Dave Smith and Robbie the Fire Bernstein dissect the 2022 baby formula crisis, blaming FDA shutdowns of Abbott Laboratories and $80 billion in Ukraine aid over domestic relief. They expose alleged NIH conflicts of interest, citing $158 million in undisclosed scientist royalties and Fauci's refusal to serve Trump as proof of establishment bias. Ultimately, the episode argues that regulatory capture and financial incentives drive both food shortages and medical policy failures, demanding systemic accountability over political scapegoating. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Government Overreach and Lockdowns00:02:18
Fill her up.
You're listening to the Gash Digital Network.
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You're listening to part of the problem on the Gash Digital Network.
Here's your host, Dave Smith.
What's up, everybody?
Welcome to a brand new episode of Part of the Problem.
I am Dave Smith, the most consistent motherfucker you know.
He is Robbie the Fire Bernstein, the king of the caulks.
It's a brand new week.
It's a brand new episode.
We're ready to go.
COVID, Jesus.
How you feeling?
I'm feeling great.
And right up front, buy some tickets for my California show.
It's going to be a doozy.
Where are you in California?
So I'm going to be at Brian McWilliams' house.
Oh, yeah.
I got my run-your-mouth non-scientist expert coming out, giving us the latest on COVID.
I'm going to be doing 45 minutes of stand-up.
Brian's going to be doing some stand-up.
It's going to be a fucking party.
I love Brian McWilliams, by the way.
Great dude.
Always a fun guy to hang out with.
Great guy.
So yeah, enjoy.
Go out to that show if you're in the area.
That'll be fun.
Where in California are you?
Hawthorne, which I guess is right by LAX.
I don't know.
I don't know California that well.
Lax, Lax, LAX.
Yes, that's the airport in Los Angeles there.
Okay.
I just like remember things like as close to locks as I can, you know?
That is the dewiest explanation for how it's close to locks.
A little lax on the bagel.
All right.
Very good.
Well, and we, of course, are coming up soon on Reno.
We're going to be out there.
I think there might be a couple tickets left for our late show in Reno.
And then we're in Chicago after that.
Again, I think they might be sold out by now.
Five tickets left in Porkfest also sold out.
So you're going to have to join the Free State Project to get in.
There you go.
Five tickets left in Chicago.
Five tickets.
All right.
These are going to be gone in the next couple of days.
But if you want to come see me and Robbie the Fire in Chicago, that one is in June 18th.
So come on out.
We got a lot of stuff coming up.
President Warns of Food Shortages00:03:45
There'll be a lot more stuff after that.
So don't worry.
But yeah, come check us out there.
All right.
So there's a few things we wanted to talk about on today's episode.
The thing I wanted to open with, because we haven't discussed this yet, and it is a pretty big deal, is that there is a baby formula shortage in the United States of America in 2022, which is really wild.
And, you know, over the last two years, there's been a lot of indications that things are changing.
This is not exactly the country that it used to be.
And we're not living in the world that we once were way back when in 2019.
And to me, that really is, this is maybe the best example yet that there is a baby formula shortage in not just a first world country, but in the United States of America today.
This is bonkers.
And it's really something that I think is, look, this could have really profound effects on the political dynamic going forward.
And of course, much more importantly than that, like, holy shit.
This is one of the things, you know, let me start here.
I don't know if you even remember this, Rob, but several weeks back, not that long ago, two months ago or something, we did a show where we really focused on something that Joe Biden said when he first imposed sanctions on Russia when they had just invaded Ukraine.
And what Joe Biden said was that this was going to lead to food shortages.
And I remember at the time saying, do you remember this when we were talking about this clip?
So I remember at the time saying that, you know, in general, in, I don't know, the last decade or something like that, it seems like there's always this kind of like huge scandal of the day or huge, you know, and we have this like very short attention span.
But then every now and then something happens where you're like, that seems like a really big deal.
And that was kind of my comment on that, you know, press conference that Joe Biden had.
Something about the president of the United States of America saying that we expect food shortages.
You're like, that's really big.
That's like, you know, that's not something that I ever would have expected to hear in my life, the president of the United States to say.
Now, I do not at all think that these shortages have anything to do with the war in Ukraine.
I'm just making the point that the president of the United States of America said just a couple of months ago that we might expect food shortages.
Now, when you think about food shortages, which is something that I think shortages in general, I think are something that the American people have been wrapping their minds around for the last couple of years.
You know, what do we have?
Toilet paper shortages when COVID first came, which was probably more indicative of how stupid a country we are than anything else.
But, you know, toilet paper, like even if you lose toilet paper, you kind of feel like you'll live.
I mean, whatever.
Toilet Paper vs Baby Formula00:11:49
It might get ugly.
You know, you might be using a rag or something and, you know, have to do some really unpleasant laundry.
