worry, and the New York Times says companies including Adidas and Procter & Gamble have told investors they’ve had to raise prices or will soon to counter the effect of the tariffs, because tariffs are a tax on the consumer, as in you. And you know what this means, no joy for consumers who want to treat themselves to that egg McMuffin or probably anything new. The Yale Budget Lab finds that the tariffs will cost U.S. households an average $2,400 this year. Doesn’t everyone have $2,400 a year to spare though? The United States Air Force said Thursday it’s denying the option to retire early to all trans servicemembers who have served between 15 and 18 years, and will instead separate them without retirement benefits. That’s according to a memo issued Monday and reviewed by Reuters and the Associated Press. As a reminder, in May, the Supreme Court gave the Pentagon permission to move forward with a ban on all transgender troops in the military. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later announced that current openly transgender troops could either volunteer to leave and take a large one-time separation payout, or be involuntarily separated at a later date. An Air Force spokesperson told the Associated Press, quote, “although service members with 15 to 18 years of honorable service were permitted to apply for an exception to policy, none of the exceptions to policy were approved.” The spokesperson also said about a dozen service members were, quote, “prematurely notified that they would be able to retire before that decision was reversed.” The memo said the new policy was made after quote, “careful consideration,” which leaves me wondering, what exactly was considered? Because Trump always likes to throw something new into the mix, he’s now calling for a new census that would exclude undocumented people living in the country. He made the announcement Thursday on Truth Social, writing that he instructed the Commerce Department to, quote, “immediately begin work on a new and highly accurate census based on modern-day facts and figures.” Now, we should say up front that while the census is not very sexy, it is extremely important. This constitutionally mandated population count aims to include every person residing in the U.S. regardless of immigration status. And that final number eventually helps determine how many seats each state gets in the House of Representatives. So it probably isn’t any coincidence that all this census talk comes at a time when Trump has been pushing Republican-led states to redistrict and help his party pick up some extra seats. Here he is calling into CNBC earlier this week. 

[clip of President Donald Trump] We have an opportunity in Texas to pick up five seats. We have a really good governor and we have good people in Texas. 

Jane Coaston: As with most plans suddenly announced by Trump, his intention is not really clear. Does he want to remake the census that is already scheduled to take place in 2030, or create something totally new mid-decade? At the time of recording, the White House did not return requests for clarification. Either way, this is gonna be hard. For one, the president does not have final authority over the census, but the biggest reason is time. It takes years to prepare for the count. The process for 2030 is already well underway. Trump signed a memorandum Thursday giving Education Secretary Linda McMahon a new responsibility. Require colleges to prove they do not consider race in admissions. It also calls for a revamped government data collection system. Just another round of Trump vs. higher education. Get out the boxing gloves. In 2023, the Supreme Court ruled against the use of affirmative action in admissions, it did say colleges may still consider how race has shaped students’ lives if applicants share that information in their admissions essays. But since the start of Trump 2.0, the administration has been on a rampage, accusing colleges of using personal statements and other proxies to consider race. This makes conservatives very angry because they view it as illegal discrimination. We’ve already seen similar examples of this diversity, equity, and inclusion crackdown in the administration’s battles with universities like Brown and Columbia. In a fact sheet Thursday, the White House said the lack of admissions data plus excessive diversity statements quote, “continues to raise concerns about whether race is actually used in admissions decisions and practice.” And that’s the news. [music break]

[AD BREAK]

Jane Coaston: That’s all for today. If you like the show, make sure you subscribe, leave a review, contemplate that the Trump administration thinks the Border Patrol should be able to detain someone for looking like they might be Latino and speaking Spanish in Southern California, and tell your friends to listen. And if you’re into reading, and not just about how a brief to the Supreme Court from the Trump Administration argues that, quote, “common sense gives immigration officials the right to stop any person who looks Latino and or speaks Spanish in California’s Central District, which includes Los Angeles.” Like me, What a Day is also a nightly newsletter. Check it out and subscribe at crooked.com/subscribe. I’m Jane Coaston. And again, the Trump administration is arguing that looking Latino and speaking Spanish is very suspicious if you are in Los Angeles, or Santa Barbara, or San Bernardino. [music break] What a Day is a production of Crooked Media. It’s recorded and mixed by Desmond Taylor. Our associate producer is Emily Fohr. Our producer is Michell Eloy. Our video editor is Joseph Dutra. Our video producer is Johanna Case. We had production help today from Greg Walters, Matt Berg, Gina Pollock, and Laura Newcomb. Our senior producer is Erica Morrison, and our senior vice president of news and politics is Adriene Hill. We had help with headlines from the Associated Press. Our theme music is by Colin Gilliard and Kashaka. Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. 

[AD BREAK]