Trump chooses Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead HHS | The Excerpt
On Friday’s episode of The Excerpt podcast: President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Is Trump signaling a retribution agenda with Gaetz, and other picks for his administration? Paste BN Personal Finance Reporter Daniel de Visé relays what economists say about blaming the Biden-Harris administration for inflation. The global cryptocurrency market has topped $3 trillion on hopes of a post-election Trump boom. Paste BN National News Reporter Jeanine Santucci explains why The Onion acquired Alex Jones' Infowars.
Hit play on the player below to hear the podcast and follow along with the transcript beneath it. This transcript was automatically generated, and then edited for clarity in its current form. There may be some differences between the audio and the text.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Friday, November 15th, 2024. This is The Excerpt. Today, Trump continues filling out his cabinet, plus how voters blame the Biden-Harris administration for inflation, and whether that was fair, and The Onion has acquired Infowars.
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President-elect Donald Trump has nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his next Secretary of Health and Human Services. Kennedy spent the majority of the 2024 campaign as an independent candidate, but dropped out and endorsed Trump. He became a de facto advisor on public health after joining the campaign, spinning off the catchphrase, "Make America healthy again," from Trump's trademark slogan.
Kennedy has a reputation for being critical of vaccines and questioning the origin of the Covid-19 virus. He is perhaps best known for spreading unfounded claims about a link between childhood vaccines and autism. Kennedy has also proposed the removal of fluoride from drinking water. The chemical has been added to U.S. water since 1945 to help prevent tooth decay, and is one of the most common ways to prevent cavities. But drinking water is also regulated at the local level, which could limit Kennedy's influence. Trump, yesterday, also named Todd Blanche, a lawyer who represented him aggressively in his New York hush money trial to serve as Deputy Attorney General, Jay Clayton, former chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission during his first term as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, and former Republican Congressman Doug Collins to be his secretary of the Department of Veteran Affairs in his administration.
For Donald Trump, retribution time is nearly at hand. The incoming presidents at times surprise picks, particularly his nomination of former GOP Congressman Matt Gates for Attorney General, signal he is serious about going after political opponents. Now, those who have tangled with Trump in the past are contemplating what they may be facing in the coming months if he follows through on his campaign rhetoric, and uses the full force of the U.S. government to go after them. Former Trump National Security advisor, John Bolton, said on CNN this week when asked if he was concerned about being targeted, "He's got a long list of people to seek retribution against. I don't know where I am on the hit parade these days, but this is something we should stand against. You don't prosecute your political opponents for disagreeing with you."
Trump's initial batch of job announcements and upcoming nominations have sent shock waves through national security, legal and political circles with experts telling Paste BN they are ominous signs of what the next administration could bring. Gates, like Trump has said, he believes the Biden Justice Department targeted him, and the new AG nominee has made no secret of his desire to make changes in the justice system. Pete Hegseth, Trump's nominee to lead the Department of Defense, has used his position at Fox News to share Trump criticisms of the military, especially generals who pushed back at the president during his first term.
Tulsi Gabbard, a military veteran and former Democratic member of Congress, who is Trump's pick for director of National Intelligence, has criticized the intelligence community for some of its actions, particularly with regard to Russia. You can read more with the link in today's show notes.
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Voters blame the Biden-Harris administration for inflation. Was that fair? I spoke with Paste BN personal finance reporter, Daniel de Visé, as the economist weigh in. Daniel, good morning.
Daniel de Visé:
Hey, it's a pleasure to be here.
Taylor Wilson:
Pleasure having you on as always, Daniel. So, I just want to get some of the numbers out of the way at the top. Daniel, I know we have some fresh numbers this week. Where does inflation stand right now? Where are things?
Daniel de Visé:
As of October, prices are up 2.6% year over year, which is not very high. That would be unremarkable at any other time. But because we've just had this big inflation crisis, everybody's watching to see if it comes back down. 2% is the target rate set by the Federal Reserve. We're getting there, but inflation is definitely still a thing, as I said in the paper today.
Taylor Wilson:
So, this was a great piece you outlined here, Daniel. How was this election really a referendum on inflation to some extent? How did things shake out last week?