But there's only, and even when you talk about food shortages, what are you thinking in your mind if you're thinking like maybe there's no poultry or maybe there's no red meat or maybe there's no such, you know, there's a lot of things you could lose that you, yeah, that would really suck, but you could deal with it.
But there's something, baby formula.
That is a really that of all the products at your grocery store to not be able to purchase, man, there's really nothing that's quite like that one.
That's quite as important.
Water, I guess, would be the only thing I could compare to that.
Like if your water isn't clean and you couldn't buy bottled water, maybe that's an example.
But unless you couldn't get any food at your grocery store, which at least so far seems kind of still in the realm of unfathomable, like, you know, like this would have seemed baby formula, man, that's a really big one.
Because babies who are on formula, for the most part, there's really no other option at that point once you're on formula.
You know, like, okay, maybe there are some mothers who choose to put their babies on formula when they could have breastfed.
But as someone who's got a couple kids, there's not too long between when you make that choice and when there's no other option.
Like, women's milk supplies dry up and then you have no other option.
You, that's all a baby can have for months.
And even once they're like six months old, you can start them on kind of like mushed solid foods, but they still need formula to survive.
And so you're talking about what babies need to survive.
There's really, there's really no other product that you could compare in the level of importance.
And there is a massive shortage on that right now.
This is, I don't know, I can't really overstate it.
This is a very big deal.
And from what it seems that's going on right now, this is we're kind of just starting to feel that this is a reality.
And if this doesn't get cleared up right away, holy shit, I don't know what's going to happen.
This is going to be very, very bad.
Have you been paying attention to this at all, Rob?
Uh, minimally.
However, there was a very good Wall Street Journal opinion piece I recommend everyone check out.
And it's, I mean, this is such a libertarian story.
The reason why there is a shortage of baby formula is because they limited competition down to three brands.
One of the brands had a problem, which it turns out might not have even been a problem.
So it might like first you got the problem.
If we just had a free and open market and you had more than three bands that could sell you baby formula, you probably wouldn't be in a problem where there are shortages.
On top of that, they had to shut down a plant.
And I guess it's unclear to what extent maybe that was overreacting or not.
I can't quite comment on that, but I can tell you that if there was an open market for baby formula, we're not having this problem.
And then apparently, there's another element where like you kind of have to bribe your states, I guess, to have those placements, like those three brands.
So even the prices that you're seeing on baby formula are heavily influenced by kind of like these state licensing or other laws.
That so this is this is the showcasing government stepping into a market and causing a problem that otherwise wouldn't exist.
Yes.
So that, yeah, that basically that's all completely right.
So there's this one company, Abbott was the name of their company, who got shut down.
Their major factory got closed and all of their products got recalled.
Now, evidently, two babies died from this, which, you know, I mean, is about as tragic as can be.
And I don't know to your point, I don't know if this was like, if it's very clear that this actually was, you know, what exactly caused this or whether this was justified to shut it down.
But you're absolutely right that just like every other inch of our economy, it's a complete cartilized monopoly, you know?
And so this one company produced 40% of the baby formula in the country.
And it's like baby formula is a heavily regulated market.
And there are all these formulas that, oh, God, it's so horrible that they give kids that have like the worst ingredients in them.
I mean, there's like baby formula with high fructose corn syrup in it.
Like it's insane.
Don't kids not really puke from like breast milk.
Isn't that like just a formula thing?
Yes, that's right.
Yes.
I mean, talk about proof of the fact that you're like, you probably shouldn't be putting that into your kid is literally the stomach test of them vomiting it onto your back.
Yes, that's that's a pretty good test.
But there are a few formulas that are that don't lead to as much of babies spitting up and don't have as much crap in them.
The problem is that there's only a few.
And then there's a bunch of them that are made in other countries that you simply can't get here.
Or it's like very difficult to get here and quasi-illegal to get here because they haven't been approved by the FDA or whatever.
You know, it's like insane.
And there's also, just in addition to what you were saying, there's like tariffs on baby formula.
I think something like a 15% tariff on baby formulas that are made in other countries.
So it's the whole thing is insane.
But just to be clear, look, because I've seen some people on social media who are like, well, this is why you need to breastfeed your kids.
And no question, there's some truth to that.
And if you can, you really should breastfeed your kids.
But there's also situations where babies can't be breastfed.
There's women who can't breastfeed their babies for no fault of their own whatsoever.
That just different situations.
Some women just don't.
Yes, exactly.
But they have broken titles.
Oh, some women don't develop enough of a milk supply.
There's situations where babies have like things.
Yeah.
Well, not fangs, but they can have like, fuck, I'm blanking on the term, but they can have like an arched kind of like mouth, like where they can't breastfeed.
And there's, I'm just saying, there's a lot of situations where through no fault of anybody, you just can't breastfeed that baby.
And they need formula.
And regardless of that, other people who just could breastfeed, breastfeeding is really, really hard.
As someone who's watched my wife go through it, it's very hard.
