Former Health Secretary Becerra on RFK Hearing and CA Gov Race

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0:30Ben Meiselas:So you have Republican senators who were even grilling RFK Jr. during that disastrous hearing that took place this week, who are physicians who were grilling him, saying, you're killing the American people with your anti-vax policies. Our constituents are dying. But then when the hearing was over, or even right before the hearing, when they were asked by the press. So do you have no confidence in this guy? They would run away from the press and say, look, whatever Donald Trump wants, we got to give Donald Trump whatever he wants. So, you know, even though you saw what went down in there, if you don't believe me, here's Senator Barrasso from Wyoming.

1:07Ben Meiselas:He's a physician, Republican senator, like the number two in the Senate. Again, a physician. Here he is running away from the press and you'll hear him say, we just have to give whatever Donald Trump wants. He literally says that. Here, play this clip. Do you still have confidence in him senator his ability to lead hhs do you have confidence in him senator is there a reason you're not answering what the president of the united states is doing and i will not second your job is literally to second guess it like oversight is mean second guess your job is to say wait a minute maybe we're a co-equal branch and what you're doing is killing people.

1:51Ben Meiselas:This was that guy's questioning right before that. This is Barrasso questioning RFK Jr. Here, watch this. I support vaccines. I'm a doctor. Vaccines work. Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I've grown deeply concerned. The public has seen measles outbreaks, leadership of the National Institute of Health questioning the use of mRNA vaccines, The recently confirmed director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fired. Americans don't know who to rely on. You know, recent polls said 89 % of voters, 81 % of Trump voters agree vaccine recommendations should come from trained physicians, scientists, public health experts.

2:34So, you know, they believe, you know, Senator Marshall, Senator Cassidy, they believe me when it comes to vaccines.

2:41Ben Meiselas:If we're going to make America healthy again, we can't allow public health to be undermined. Well, so you're going to kill me, but I'm angry at it, but go and do it. Am I in the Looney Tunes here? What am I missing? And then Senator Cassidy from Louisiana, also a physician. Here he is running away from the questioning. Here, play this clip. Do you regret your vote? You can refer to our tweet on that question. I know you have some different questions. You're trying to get something similar. And this is not going to come around. Thank you. How about whether you still stand by that vote? Is he like covering his face?

3:25Ben Meiselas:How are these people real? What am I watching is actual United States senators. Here's what Cassidy was saying during his questioning of Health Secretary RFK Jr. Here, play this clip. The first one, I would say effectively, we're denying people vaccines. Here, play this clip. Secondly, an email from a physician friend of mine. Hey, Bill, I'm not even sure what I'm asking, but we're all confused and concerned about who can get the COVID vaccine. We are having our attorney try and render an opinion, but there's no firm guidance and concern about liability. If vaccines are given to a patient, request it, but not on the current CDC list.

4:04Pharmacists are requiring a prescription now even for patients over 65, creating a huge headache. I submit these for the record. Without objection. I would say effectively we're denying people vaccine. Senator Catwell, I get wrong.

4:17Ben Meiselas:All right, now let's bring in the former Secretary for Health and Human Services, Javier Becerra, under the Biden administration. Secretary Becerra is also running for governor of the state of California, which we'll talk about as well. But I got to start by asking you about that RFK Jr. hearing, and we'll get into more of what he's doing at the agency, the sprawling agency you led, which controls CDC, Medicare and Medicaid service, all of that. But let's just start off with the hearing. Did you watch it? What was your reaction to it? What happened? I caught parts of it then. I wasn't able to watch all of it, but I did catch parts.

4:57I obviously was informed of other things. it's kind of hard to watch because here you're seeing the dismantling of an agency, CDC, that is our canary in the coal mine to let Americans know when we got to be ready for something that's getting ready to broadside us. And here this dismantling is occurring before the senator's eyes and they're just letting it go. It doesn't make any sense.

5:24Ben Meiselas:You think about the hearings that you attended and the treatment that you would get by Republican senators. And now you see RFK Jr. quite literally saying things that's pro-death and pro-killing people. It must make you want to just say, what world am I even watching right now? Yeah, the people should be fired are the ones who are running the ship. And the folks who should be staying are the ones who are being dismissed. It's Alice in Wonderland on steroids. And it's unfortunate because in Alice in Wonderland, it's a cartoon. Here it's real. So people will die. Let's talk about some of the moves that we've been seeing, because, you know, these senior leaders at the CDC who have either been fired or forced out.