Daniel de Visé:
I mean, how many times have I read about the price of eggs in the past week and a half that everybody was thinking about the price of eggs when they went to the poll? I think exit polls show that people were thinking about inflation, cumulative inflation over the past four years, at least a lot of the people who voted for Donald Trump and who awarded him a second ago at the presidency. It was a huge issue, and those people who are paying more for eggs, I don't think they necessarily care that the inflation rate is now lower, because prices are permanently higher.
Taylor Wilson:
So, Harris lost the election. Daniel, did voters blame her? Did they blame the Biden-Harris administration for high inflation, and really, was that fair? What did you find speaking with experts?
Daniel de Visé:
The CBS News exit poll speaks to this most directly three quarters of all voters. 75% of voters said inflation is a hardship. More than two thirds told ABC News that the economy's in bad shape. So, it was clearly top of mind. So, I went and I interviewed seven different economists from across the spectrum and said, "Well, were Biden and Harris to blame for the inflation?" Then asked them if they could sort of order what they think were the reasons for all this inflation.
Taylor Wilson:
What did you find, Daniel?
Daniel de Visé:
I would say most of them, if not all of them said the number one reason for our inflation crisis was the pandemic. The global pandemic was a global thing, and it raised prices absolutely everywhere. There was inflation around the world. Now, Biden's administration was responsible for the third stimulus package. If you remember the third set of checks everyone got, which was in 2021, that was Joe Biden's initiative. That's where economists pin some blame on him. All of the economists said to some extent, that stimulus round under President Biden probably made inflation worse, but it didn't cause the inflation in the first place. That's a very important point.
Of course, Kamala Harris was not the president, and so our economists noted that she is one step removed from all of this. If you blame Joe Biden for that round of stimulus checks in 2021, you can't really blame Kamala Harris for it. I think though you would say the Democrats as a whole, as a party, lost the presidency just as Trump lost the presidency and the Republicans in 2020 largely also because of Covid and its effects.
Taylor Wilson:
Okay. So, I am also curious, Daniel, how much blame the first Trump administration should get for some of these early effects of inflation. He was in office during the pandemic, and then also instituted his own stimulus packages. I mean, does he get any blame as part of this conversation?
Daniel de Visé:
Well, the Brookings economist I interviewed noted that both Republicans and Democrats threw money at the problem, and it's not necessarily a bad thing. There were three rounds of stimulus checks, two under President Trump and then the third under President Biden. Now, it's easy to say in hindsight that that third one might've been a little excessive, but both presidents used the same approach. A lot of the economists I spoke to said, "It was a good thing in as much as because of those stimulus dollars, the economy definitely got moving again."
We didn't have extended joblessness. The unemployment rate's been very low for quite a long time now. The economy continued to grow. So, all that's to the good according to our economists, but Biden does get some blame for maybe making the inflation worse with this third round of checks. It's easy, again, to say this now, but now you could say maybe those first two stimulus payments were okay, but the third one was one too many or something.
Taylor Wilson:
In terms of inflation and the economic climate that the second Trump administration will face, Daniel, we know prices remain high on all kinds of goods. What exactly is the situation that Trump will inherit this time around?
Daniel de Visé:
Inflation is under control. One thing we've noticed is that when Trump won election last week, the stock market rejoiced, because I think business people, the market, are excited about what he might do for the economy, but the bond market has sort of tanked. That's because bond investors are worried that President-elect Trump has talked about severe tariffs, possible deportations of illegal immigrants, and those things could cause a new round of inflation. So, some people, at least who are monitoring the economy, are afraid that some of the incoming president's economic policies could actually cause another round of inflation. So, we may have that to look forward to.
Taylor Wilson:
We'll keep an eye out. Daniel de Visé covers personal finance for Paste BN. Thanks, Daniel.
Daniel de Visé:
Thank you, sir.
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Taylor Wilson:
The global cryptocurrency market's value has topped $3 trillion following the election of Donald Trump. The sum market value of cryptocurrencies touched a high of nearly $3.2 trillion early yesterday in Asia based on analytics and data aggregator CoinGecko, after reaching just shy of that level last year. The latest surge marks a revival from a few months ago when crypto prices became stagnant. Trump's election and that of several pro-crypto lawmakers to Congress has driven the rise by potentially clearing some of the uncertainty around U.S. regulations.