Now, I think it's still the right thing to do and the best thing to do, but there are a lot of women today who just don't do it.
They just don't because it's very hard.
Now, feel however you feel about that.
Once you get to a point, you know, a month later, that's it.
There's no option to go back.
It's not like someone, it's not like if you have a three-month-old baby and you haven't been breastfeeding them or palming.
It's so weird to me that you can make a guy into a girl now, but you don't have hormones that can get women like their tits making milk again.
Yeah.
Turns out you can't actually scientifically do either.
So it's all just, you can pretend, but you can't actually do either.
So this is, you know, a situation where like babies won't eat if you don't have formula.
There's a large number of babies in the United States of America who will like starve to death if they don't have formula or God knows what people are going to try.
Now, so anyway, so there's this company, Abbott.
It, because of all of this crony, you know, insane system, produces 40% of the baby formula in the United States of America.
And the government shut it down.
Now, whether that was exactly warranted or not is kind of unclear to me.
But that move was made.
And this was a month and a half ago, two months ago, something like that.
I noticed that baby formula was that on the shelves of stores was getting scarce like two months ago.
And when I say I notice, I mean, my wife told me, okay, I don't go to the grocery store a lot.
But the point is that I was aware of this situation.
But you know, who was definitely aware of the situation was the government because they're the ones who shut it down.
And so this has been something that there was time to deal with this and nothing was done.
While we're talking about, you know, sending another $40 billion to Ukraine, well, all these other things that we're talking about doing, this was not a priority of the government.
And now we're in a situation where shelves in major cities in huge retail stores across the country are bare, do not have formula for babies.
And this is, I mean, really just like, first off, it's incredibly dangerous that, you know, like probably, you probably just need to do an emergency authorization and allow whatever Canada uses that's not currently legal here and just import it until you get the Abbott thing cleaned up.
You would think so.
I mean, there are shelves in Mexico and Canada that are full.
You would think you would do whatever you can, but it is really, I mean, okay, like number one, it's like, holy shit, like the situation is like terrifying of how awful it could be.
But number two, right after that, is you're like, my God.
So like this is somehow, this isn't as big of a priority as like COVID at its height or the war in Ukraine.
Like there's a war in the fuck in Eastern Europe.
So we have to care about that more.
But somehow this isn't as big of a deal that babies might starve to death.
Like that's not as big a problem.
This, like, we're not invoking the National Defense Authorization Act.
Like, really?
We're not just like invoking every like, wouldn't you think?
Now, by the way, I'm not even advocating that.
I'm just advocating.
I think the government could just get out of the way and solve this problem.
But wouldn't you think if we had this government that was at all like if their existence was justifiable in the slightest, that they wouldn't go right.
MarPipe Ad for Free Demo Credit00:03:22
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Like, what?
That's not the biggest priority?
Dude, there are like Facebook groups right now that are started up across the country trying to find wet nurses.
This is like bizarre.
It's like something out of a time and a country that you did not think was the time and country that you were living in.
And it's insane to see it happening.
And goddamn.
I don't know if you really can't like supplement like insure or like a protein powder.
No.
No, you can't do that.
No, no, no.
Can't just give your kid vodka.
You can, but your kid will die.
So it's not going to be, it's not going to be a successful supplementation.
But this is something that it's also like, you know, if you want to see people really freak out, I'll tell you, we're only a couple more weeks, a month at max of this level of shit going on where people might really, really freak out.
Really freak out.
If they don't have, you don't have food for your baby, like, holy shit.
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Increasing Supply Amidst Hoarding00:08:24
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All right, let's get back into the show.
This has become a big, a big topic.
And all of the sudden, you know, people are like, hey, hey, Joe Biden, what's going on here?
Now, of course, as I mentioned again, for people who were paying attention, this has been obvious for quite a while now.
For the government, they should have known when they shut down this company that produced 40% of the formula.
That's like, okay, this was, you should have definitely expected this was going to happen.
And all right, some of that blame is on Americans for being stupid and waiting to this point.
But all of a sudden, at this point, it's become a big issue.
So a couple days ago, Jen Sackey, the president's liar, was asked about this.
And here's her response.
I spoke with retailers and manufacturers, including the CEOs of Walmart, Target, Breckett, and Gerber, to call on them to do more to help families purchase infant formula.
He discussed Breckett and Gerber's efforts to increase production, which have made up for the loss of production by Abbott, and asked them to identify other ways the administration can help them on top of the actions being announced today.
The conversation with the CEOs of Walmart and Target focused on how they are working to stock shelves, including in rural areas, and any regional disparities they are seeing.
And the president asked what more his team can do to help move product and get more product to those communities.
So what we need to do, and what you've seen the president announce earlier today, and I just reiterated, is steps we can take from here to increase supply, make sure it's on the shelves.
That includes increasing imports.
It also includes ensuring we're working with retailers, as the president did during his calls, to make sure that shelves are stocked.
