No newsletter Monday—enjoy the holiday. Happy Friday.
The Dog that Caught the Car
by Andrew Egger
The CDC may be in total meltdown, but Team MAHA isn’t worried. If top officials are being fired or resigning en masse rather than agreeing to implement Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine policies, that’s just proof they’ve been secret Deep Staters all along. They’re probably the ones who have been screwing everything up in the first place!
“Distrust in the CDC is not because of Secretary Kennedy or President Trump,” MAHA influencer and Kennedy adviser Calley Means wrote yesterday. Instead, he argued, Americans had lost faith in the CDC for a laundry list of other reasons. Its COVID guidance had permitted schools to be closed. It had “spent $900 million on an ad campaign saying the COVID vaccine prevented transmission” and downplayed the myocarditis risk. It “still lists forcing kids to drink fluoride and families having less children as the most important public achievements in modern history.”1
“It is positive that Americans have a very stark choice,” Means went on. “Do you support the status quo when it comes to our healthcare outcomes, or reform?”
This line of thinking is standard issue among the “heterodox” anti-institutionalists who are the brain trust for Republicanism today. Look at any institution, find five or six critiques of it—big or small, fair or not—and declare that the place is rotten beyond repair. If you don’t want to tear it down and start from scratch, you’re part of the problem. If you do want to tear it down and start from scratch, congratulations, you’re hired: That’s the only qualification you need.
When it comes to the critiques themselves—well, it’s hard to know where to start. Take that canard about the COVID vaccine ad campaign, which is a longtime hobby horse of Republican CDC critics. Last year, Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee released an after-action COVID report grumping about a host of Biden-era pandemic decisions—like the fact that, in early 2021, the CDC issued guidance suggesting that COVID vaccines were so good at preventing COVID transmission that the vaccinated could drop many social distancing measures. “The Biden administration would be forced to correct itself in July 2021,” the report leered, “and explain to the American people that vaccination did not always prevent infection, nor always stop transmission.”
Why was the Biden administration forced to update its guidance between spring and summer of 2021? Not because the science changed, but because the virus did. The COVID Delta variant that emerged that summer was neutralized less effectively by the COVID shots than earlier versions had been, removing much of their protection against infection—though fortunately keeping much of their protection against serious illness or death. Under Biden, public health officials updated their guidance over time to reflect this rapidly shifting reality. Such were the crimes of the pre-RFK CDC.
Meanwhile, what was Kennedy himself up to at this time? He was spreading a host of wild COVID conspiracy theories to anyone who would listen. The disease, he speculated, felt like a deliberate “plandemic,” while efforts to combat it were “a pharmaceutical-driven, biosecurity agenda that will enslave the entire human race and plunge us into a dystopian nightmare.” He wondered whether COVID might have been “ethnically targeted” so as to “attack Caucasians and black people” while going easy on “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
On the one side, you had a coalition of the nation’s top scientists trying their damnedest to develop good public-health guidance during the unprecedented challenge of a massive, novel pandemic. On the other, you had a #influencer crank spouting off any wild idea that happened to crackle across his worm-eaten brain. In any head-to-head comparison, you’d have to be a maniac to take the latter over the former.
But the trick of today’s populist ethos is never to make that head-to-head comparison. Instead, their arguments rely on an eye-watering double hermeneutic. JVL wrote about this months ago: In the populist mind, “if you’re an expert who gets one thing wrong, it damns you. If you’re a total lunatic crank who gets one thing right, it makes you bulletproof.” Everything is flattened down to Calley Means’s “stark choice”: Status quo, or reform?
The trouble, of course, is that Kennedy and MAHA are now the dog that caught the car. They’re in charge of forging their own status quo, and that has been—to put it mildly—rocky. Can you imagine if the Biden CDC had released a tentpole public-health report that turned out to rely on totally fictional, AI-hallucinated studies? What would be the response if Xavier Becerra spent parts of a press conference musing about how he looks at little kids in airports and sees in their faces that they have mitochondrial challenges?
Kennedy might have prospered had he simply been content to continue slapping a MAHA coat of paint on the good work of the government’s actual scientists. Instead, he seems determined to rip the engine out while the car is hurtling down the interstate. The damage will be far-reaching, and the repairs—if we ever get a chance to make them—will not be quick or cheap.
Before we head off on a long weekend, we’d be remiss not to mention that our 30-day free trial offer is expiring Monday. Upgrade today to get unfettered access to The Triad, The Secret Podcast, Just Between Us—plus ad-free editions of all our shows and videos under Bulwark+ Takes. Bulwark+ memberships help to sustain the work we do here.