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The satirical news site, The Onion, has acquired Infowars, the media platform from conspiracy theorist, Alex Jones at auction. I spoke with Paste BN national news reporter, Jeanine Santucci, for more. Jeanine, thanks for making some time today.
Jeanine Santucci:
Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
So just starting here, Jeanine, I think a lot of people are familiar with The Onion, but for anyone who may not be aware, what is The Onion?
Jeanine Santucci:
So, The Onion is a satire news site, and it parodies topics that dominate national news, political news, local news, but you'll see some pretty humorous headlines from them.
Taylor Wilson:
All right. So, this story centers around Infowars. Remind us what Infowars is, and really how did we get to this point?
Jeanine Santucci:
Infowars is a conspiracy theory peddling site that was founded by Alex Jones in the late '90s, come a long way since then. In the last decade or so, he has used the site to push these false claims that the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School mass shooting was a hoax. He's made all kinds of claims about crisis actors being involved in order to stage this mass shooting, which of course has been tremendously harmful to the families of the victims of that shooting, who in 2022 won a lawsuit, a defamation suit, to the tune of about $1.4 billion against Alex Jones.
Shortly after that, he filed for bankruptcy. So, as part of the bankruptcy, he was forced to auction off his assets, which includes the Infowars site. It also includes the physical studio location that he was operating Infowars out of a number of social media handles and other properties.
Taylor Wilson:
So, The Onion has now acquired Infowars as part of this auction process as you mentioned. This is a curious move. Why did The Onion make this move, and what do they plan to do with Infowars?
Jeanine Santucci:
Yeah, it's really interesting. So, The Onion has reminded us that it's known for its signature commentary on gun violence. I mean, every time there's a mass shooting, they repost their headline, "No way to prevent this says only nation where this regularly happens," but its owners said that they're going to relaunch the Infowars site starting in January of next year. They want to "end the relentless barrage of disinformation, and use it instead for what they're calling humor for good." They also made an agreement with Everytown for Gun Safety, which is a gun violence prevention organization that is going to be exclusively advertising on the relaunched site.
Taylor Wilson:
Of course, Sandy Hook victims' families are at the heart of all of this. Have we heard from them? How do they feel about this?
Jeanine Santucci:
Yeah, so according to their attorneys, the families were fully on board with The Onion's acquisition. They even agreed to take a smaller recovery amount from what they were owed so that The Onion's bid would be stronger, which they're saying helped The Onion successfully acquire it. But yeah, the families have really just been saying that this whole process has been less about the money, and more about holding Alex Jones accountable, and preventing him from having the ability to continue spreading those conspiracy theories.
Taylor Wilson:
For Alex Jones, for Infowars, this seems like a devastating blow to him. What's next?
Jeanine Santucci:
It was definitely upsetting news to him. I was watching him yesterday. Shortly after the announcement about the acquisition came out, he was live streaming on social media, clearly upset about the outcome. He claims that he is going to fight the outcome in court. He says that the auction process was unfair, and he said it was rigged in favor of his opponents. He had hoped that a company would come along and prevail in the auction that would be more friendly to him and hopefully allow him to continue creating content through Infowars.
Now that that's not the case, he's clearly very upset about it. But he says in the meantime, he's still going to be a presence online. He still has his social media platforms. I was watching him a lot of the day yesterday, and he was still live streaming all day long. He says he has a backup studio, so he's definitely not disappearing from the internet, but we'll see whether his attempts in court are successful or not.
Taylor Wilson:
All right, big development here. Jeanine Santucci covers national news for Paste BN. Thank you, Jeanine.
Jeanine Santucci:
Thanks so much.
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Taylor Wilson:
Today is America Recycles Day and the chance to think about our waste and its impact on the planet. Thanks for listening to The Excerpt. We're produced by Shannon Rae Green and Kaely Monahan, and our executive producer is Laura Beatty. You can get the podcast wherever you get your pods, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for The Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson, and I'll be back tomorrow with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.