It also includes ensuring that lower income families can access different brands of baby formula by working through with the WIC for the exemptions for the WIC program.
So we recognize that this is certainly a challenge for people across the country, something the president is very frustrated.
Just pause it.
Pause it right here.
So, can you believe this, Rob?
Like, can you believe that just already that she's already just giving you empty political talk about this?
Just try to imagine, right?
She's giving you, you know, well, we've contacted these major corporations and asked them what we can do to increase, you know, production and blah, blah, blah, and all this.
And, you know, we're talking about babies not being able to eat.
Babies will starve to death.
You know, not even like babies dying, like babies dying a gruesome death.
And we have a government that spends, I don't know, but five, six trillion dollars a year.
And you can't just say, we will guarantee that formula will be here.
Like if we have to pay a billion dollars to fucking, you know, for every like 10 packets of formula that we ship over here, we will make sure there is no question your American people will have formula.
Now, I'm not an advocate of government.
Again, like I said, they should just fucking just abolish everything and this problem would be solved.
But the fact that they can't just do that.
Could you imagine anything more basic, anything more basic than this?
That they go, we will not allow this to happen after everything.
You know, they can fight a war on terrorism and a war on drugs and a war on COVID and a war on cancer and a war.
You know, they're talking about what temperature the earth will be in 100 years.
They're fucking finding, what was it?
If they get this 40 through, which they will, it'll be $80 billion for the year for Ukraine.
You're telling me you can't just find, if you could find $80 billion for a war in Eastern Europe, you can't find $500 billion to make sure babies don't die needlessly in this country.
Like it's just bananas that this is even a conversation.
That you can't, that they wouldn't even just go, we are turning every major factory that we have control over into producing baby formula.
And we're going to do what they could do that for ventilators, even though no one needed them, or basically no one needed them, but not for baby food.
I don't even know what to say.
All right, let's keep playing.
Across the country, something the president is very focused on, and we're going to do everything we can to cut red tape and take steps to increase supply on the marketplace.
I think it's also important to note that the reason we're here is because the FDA took a step to ensure that babies were taking safe formula.
There were babies who died from taking this formula.
So they were doing their jobs.
We have been working, this administration has been working for weeks now to address in anticipation of where we thought there could be shortages.
We have also seen an increase over the last four weeks of supply available, which hasn't been an increase over the four weeks prior to the recall.
That is a good sign.
But obviously, the steps the president took today are an acknowledgement and a recognition that more needs to be done, that we do not want parents, mothers, families out there to be stressed and worried about feeding their babies.
That is why the president today had conversations with the CEOs of Walmart and Target, why he had conversations with Reckitt and Gerber about efforts to increase production, why we're taking steps to ensure that we are making WIC dollars available to a range of other supplies.
So we're working.
We're seeing increases over the last couple of weeks.
More needs to be done.
We're going to cut every element of red tape we can cut.
We're going to work with manufacturers.
We're going to import more to expedite this as quickly as possible.
What we are seeing, which is an enormous problem, is hoarding.
People hoarding because they're fearful.
That is one element of it.
And people hoarding because they are trying to profit off of fearful parents.
So that is also something we're focused on taking efforts to track and adjust and address and look into.
But again, more infrastructure has been produced in the last four weeks than in the four weeks preceding the recall.
We're taking every step.
All right.
So let's just fucking, we could just end it right there.
So the she says the other problem we're seeing is hoarding.
So that's it.
It's your fault, parent, who's hoarding.
That's the issue that you're buying a whole bunch of formula to make sure your baby lives, to make sure your baby has food.
You're the bad guy, not the government.
They're cutting as much red tape as possible, Rob.
As much as is possible.
I mean, you can't expect us to cut all the red tape.
And of course, they did this because, so that's her assessment.
If you really just listen to all of that, the government did this because they wanted, they wanted to protect babies.
And, you know, babies died two in the United States of America died.
Are we sure that they died because of, we don't really know, but now we're going to have a national baby formula shortage.
And, you know, the real culprit here is not the government.
I mean, they're sure they created this whole quasi-monopoly cartelized system where there was one company that would even produce 40% of the baby formula.
You know, yeah, they created that system.
And then they have all these regulations where you can't get baby formula from Mexico or Europe or any of these other places.
Yeah, that's true.
But they just shut down the production of 40% of the nation's baby formula because they're the good guys.
But you know who's the bad guys here?
The mom who, when she saw the shelves emptying, bought a ton of baby formula to make sure her babies are okay.
That's the bad guy.
That's who that's that's who she's willing to blame.
We were just trying to save babies, but they're the hoarders.
Those are the bad people.
And then this idea that people are buying it to make a profit.
Blaming Moms for Formula Panic00:02:43
Like there's no evidence that that's happening anywhere.
But even if they were at this point, I think most parents, like if someone, someone who has a young baby, I'm not in a situation where I'm worried about fucking, you know, getting formula, luckily.
