Why are health officials worried about RFK’s ‘MAHA’ moment?

KCRW's Left, Right & Center

KCRW

352865, News

4.2 • 4.8K Ratings

🗓️ 20 December 2024

⏱️ 51 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has spent this week on Capitol Hill in hopes of securing the necessary Senate votes to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. As Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” platforms gain popularity, senators and health experts raise concerns over Kennedy’s stances against vaccines and certain public health policies.

As President-elect Donald Trump continues to flesh out his second term vision, immigration reform remains one of the biggest policies on his agenda. Trump won historically Democratic districts along the border and made large strides with Latino voters in the last election. Recently on Meet the Press, Trump expressed an openness to working across the aisle on deportations and family separations. It’s a more common sense approach compared to his rhetoric on the campaign trail. It’s also much more in line with how voters feel about immigration. In an article for The Atlantic, journalist Rogé Karma attributed the Democrats’ loss to their miscalculations about the Latino vote. Will Trump turn the electorate’s support for immigration reform into actionable policy?

While Democrats continue to analyze their election missteps with immigration, the Left, Right, and Center panel looks at how progressive activism might have contributed to their loss. In his essay “How Gay Marriage Ruined Democratic Activism,” writer Jeremiah Johnson posits that Democrats learned all the wrong lessons from progressives. How true is that? Did moral absolutism cost Democrats the White House?

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey, everybody. Welcome to another left, right, and center. I am David Green in Washington, D.C. this week with Moa Lathie, with Sarah Isker, in studio together. It's nice to see you both.
0:13.7	Hello, Washington. I mean, the construction on the inaugural parade stuff in front of the White House. It's, I mean, it starts so early.
0:21.9	It's like our perennial Christmas decorations every four years.
0:26.2	Well, it's nice to be in person. I feel like we're still recovering from COVID when Zoom became an addiction. So it's nice to always be in person. And actually, speaking of COVID, that's actually a nice segue
0:39.6	into the first thing I wanted to talk about, the first person I wanted to talk about, Robert F. Kennedy,
0:45.5	Jr., who's been obviously making a lot of news, not just for his own run for president, not just
0:51.7	for then endorsing Donald Trump, but he's now
0:54.4	Trump's picked to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, and he's facing a lot of scrutiny
0:59.4	as he has been having meetings with senators.
1:04.5	And I think the way I want to frame this, like I think we, I hope we serve our listeners when we make them feel a little less disoriented, when they're just being hit by news headlines about a position or a person.
1:20.6	Sarah, you often bring this up. Like it's more about actions than about like words and headlines and predictions.
1:27.3	So let's feel a little a little less disoriented.
1:30.5	What, who is RFK? What is he bringing and what may or may not happen? I think the thing that
1:36.4	I find so interesting with him is how some public health experts are reacting to who he is and what he might bring to HHS,
1:46.8	because, you know, he talks about attacking the root causes of diseases. He talks about the
1:53.1	dangers of processed foods and the dangers of obesity and the dangers of diabetes. It's things
1:58.7	that a lot of public health experts really like and would love to have someone who brings bold ideas. And also they're terrified of when he has
2:07.3	so doubts about vaccines, when he's talked about taking fluoride out of the water and communities
2:12.8	across the United States. He's just really hard to figure out. And I think, you know, the Senate is going to be asking
2:19.4	some, some tough questions. But what do you all make of not just him, but the nomination and
2:24.5	what he represents sort of in the Trump universe? I think this is the paradox of a lot of
2:31.4	the incoming Trump administration that we know so far.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from KCRW, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of KCRW and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.