Political Gabfest - CDC DOA
Political Gabfest
Slate Podcasts
4.4 • 8.5K Ratings
🗓️ 4 September 2025
⏱️ 63 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week, Emily Bazelon, John Dickerson, and David Plotz discuss what the spate of legal defeats for the Trump administration portends as cases wind toward the Supreme Court, the real world effects of RFK Jr. gutting the CDC with guest Dr. Josh Sharfstein, and whether Democrats should compel government shutdown or avoid it now that Congress is back.
For this week’s Slate Plus bonus episode, Emily, John, and David discuss NASA Voyager’s journey through space as it reaches a new milestone and wax philosophical about the immensity of the universe and Earth’s place in it.
In the latest Gabfest Reads, Emily talks with Jonathan Mahler about his new book, The Gods of New York. They discuss the unraveling of Mayor Ed Koch’s New York City; how the city’s current mayoral race is mirroring the past; and more.
Email your chatters, questions, and comments to gabfest@slate.com. (Messages may be referenced by name unless the writer stipulates otherwise.)
Podcast production by Kevin Bendis
Research by Emily Ditto
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to the Slate Political GabFest. |
| 0:06.2 | September 4th, 2025, the CDC, DOA edition. |
| 0:20.0 | I'm David Plotz of CityCast here in Washington, D.C., where we've had just a magnificent kind of stretch of weather. But maybe all of the Northeast has. We'll check with Emily Bazelon in New Haven. Yes, beautiful. |
| 0:35.0 | And I'm suspecting if that it's been that way in New Haven and that way in D.C., |
| 0:39.0 | it surely has been that way in New York City where John Dickerson is. |
| 0:42.3 | Hello, John. |
| 0:42.7 | We make our own weather. |
| 0:46.0 | Huh. |
| 0:47.8 | Okay. |
| 0:49.8 | Is that the kind of thing you say from the anchors chair? |
| 0:55.0 | Here on CBS. |
| 0:56.8 | I'm just going to just say random stuff from now on. |
| 1:00.6 | More so than usual. |
| 1:02.5 | This week on the Gab Fest, what does the spate of Trump legal defeats this week |
| 1:09.9 | mean? |
| 1:10.7 | Will the Supreme Court reverse them? |
| 1:12.4 | Are they important, either from a legal perspective, a policy perspective, or a political perspective? |
| 1:19.3 | Then the gutting of the CDC, the wholesale abandonment of vaccines and other public health measures, |
| 1:26.1 | why bother monitoring food board illness anyway? |
| 1:28.6 | We're going to talk to public health expert Josh Sharfstein about the triumph of the quacks. |
| 1:33.7 | Then Congress is back and the major question facing Democrats is, should they compel a government |
| 1:40.1 | shutdown or avoid it? |
... |
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