But if someone who has a young baby, I really wouldn't care what you were charging if you had some formula and I was desperate for it.
Oh, what are they marking it up?
Are they marking it up three, four times?
Okay, whatever.
Like that's that's what you think the problem is is that people are buying too much.
That's the issue.
All right.
Isn't that incredible?
I think there's something about this that's just like, man, could you reveal the nature of government any better than that?
Any better than they go, they would fuck over this whole market and then say, well, look, I think it's important to remember that we were just doing the right thing and that really the bad people here are the ones who are buying all this formula for their babies.
What a piece of shit.
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Trump Administration Response Critique00:15:41
All right, let's get back into the show.
If you're being a responsible parent, I would think, you know, shelves are empty and you see some formula and you're like, oh, I better grab this.
It's not very reassuring.
It would be one thing if she was like, listen, if you can share with other people, I can guarantee you within two weeks, this is all going to be on the shelf.
So you can do your part to help out other people.
If you know other people that don't have it, but she's not saying that.
She's giving you gobbled goop of, ah, we're cutting tape.
And like, I mean, what you should be saying if you were on top of this is, oh, we took away 40% of the supply, but we're smart enough to know that we did that.
So we actually imported a whole bunch from, and you would lie.
You would go, we imported a bunch from Canada.
Usually we don't allow this company here, but we increased our scientists looking into it to make sure that it's safe and up to our standards.
So for this brief window, we're saying that it's acceptable because they changed their factories to meet our standards for this brief window.
Like that's what you would, or you would say, hey, listen, I'm going to have this to you within a month.
What you're saying is, hey, yeah, yeah, we're working on it.
We're going to get rid of tape and you're going to have some.
So don't hoard.
You know, if you look, what the response to this should be very clearly is they should go, okay, we've decided because of this unique situation under emergency powers acts or whatever, right?
Listen, this is what everything during COVID was justified based off of.
They should say, hey, there's this emergency power.
We've just declared a state of emergency or whatever.
And so there's no tariffs on baby formula.
Okay.
It just got a bunch, much cheaper.
And now it's fucking people are much more incentivized to fucking ship it over here.
And any baby formula that is legal in a first world country is now legal here.
You can all sell all of your stuff to us.
And look, your guys are going to fucking make tons of money because Americans are willing to fucking buy it at above market price.
You know, it's like, that's it.
I don't know.
Is there, there's all these formulas that are like available in like, you know, in Sweden and the Netherlands and France and all these countries that aren't legal here.
It's like, do they have a huge rate of babies dying over there from this?
No, they don't.
Okay.
So you can all sell it here and then incentivize all of them to produce a ton of it to send it over here.
That's that's what should be happening.
It's easy.
That's some bougie Italian formula.
Oh, yeah, absolutely.
So that's what should be happening.
You know, we are going to make sure we are going to use the full force of the most powerful organization that's ever existed, which is the United States of America's federal government to make sure that we get this here.
And look, obviously, I think just that governments fucked all of this up.
But in a situation like this, even if they were like, we're going to subsidize it, we're going to pay these companies, you know, to make sure they ship formula over here.
Okay, whatever.
I'm not arguing with that.
Like, this is fucking babies getting formula for God's sakes.
Yes, just make sure it's happening.
But like, to your point, to say, she can't even make sure that's happening.
She'll go, we spoke to company leaders and we're cutting red tape.
This is what they always say about like every like they don't treat this with any weight.
Like the most important thing in the world right now is what?
That they're fighting a war in Eastern Europe somewhere, but it's not that there's a baby formula shortage.
Holy shit.
Man, does that just let you know what your own government is?
By the way, Tucker Carlson reported last night.
I don't know if this is like, I don't know.
I haven't verified this or not, but he reported last night that they're sending baby formula to the border to make to make sure that people crossing the border illegally have their baby formula.
That's been widely reported.
But it's such a grim, it's such a grim topic.
The idea that we're the idea that we're going to start pulling, like, I get it from both sides, but the idea that like, I guess there's kids coming in and we have them currently in some like containment centers.
We're going to start taking the baby formula out of that to provide.
I'm not saying take it out of that.
I'm saying that to set be sending it there while there's a shortage and while people can't go, that's pretty grim also.
That's the reverse of grim.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's like, I don't know, man, but if there's a shortage and other people can't get it, look, I'm not like, I don't know.
I'm not like a nationalist per se, but you are the government of the United States of America and you are funded by extorting tax dollars from American citizens.
So if you do have an obligation, your obligation is first and foremost to American citizens.
This is really something that like, dude, you're talking about baby formula, man.
It's just different.
It's different than almost like anything else you could imagine there being a shortage of.
And I think at this point, like, it's almost like, and this, this, listen, this does reflect to some degree how fucking dumb and unprepared Americans are.
Because it's, it's not till it was like a real problem that everyone started noticing and talking about it until like the last few days.
