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The Al Franken Podcast

3: Dr. Leana Wen Discusses the Tortuous and High Stakes Path that Dr.'s Fauci and Birx Must Navigate

The Al Franken Podcast

The Al Franken Podcast

Government, Progressive, Politics, Senate, Liberal, Senator, Minnesota, Franken, News, Saturday Night Live, Comedy, Snl

4.67.7K Ratings

🗓️ 5 April 2020

⏱️ 55 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dr. Wen is an emergency room physician, professor at GW School of Public Health, and fmr. Public Health Commissioner for Baltimore under two mayors. The second, who was recently sentenced to 3 years in prison, is arguably crazy, giving her unique insight into the dilemma that Fauci and Birx face in dealing with an inarguably crazy president.  

Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, everybody. Got a great show today, you know, for a change. And this time, I mean it.

0:12.5

My guest is Dr. Lena Wynne, who is an emergency room physician and professor at George

0:19.7

Washington University's School of Public Health.

0:23.2

If you've been watching too much news as I have, then you've probably seen Dr. Wen on either

0:31.1

CNN or MSNBC or both as an authoritative voice on the pandemic,

0:38.1

because Dr. Wen has dedicated her career to the public's health.

0:45.1

Now, Dr. Wen was the health commissioner for the city of Baltimore under two mayors,

0:51.4

the second of whom was kind of nuts and was just sentenced to three years

0:58.2

in prison for fraud, tax evasion, and conspiracy involving, and maybe you've heard about

1:06.6

this.

1:07.2

Her self-published book, Healthy Holly, as a children's book, this woman now, former mayor

1:17.9

Catherine Pugh, pocketed $800,000 by forcing these nonprofits who she had a great deal of control over to buy her self-published

1:32.3

children's book.

1:34.7

For example, the University of Maryland Medical System bought 100,000 copies of this book.

1:42.8

So, Catherine Pugh is kind of crazy and Dr. When was this crazy person's

1:53.0

commissioner of health? And the reason I bring that up is that I have been fascinated with the

1:59.9

roles that Tony Fauci and Deborah Burks are playing in President Trump's pandemic task force.

2:06.5

And there is a real parallel between Dr. Wend's experience with her insane mayor and doctors Fauci and Burks with this insane president.

2:19.8

And we get into that.

2:22.1

And I think you'll be very moved by what she has to say about the role of a public health official in a situation like she had and what Dr. S Fauci and Brooks are contending with.

2:37.9

And in this case, the enormity of the stakes of their maintaining their credibility

2:43.5

while dealing with a president who at any minute could find reason to fire and replace them with unqualified toadies,

...

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