Has RFK Jr declared a war on science?
The News Agents - USA
Global
4.3 • 717 Ratings
🗓️ 3 September 2025
⏱️ 42 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Why has America's health secretary RFK Jr fired the head of America's public health body? He says she was taking the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention in the wrong direction. She and her colleagues - who have resigned in protest - say they were uncomfortable following an anti-vax, anti-science direction of travel. Where will the MAHA project leave Americans? Will vaccines dry up? And does it even have Trump's support? We speak to Dr Mandy Cohen, who led the CDC until Trump's inauguration in January.
Later, federal troops are coming onto Chicago's streets - a city described as a "hellhole" by the President despite having a lower murder rate than several cities governed by Republicans. Is Trump trying to create a private army under his control?
The News Agents USA is brought to you by HSBC UK - https://www.hsbc.co.uk/
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Newsagents USA podcast is brought to you by HSBC UK, opening up a world of opportunity. |
| 0:09.1 | This is a global player original podcast. |
| 0:12.6 | What's your reaction to people that are getting a little worried? |
| 0:16.0 | I think that, no, it has not caught us at surprise by surprise. |
| 0:21.0 | Again, I cannot comment on personnel issues, but the agency is in trouble, and we need to fix it, |
| 0:28.6 | and we are fixing it, and it may be that some people should not be working there anymore. |
| 0:33.7 | The unmistakable voice of Robert F. Kennedy, otherwise known as America's |
| 0:40.9 | health secretary. What on earth is he doing to the center, the heartbeat, of disease control |
| 0:48.8 | in America by firing some of the top people there? And not only firing the top person there, |
| 0:56.1 | a lot of others have resigned in protest. |
| 0:59.6 | The crucial body of public health is in turmoil. |
| 1:04.6 | Is Robert F. Kennedy curing it or making the disease worse? |
| 1:09.8 | Welcome to the Newsagents USA. |
| 1:17.3 | It's John. It's Emily. And the Centers for Disease Control is an essential part of the health |
| 1:26.9 | infrastructure of America. |
| 1:29.5 | If there are immunizations, if there's a vaccine program, AIDS, public health issues, |
| 1:35.5 | it is the Centers for Disease Control that is absolutely essential to it. |
| 1:40.5 | And if you think back to the kind of early days of the pandemic in Washington, it was the |
| 1:45.7 | CDC who were there at the briefings every day with Donald Trump talking about how they were |
| 1:51.2 | going to fight the pandemic. It brought them into the political crosshairs and they became part of |
| 1:57.7 | the culture was a position that the CDC never wanted to be in. |
| 2:03.2 | And with Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a well-known vaccine skeptic, |
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