But we're now at this point, there's not long to go until it's like, it goes from like a big problem to like people are going to be ready to revolt.
Like people are not going to sit by while their babies don't eat.
I'm like, this is something, man.
This is something I couldn't have imagined seeing in the United States of America, like when I was a kid.
You couldn't have fathomed that this would happen in our country.
But over the last two years, I've learned that we're living in a whole new world.
So there you go.
All right.
I guess that's what I got to say about that.
All right.
So Fauci was back in the news.
He was back on television.
And he, you know, he used to be.
It used to seem like he was talking to us every single day.
Now it seems like it's only when convenient he comes on.
But so Rob, you sent me this clip.
So let's check it out.
Fauci back talking to the American people on, of course, the most trusted Damon News, CNN.
If Trump were to return to the White House as president and COVID is still a threat or there's some other public health emergency, would you have confidence in his ability?
Would you have confidence in his ability to deal with a pandemic of this nature?
Would you want to stay on in your post?
Well, no, to the second question.
The first question.
I think I knew the answer.
I had to ask you.
If you look at the history of what the response was during the administration, I think, you know, at best you could say it wasn't optimal.
And I think just history will speak for itself about that.
I don't need to make any further comment on that, Jim.
It's not productive.
You would not serve with Trump again, though.
Fair to say.
Right.
All right.
Just a little clip of Jim Acosta, who was, of course, the White House correspondent for CNN while Trump was president, and Fauci, who was, of course, his czar of COVID.
Just kind of interesting to see them talk about this.
I guess I'm curious to get your thoughts on this, Rob.
But first of all, it's interesting that they're so concerned about Trump being in the White House again.
Like that that's a real thought.
You know, you would think if this guy was the worst president ever and, you know, was from what all of them seem to be saying, was going to be facing criminal charges as soon as he left the White House and all of this, isn't even allowed on Twitter anymore.
But they're still also worried that he's going to be back in there.
That in itself is kind of interesting.
It's also kind of interesting as it like it demonstrates how much the establishment was against Trump, you know, and his own guy, Fauci, you know, who he had there as his guy up there with him in all those press conferences when COVID first started.
I mean, look, you got to think, COVID, you know, became, you know, COVID started whatever as a big thing that people were talking about in like January, February of 2020.
In March of 2020 is when the whole world fucking changed.
And then March, April, May, June, July, August, September, October, November, December, January, the whole time that Trump's president, Fauci is, became Fauci, you know, who we know as this guy.
That whole time, it's at Trump's permission that he serves.
And he's this quick to say that about him, you know?
So it shows you how much these people, one guy who's supposed to be an objective journalist covering the White House, the other guy who was, you know, working for Trump, that they'll just throw him under the bus.
It shows how the establishment was against Donald Trump.
But it also shows you like how stupid Donald Trump was and how awful he was that he would have kept Fauci for all of that time when the guy will turn around and say this about you.
You know, so those are like my first kind of thoughts.
I don't know.
What do you think about this clip?
Well, one of the things that it's funny, it's just this.
Well, if you take Donald Trump and you put him back in office, you can't have Fauci because Fauci won't work with him.
Like, oh, like, you know, yeah, exactly.
And also, believe me, day one, Trump is firing Fauci.
no way Fauci's staying in.
And then also, excuse me, Mr. Fauci.
What specifically were you trying to enact as policy that Trump didn't allow you to do?
What was it that Trump messed up in terms of turning around the COVID-19 pandemic?
What did he say no to?
What meeting did you have where you said, hey, we're going to make this a policy?
And Trump said no, that now there's deaths on Trump's hand and you won't work with him again.
You know what I mean?
This is and didn't.
And by the way, after the first three months, four months, five months, six months, seven months, you didn't walk off the job.
So why now?
Why would you walk off now?
You know, it really is unbelievable that they'll be able to look back at this and go, yeah, it's really that Trump just didn't respond.
Like imagine looking back at the COVID, you know, regime and saying, you know, the problem is we just didn't respond.
We changed everything.
We up, we upended every social norm and legal norm and cultural norm of our entire society.
This wasn't enough.
This wasn't, and it's not like there's any evidence that like, oh, if we had just locked down harder or mass mandated harder, it would have worked.
Trump, by the way, is still bragging about the vaccines.
By the way, the vaccines all came after Trump in terms of like the Donald Trump was involved in like creating the vaccines, but the vaccines being available or implemented, this is all after Joe Biden is in the White House, right?
So if you remember in the debates, Donald Trump was saying the vaccines are right around the corner, and people were still saying, I don't think that's possibly true.
So I'm just making the point that it's, it's all, this is all pre-vaccine stuff.
What is it you wanted that you didn't get?
Oh, there was one state or two states that didn't lock down and who didn't do any worse than the other ones.
What the fuck are you even talking about?
And if you're the god of science, wouldn't you be merciful enough to be willing to work with Donald Trump and save our lives?