6:24Ben Meiselas:You know the senior leadership at all of the other divisions within Health and Human Services. How dangerous is it that these people are being pushed out and that we're losing this type of talent? So to put it in perspective, on a daily basis, certainly as things got better, less maybe on a weekly basis, I was briefed by what we called our white coats, our head of CDC, our head of the FDA. We had our infectious diseases experts, including Dr. Fauci from the NIH, and a whole slew of healthcare experts who would constantly, first it was daily, as things got better or less. So brief us. And the very first thing we would always start with is a briefing by the CDC director on what the data we're showing.

7:20How many deaths? Where are the hospitalizations? Where is the infection going? What's the latest variant of COVID that's beginning to hit? Where? It was detailed. And today, to believe that we don't have a CDC DC director in place and that we've lost a couple and that we've lost the team that was actually helping pull together all that important data, it can get very scary. When the seas are calm, you can have pretty much anybody steer the ship. But when you're in crisis, you need the best. And we've just seen the best either dismissed or resigned because they can no longer work under this leadership.

8:02And politicians don't make good scientists.

8:04Ben Meiselas:How big of a deal is the kind of gutting of this vaccine advisory board and also the guidelines that are being handed down regarding vaccinations for children, vaccinations with respect to COVID, really limiting people's access, making us, I think, more unhealthy. But from your former inside perspective, what should we know about that? The advisory committee is indispensable because you can have a wonderful, a talented director at CDC or a great commissioner at FDA, but you need to have these committees that are composed of experts from around the country who may not always agree. And you want to hear that symphony of voices because you're about to make a decision about whether this particular vaccine should be provided to kids under the age of six years old.

9:02And you want to make sure you've heard from all the best minds because you want to be able to take into account the detractors as well. Well, when you gut the ACIP, the committee, the advisory committee, and then you load it up with people who are from one particular political trajectory, you know you're not going to get good results. And now you leave the CDC, its director and its team rudderless because now they're making decisions. They may be able to make good decisions, but they're not getting that stereo effect of hearing all the voices so they've taken everything into account. It's dangerous.

9:37And that's why this committee is so important. And that's why politicizing the committee is so crucially dangerous for the rest of us in America who rely on good judgment on what to do to protect us from these public calamities that could occur with diseases and so forth.

9:54Ben Meiselas:I mean, to think about polio and measles. I mean, I'm a father of a one year, she's about to turn one years old and, you know, want to make sure she's protected, of course. But, you know, these diseases from the past that were virtually eradicated and now we're hearing stories about the measles outbreaks, polio, mumps, rubella, bubonic plague. I mean, the work that everyone had to do, you know, to get rid of Mpox. And then I saw the way it was even being treated during the hearing by Republicans, or I see it on Fox, which I call regime media, where they downplay the threat and almost spread these like conspiracies that we saw in, you know, in the 80s when it came to, you know, HIV and AIDS.

10:46Ben Meiselas:And it's only a gay person thing. It's not. And I'm seeing them doing it. I'm like, what are we talking about here? Ben, you just said you've got a one year old. How do you make the decision about whether or not you should vaccinate your one year old for COVID? If now you can't trust the committee that is supposed to advise our experts at CDC, and now you don't have a CDC permanent director who can prove that he or she is not biased by politics, how do you now make a judgment? You can go to your pediatrician, but your pediatrician was relying on the recommendations made by the CDC and its advisory committee, which now is not an available course of action.

11:31It can be dangerous because these drugs are, you know, they can save lives. But if it's not done the right way, they can also hurt you. So that's why you have to make sure this is done right. Again, when things are calm, remember, when we took over in the Biden administration, when Donald Trump handed over the keys to Joe Biden on inauguration day, January 2021, the equivalent of four jumbo jets crashed and burned with everybody on board, Americans dying to the tune of more than 4 ,000. About 4 ,100 Americans died on Inauguration Day 2021. That's what Donald Trump handed over to Joe Biden during the COVID pandemic.

12:14People were dying. We had to get us out of that. And fortunately, we did. And mostly because of the vaccines. Now, we're pretty safe. But, you know, we could go back to those days where four jumbo jets of Americans are perishing every day. Or 10 of them. Whatever the number is. All I'm saying is we can't afford to have incompetence governing at HHS or at CDC.

12:38Ben Meiselas:Let me get to California, the governor's race right here. I think one of the things you showed as the secretary for health and human services is you inherited a mess from the Trump regime, as you just described, and provided stable, competent leadership during very difficult times. And as you bring that to California, California is under attack right now, more than any state by the Trump regime in every way, from National Guard to defunding universities, to Medicaid and Medicare being under attack, to Social Security offices being destroyed, to ICE disappearing human beings off the street. It's obviously there's a lot of people running for governor right now in the Democratic primary.