Join us!
Bobby, You’re Fired
by William Kristol
I hate to say it because I love the last name—I mean, who doesn’t!—but Kennedy’s gotta go.
What’s with that guy? He’s nuts. And he’s giving me the creeps. I mean, the voice? The jeans? The obsession with “mitochondrial challenges,” whatever the hell that is?!?
I put up with it for a while. But then Ivanka called last night. She began, like always, by buttering me up, telling me how much she and Jared watched that whole cabinet meeting this week, with all that “well-deserved praise” for me. Horseshit, of course. I’m sure she didn’t watch a minute.
But then she got to the real reason. She eased into it by telling me the grandchildren are doing fine. She “casually” told me they’d just gotten their vaccines again for this school year. Then she came to the point: “Why the hell is Bobby against them? And isn’t it time to get rid of him?”
Honestly, it’s a good question. I said at that cabinet meeting—which I enjoyed!—that Operation Warp Speed was one of the greatest achievements ever. I figured Bobby might get the message to ease up. Instead he decided to melt down his whole goddamn agency! It’s dominating the headlines!!! Instead of the news being that I’m getting crime down and that the markets are up and I’m firing DEI appointees who engaged in mortgage fraud, now everyone is wondering if vaccines are gonna be available as COVID picks up and flu season hits. Not good.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t have a problem with Bobby firing “civil servants” and “experts.” In fact, what Pam and Kash and Pete and Tulsi are doing is great. I’m not repeating the mistakes of the first term. This time we’re cleaning house. We need to intimidate. I want full control. I want more power before 2028.
But this stuff at CDC and HHS isn’t getting me any more power, or glory, or money. And everything that’s happening is in the service of Bobby. Not me.
It’s getting like it was with Elon. He became the story, and it turned into not a good one. And I don’t like not-good stories. I don’t like stories where I’m not the central character. I’m the star. Everyone else is an apprentice. Pam and Pete and Kash and Lil’ Marco all understand that. Bobby doesn’t. We made a deal back in the campaign, and I gotta say he was a good ally then. But now I need loyalists, not allies.
I know that Bobby’s got his own base, with all those MAHA weirdos—those gluten-free, beef-tallow-drinking freaks. So it’s a little tricky to dump him.
But you know what? It was tricky to dump Elon. The pundits all said, ‘Oh, that’ll be very difficult. Elon’s so powerful. Elon’s so rich. Elon’s got Twitter.’ Even Susie and the staff said, ‘Well, sir, we need to be careful. Let’s try to give him a graceful exit.’
Bullshit. Humiliation works. Intimidation works. So I dumped him. And he’s slinked away. How’s that new political party going?
Well, now it may be time to dump Bobby.
You know, I almost made him my VP. I liked the idea of a “Trump-Kennedy” ticket. Camelot meets Mar-a-Lago. The two most famous names in America—with, of course, me on top.
But thank God I got talked out of that. You can’t fire the VP. Vance is fine. He doesn’t get in the way too much. No one even pretends it’s a Trump-Vance administration. His photo’s nowhere. His name’s nowhere. That big banner at the Labor Department—it’s me. No Vance. So that’s all good.
Anyway, Karoline told me last week that Vance’s wife (what’s her name?—I can’t remember it but it doesn’t sound American—don’t tell Stephen Miller, LOL) came up to her at some White House event and said that she was getting her kids’ annual vaccinations. God, they all try to influence me in all these clever ways. But it is probably what lots of Americans are thinking. I asked Karoline, and she told me her kid’s vaccinated, too.
So how do we handle this—this . . . Bobby situation?
Next week the idiots in Congress are back. There’ll be a lot of other news. It’ll be a good time to drop the hammer.
Yeah. That should work. Over the next few days we start to leak that I’m concerned about the chaos, and that Bobby has been freelancing. And we gotta generate some good press about Peter Thiel’s guy who’s the new head of the CDC. They say he’s anti-vaxx enough to keep most of MAHA happy. But he’s sort of normal, so the establishment types will heave a sigh of relief. So we get some people to say that maybe he should take over on a full basis. Kind of prepare the ground. We float that maybe it’s time for a fresh start at HHS too.
But I don’t know. What was it that Roy Cohn used to say? He had some quote he liked from Shakespeare (can you believe it? Roy was something). It was basically that if you’re gonna do something, do it quickly?
So maybe I shouldn’t wait until next week? Should I make the move over the weekend? A Truth Social post late Sunday night? A little drama on Labor Day!