I mean, no one knows the information like you do.
So you can still save lives, but you just won't work with Donald Trump to do it.
I just, this is technical.
I believe that the vaccines were available shortly before Biden took office.
The only reason I say that, there was a zero hedge article today that busted the White House for basically they were trying, it was just, it was more like tongue-in-cheek where they're, where the White House was trying to take credit that they weren't available prior.
And they're like, this is misinformation.
Is Twitter going to suspend the account because it was technically available?
So yeah, like maybe if I think you're off by a week or two.
You're basically right.
I'm making the point of like, who actually got shots in their arms?
Was yeah, it was tiny numbers, if any, in January.
It was really February, March, April of 2021 where people started getting vaccinated.
But yes, okay, fine, fair enough.
But I'm just making the point that what he's talking about looking back on the Trump administration, he's probably talking about like 2020, really with COVID.
Like, what are we talking about here?
That he didn't?
Oh, he wasn't like serious enough because he basically said at certain points in 2020, well, we can't stay locked down forever.
And we can't, you know, you can't let the fear control your life where he had a few comments like late in 2020 that were not insane.
That's the difference.
So Jim Acosta and Fauci are just sitting here agreeing that, yeah, Trump, it's all Trump's fault.
And I would never, you know, Fauci would never work for Donald Trump again.
There you go.
Okay.
Now, in addition to this, there's been an interesting piece of information that's kind of come out, which is about the money.
And this is something that I got to tell you.
Patrick Bett David brought this up when I was on his show the other day.
And this is something that I got to give you a lot of credit for, Rob, because you've really been right on the money on this, no pun intended.
But you've been saying for a long time that you're like, something's fishy here with the money and with Fauci's position and what exactly it is, because he just seems a little bit too incentivized to push these pharmaceutical products.
And so we have a video here of this is a, what is it, a congressional testimony from the head of the NIH and Fauci's there as well.
Let's play a little bit of that.
Mr. Mullinar.
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Good to see all of you today.
Thank you for being with us.
Dr. Tavic, I'd like to start by asking you: I know you're new in this role, but you're familiar with policies.
And I noticed you have a background in ethics, advising on ethics.
TrueBill Cancels Subscriptions Today00:04:11
And it's recently come to my attention that there is a policy at the NIH where scientists and people can receive royalties.
One of the concerns I have, and I'd like you to speak to this issue, is the NIH is in the process, you know, in the midst, as you know, of awarding grants for research, is also in the position of sort of evaluating or giving opinions on drugs that work or don't work.
And the idea that scientists may be benefiting financially from the work that they've done at NIH, that creates, to me, the appearance of a conflict of interest.
And just building on what Mr. Cole said about public confidence in the NIH, to me, one of the biggest concerns people had during this last couple of years is were they getting truthful information from their government?
Could they trust what people were saying about the medicines?
And to me, that creates a very disturbing appearance.
And I'd like you to comment on that policy and whether you are going to take a fresh look at that policy.
The award of royalties is based on a Baidol Act, which makes no distinction as to whether or not the inventor is paid by the government, the private sector, academia, and so forth.
Can you pause?
We are following the bottle.
Before we go any further, that's a massive admission.
He's saying yes.
Yeah.
He's saying that there's a federal law that, in fact, like, I mean, he might be all technical and go, oh, it doesn't matter if you're private sector.
What he's saying is, yes, we can have inventions.
We can have scientists here who are approving or blocking, which will be the later part of this, basically blocking alternative drugs because there are royalties that can or will be paid to them.
Yeah.
He's saying yes.
So yes, that big money can be made off the decisions that the NIH is making.
Just so it's clear that, yes, say a pharmaceutical company or a subsidiary of a pharmaceutical company or a government, I guess, can pay you large sums of money for making a decision one way or the other.
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Pharma Money in CDC and NIH00:05:52
And by the way, the revolving door of like these big pharma people in and out of these regulatory jobs and back to Pfizer is on like you go look at the list, it's incredible.
It's exactly what happens.
Just like the financial system.
Yep, exactly.
Exactly like the financial sector, where someone will work for Goldman Sachs and then be the Treasury Secretary and then go back to Goldman Sachs afterward.
Exactly.
That is a great comparison.
All right, let's keep playing.
The private sector, academia, and so forth.
We are following the Buy Dole Act when it comes to that.
So, if I understand what you're saying, so you're saying it's federal law that allows the NIH to do that.
That's correct.
Okay.
But in terms of the potential for conflict, no individual who is in a decision-making role on a particular product would have benefited from being the inventor of that product because we separate out those functions.
The individuals who make recommendations to leadership of institutes and centers are in the extramural space.
The individuals who are making the discoveries that you speak to are in the intramural space.
They're active scientists.
And we do not allow those two things to interdigitate.
Well, but my understanding is all right.
So, I mean, he's being full of shit because I'm sure you want to talk about the revolving door.