13:27Ben Meiselas:What kind of separates you from others and what's your overall kind of platform there as you look to the threats facing California, what California needs right now? Ben, there's a lot of bark out there right now, whether it's against Trump or against this crisis of affordability that we're facing. You need a dog who knows how to bite. And that's where I think I can excel. If some can do it, Becerra can do it better because I've done it. And that's what I hope to prove to the voters in California, that if you want someone who can get us out of a crisis, no bigger crisis than COVID that we faced recently.

14:07If you want someone who knows how to battle Donald Trump, when I was attorney general, when Donald Trump was president the first time, I kept him at bay. I stopped him from violating the law. I kept him from harming California. I had to sue Donald Trump over 120 times to do that. But we showed him we could bite. And right now, I think the public in California recognizes we need someone who can't be a novice behind the steering wheel. And I think at this stage, right now, California can lead the way out of this manmade disaster that we see occurring in Washington, D.C. And we will because we have no choice.

14:43We've become the fourth largest economy in the world. But too many of our families don't feel that prosperity. So we've got to walk and chew gum. We've got to beat up on the Trump regime at the same time that we're making California more affordable.

14:57Ben Meiselas:As you're traveling the state as part of your campaign, are there certain things you're hearing more frequently than than others from people in terms of what they're afraid about? You know, even when I was when I used to be a litigator, you know, I did lots of cases in Kern County and Fresno and Central and Northern California. I mean, Trump is screwing over those farmers. I mean, those farmers are being hurt, whether it's the cost of fertilizer, Trump stealing two billion gallons from their reservoirs to pretend that he was putting out wildfires in Southern California by pretending he turned on a faucet, but literally taking the water that needed water away from them.

15:43Ben Meiselas:to the loss of business that these farmers face because of the trade war against the world and people are just buying produce elsewhere and not from the United States anymore. So to me, even in the red pockets of California, which is, you know, which is certainly smaller than the overall blue areas of California, it does seem that whether you're red or blue or independent, that Trump's attacking you if you're living in California, frankly, the rest of the country. Yeah. And, you know, Bill, what's interesting is a lot of those folks who voted for Trump, even in California, were saying, we want to shake things up.

16:20They just didn't think that they'd be the people being shaken. And now it's beginning to hit home. Those farmers who are saying, wait a minute, we need to have somebody who's harvesting those crops. The people in our construction industry are saying, wait a minute, someone has to help us continue to build. And now all of a sudden we're losing this workforce or they're too afraid to come out. We see what's going on with health care where California was approaching universal health care coverage where everyone in California could say they have access to the doctor or hospital they need. All of a sudden, Donald Trump yanks a trillion dollars out of the Medicaid program, what we call Medi-Cal.

16:57And lo and behold, we're going to have a whole bunch of families who are suffering. What most Californians are saying, what I'm hearing is, just give me some stability. I got to go to work in the morning. I got to come back and take care of my kids. I don't have time to have to live on these choppy seas. I know I talked about how calm seas, you could pretty much have anybody steer the ship. But when the seas are really rocky, choppy, you need somebody who knows how to get there. I think most Californians, like most Americans, are simply saying, just calm the waters so I can make a living. I can get my kids to college or get them into an apprenticeship program.

17:32Help me make sure I can keep my health insurance. They're not asking for a whole lot. And they thought maybe some of those voters thought maybe Donald Trump could do it. But, you know, the cost of living continues to go up. Energy prices are doubling. Housing prices haven't gone down. The interest rates haven't gone down. Eggs are still too high in price. I think they're, you know, they're feeling like they got ripped off.

17:54Ben Meiselas:Secretary Becerra, where can people find out more about your campaign? So Javier Becerra 2026, you can reach me there or you can just try to reach me whenever you see me coming out on the street. I'm more than more than willing to talk. And Ben, I hope what you all do is take interest in this race, because as goes California, so goes the nation. absolutely maybe maybe we host the first digital debate i will think we'll we'll we'll we'll we'll figure it out what we could be doing there but um it's definitely a keen interest to us we appreciate you coming on javier becerra former health and human services secretary former attorney general of california i could list the rest of his resume but it would probably take another 30 minutes in this video.

18:42Ben Meiselas:Thank you so much. We appreciate you. Keep doing it, Ben. Everybody hit subscribe. Let's get to 6 million subscribers. Thanks for watching. Be sure to add the Midas Touch podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts for new updates every single day.

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