Why not? I’ll call Susie in the morning to get it going. No, screw it. I know it’s 2:00 a.m., but I’m calling her now. No time like the present! Didn’t Shakespeare say that?
And here’s what I’m going to say: Bobby, you’re fired!
AROUND THE BULWARK
MAGA’s Newest Meltdown… Move over, Epstein files—the president’s call for 600,000 Chinese student visas has his base irked, reports WILL SOMMER in the latest False Flag.
Return of the Schlapp… In Press Pass, JOE PERTICONE reports on accused predator Matt Schlapp and how he’s cashing in under Trump. Plus: What does a non-corrupt financial disclosure look like?
Grand Juries Are Resisting Trump’s Show Trials… On the latest George Conway Explains It All, SARAH LONGWELL is joined by ANDREW WEISSMANN (filling in for George) to break down Trump’s latest power grabs—from sending the National Guard into blue cities, to attempting to fire a Federal Reserve governor, to RFK Jr.’s anti-vax chaos at the CDC.
A Teenage Baudelaire in Chicago… Michael Clune’s debut novel dances on a knife’s edge between the heavenly and the hellish, writes NICK RIPATRAZONE.
Quick Hits
COOK’S TURN TO DISH: Lisa Cook is fighting back. The Federal Reserve governor, whom Trump moved to fire this week as part of his campaign to exert more direct control over the central bank, filed a lawsuit yesterday seeking to block her dismissal.
In Trump’s letter announcing his decision to fire Cook, he attributed the decision to his belief that she “may have made false statements on one or more mortgage agreements”—a charge he has levied against multiple political opponents this year, including Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) In her suit, Cook’s attorneys argue that these allegations—even if true—would not meet the standard of “inefficiency, neglect of duty, or malfeasance in office” that must be met to fire a governor “for cause” under the Federal Reserve Act.
Rather, the suit argues, that thin-gruel “cause” was an obvious pretext for Trump’s real motivation: to “vacate a seat for President Trump to fill and forward his agenda to undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve.”
MYTHOLOGIZING THE LIE: Earlier this year, the Trump administration paid $5 million to settle a wrongful death suit brought by the family of Ashli Babbitt, the rioter shot by Capitol Police as she tried to lead a mob through a police-guarded door near the House floor on January 6th. But that’s not all: The Air Force announced yesterday that Babbitt, a veteran, is getting a military funeral. Politico reports:
“After reviewing the circumstances of SrA Babbitt’s death, the Air Force has offered Military Funeral Honors to SrA Babbitt’s family,” a spokesperson for the Department of the Air Force said in a statement Thursday.
The Biden administration previously denied the honors for Babbitt, who was shot by a U.S. Capitol Police officer while attempting to enter the Speaker’s Lobby, a restricted area adjacent to the House chamber, while lawmakers were evacuating the Capitol. A Capitol Police investigation cleared the officer of any wrongdoing, saying his conduct was “lawful.”
In the funhouse-mirror world of MAGA mythology, Babbitt isn’t a lawbreaker who got herself killed trying to sic a violent mob on lawmakers—she’s a martyr for the lost cause of the stolen 2020 election. So why wouldn’t Trump’s armed forces break out the pomp and circumstance on her behalf?
Cheap Shots
Ashli Babbitt made her own bed, and now she lies six feet under it. She may have served honorably when she wore an Air Force uniform, but her life as a civillian ended dishonorably as she engaged in an ignoble act.
Mythologize her 'till the cows come home; that will not change that fact. And the money her family was awarded for a *wrongful* death settlement is a disgrace, and the military funeral honors an absolute slap in the face to the families of any and all veterans who died actually *defending* this country, not attacking it.
And I don't give a damn what she may have *thought* she was doing, because what she was doing was the absolute antithesis of what she'd sworn an oath to do when she joined the Air Force of her own free will. She was in that Capitol corridor as a part of a violent mob of her own free will as well.
She f**cked around and her family found out what the pain of losing a loved one to a violent - and needless and fully, completely preventable - death is like. And that's a terrible shame. That it was a dishonorable death as well is also a shame, but none the less true and will remain so no matter the efforts of any Trumpist military brass to change the nature of it for the sake of whitewashing dishonor borne of a veteran's misplaced belief in the lies of a scoundrel to whom the brass now answer once again.
The CDC is showing us how to resist. Make them fire you. Walk out en masse and talk about why. Even the NYT can’t pretend this is normal. Some Americans will understand what danger we are in now. Others will find it harder to believe the lies about who was at fault when it all comes crashing down on us.