The people moving from one department to another department within the own agency, I'm sure happens all the time.
Look at the way that Fauci won't criticize the head of the CDC, the CDC.
These people are all working in cahoots all the time to cover each other's ass because if you're criticizing them, they're going to criticize you.
And guess what?
If you're reviewing your friend's drug, they're going to be reviewing your drug at some point.
You guys are working in the same agency.
You're all wanted, like, this is one of this is like when you watch those old school New York City cop movies and one guy steps in and he's like, Well, I'm not going to take the bribe, and all the other cops are pissed at him.
Like, well, that's not the way it works.
That's what he's describing here: you've got a racket where people go back and forth between big pharma and working in these jobs.
And of course, you're trying to get that's your if you just left Pfizer, you're you're you're you're uh uh Dick Cheney when you left Halliburton and now you're the vice president, and so you're working off your debt and you're sending whatever contracts you can back their way.
Don't don't pretend what's going on here.
Well, just imagine, right?
Like if someone like it, I don't know.
I'm trying to think like if I was in some really like corrupt deal and I was doing everything I could to like I have a big audience who listens to this show.
Me and you have a big audience and I was telling everyone they have to buy this one thing.
And then you figured out the company that was, you know, that I was telling you to buy from was sending huge money to Gas Digital.
But I went, no, they're not sending any money to me.
They're sending it to Ralph and Lewis.
It's a whole different department of Gas Digital.
I mean, okay, I guess that's like one level away from me.
But these are the people that I work with, the people I'm like friends with, the people I'm kind of in bed with here, not literally, but you know, I don't think that would be that comforting to you to go, no, no, no, they're, they're in a whole different no, this isn't even people at Gas Digital.
This is people over at Merch Pump.
You know, that's if you don't know, by the way, if you don't know, that's those are the people who fucking, it's under the company of Gas Digital who make our like merch.
So like, you know, come on.
It's like, yeah, that's really not enough.
And so you'd be wondering, how is this coming to light now?
Like, how is it that this is the first conversation amidst everything that this is the first time we're taking a look at the fact that there are kickbacks to the NIH?
And so they had lost a Freedom of Information Act basically about the fact that these royalties exist, but they still haven't handed over any of the information about what specific scientists are getting what payments on what patents so that you could start taking a look to see what might have gotten blocked or what they might have approved.
There is a record of Fauci getting paid 50 grand.
I think it might have even, but it was either a month or annually for a drug in regards to AIDS that he helped develop.
And he claims that he understood that there was a conflict of interest.
So he donated that money to charity.
But just to understand, the only reason that this conversation seems to be happening now is because they lost a freedom of information suit and they still haven't handed over enough information for people to really get an understanding of what's going on.
And what was the number?
What was the number that you saw?
So I think, what was it?
The Washington Examiner was reporting, I think it was $158 million between the years of, I think it was 2009 to 2020, something along those lines.
Yeah.
And that's money going to the NIH scientists, people in general.
I think it's big money.
I think, I mean, if you have a drug patent, because he said it's no different if you're private sector or professor, right?
So let's just say, imagine the professor who comes up with a patent and gives it over to a pharmaceutical company that go creates a billion-dollar product.
Just in your head, what do you think they're paying that guy in a monthly basis?
Yeah.
Well, look, I'll just say this, Rob.
We've been saying for years now, and you've really been on this, that, you know, these people, as I've said many times, many times, they're vaccine salesmen.
That's, that's what they are.
That's what you're looking at.
You know, when we saw the head of the CDC talking, we go, you're not the head of the CDC.
You're a vaccine saleswoman.
And the same with Fauci.
Kyle Ruff Joins Childerberg Next00:01:20
This is what it is.
And the media got their cut.
I mean, what are their pharma profits for 2020 in terms of ad revenue?
Yeah.
They got their cut.
They got their slice of the pie.
It'd be interesting to see if you could actually measure how much money from big pharma companies has gone to Fauci, other people in the NIH, people in the CDC, people in the corporate press.
Because man, they're doing their job.
You know, they've earned that money.
They've done everything they can.
All right.
Look, we're going to have to wrap the show up here.
But as always, thank you guys for listening.
And we'll be back just in a couple of days with a brand new episode.
Go ahead, Rob.
What do you got?
Just plug the gigs again.
Also, Childerberg coming up, going to be down there with Kyle Ruff.
That was a great time last year.
Kyle Ruff, also, he's going to be on our gig up in Reno.
Porkfest, check out the Free State Project.
More pork tour dates coming your way.
The next upcoming one is California this weekend.
So come hang out for it.
Hell yeah, brother.
All right.
Thanks for listening, everybody.
Catch you next time.
Peace.
With regard to food shortage, yes, we did talk about food shortages.
And it's going to be real.
The price of these sanctions is not just imposed upon Russia, it's imposed upon an awful lot of countries as well, including European countries Countries in our country as