Dr. Oz had up to $33 million in companies that'd work with agency he'd run | The Excerpt
On Saturday’s episode (first released on December 13, 2024) of The Excerpt podcast: Paste BN Democracy Reporter Erin Mansfield explains how Dr. Mehmet Oz - President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services - held millions in companies tied to Medicare. A judge upholds the guilty plea of Trump co-defendant Kenneth Chesebro in the Georgia election case. Paste BN White House Correspondent Joey Garrison discusses how President Joe Biden is trying to Trump-proof his legacy. McKinsey will pay $650 million after advising an opioid maker on how to 'turbocharge' sales.
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 Saturday, December 14th, 2024. This is the Excerpt. Today, taking a look at Dr. Oz's finances. Plus a judge dismisses a request by Kenneth Chesebro to have his guilty plea thrown out. And we discuss how Biden is working to Trump-proof his legacy.
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President-elect Donald Trump's pick to be the top health insurance regulator in the country, Dr. Mehmet Oz has invested in companies that do business with the agency he would run. I caught up with Paste BN democracy reporter, Erin Mansfield, for more. Hello, Erin.
Erin Mansfield:
Hi, how are you?
Taylor Wilson:
Good. Thanks for hopping on today, Erin. So let's just start with some basics for folks who maybe are not super familiar with Dr. Oz. Who is he and what has Donald Trump tapped him to do?
Erin Mansfield:
So Dr. Oz is really best known for his television show. He's kind of like Dr. Phil. He really rose to fame on Oprah's talk show, and then he got his own talk show. And he actually stepped down from it in order to run for Senate in 2022. So that entered him in the political arena. He lost. He got the Republican nomination in Pennsylvania for the Senate, but he lost to Senator John Fetterman. So now Donald Trump has tapped him to run what is called the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. It's kind of like the government's health insurance company. They regulate Medicare, they regulate Medicaid, they handle the Affordable Care Act marketplace if you buy your insurance in the exchange online. It's a very important job. It can be a little bit of a nerdy job. Not everyone hears about it, but almost everyone or the majority of people either interact with the products they regulate, the insurance, or know someone who does.
Taylor Wilson:
And he's notably made a lot of money over the years. We know this about him. What did you find out in this reporting about his financial interests, Erin?
Erin Mansfield:
His most recent financial disclosure is from 2022 because that's when he ran for Senate. And what we saw was tens of millions of dollars invested into the healthcare industry. And so what we looked specifically at were companies that either do business with the federal Medicare program or are in some way regulated by the federal Medicare program. We got some of this research from Accountable.US, which is a group that was doing some of this research. There have been other news stories about it. But essentially what we found is he actually owns up to tens of millions of dollars, as of 2022, in Amazon and in Microsoft. They are both tech providers for the agency he wants to run. He also has owned, at least as of 2022, he owns stock in United Health Group and he owned stock in CVS Health. And those are two companies that provide Medicare plans. They're Medicare Advantage, but they're essentially a private version of Medicare. So they are very much involved in the business of the agency he wants to run.
Taylor Wilson:
Yeah. So what do critics say, Erin, about the potential conflicts of interest there?
Erin Mansfield:
On the left, we had Senator Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts and six other colleagues send him a letter earlier this week and they asked him to respond and state affirmatively that he will either divest or he'll recuse himself from anything that affects his financial interests. Now that is something that federal law already requires. Once he gets into office, he is going to need to fill out a form, just like he did in 2022 when he ran for Senate, listing all of his finances. And then there's kind of a negotiation process that they go through to say, okay, does he need to sell this stock? Does he need to just not be involved in this specific contract in order to avoid it? He has to be formally nominated by Donald Trump, the Senate has to confirm him, but we haven't seen any huge fireworks or any sign that he's going to withdraw. Now for their part, Brian Hughes, a spokesman for the Trump transition team, sent us a statement saying that all nominees and appointees will comply with the ethical obligations of their agencies.
Taylor Wilson:
Interesting. So just in terms of the expectation right now, Erin, I mean, do we feel that this will impact his chances, his prospects of being confirmed at all by the Senate? I mean, what are you hearing on that front??
Erin Mansfield:
It's actually pretty early in the process for Dr. Oz. Usually the HHS secretary, essentially his boss, would get confirmed first and then it would go to him. The biggest thing we've heard is that letter from six Democratic senators, but Dr. Oz doesn't need those six Democratic senators in order to get this position. He needs Republicans because Republicans are going to be controlling the Senate. So until it's six Republicans writing a letter like that, he's in the clear.
Taylor Wilson:
Erin Mansfield covers democracy for Paste BN. Thank you, Erin.
Erin Mansfield:
Thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
A Georgia judge yesterday dismissed a request by Kenneth Chesebro, one of Donald Trump's alleged co-conspirators in the sweeping 2020 election subversion and interference case, to have his guilty plea thrown out. Trump, Chesebro and 17 others were charged in August of 2023 with playing separate roles in an alleged criminal conspiracy to overturn the results in Georgia of the 2020 presidential election that Trump lost to President Joe Biden. Chesebro, an election lawyer, pleaded guilty to a single conspiracy count later that year after reaching a deal with prosecutors that required him to cooperate and provide inside knowledge of the alleged election racketeering conspiracy. Last week, Chesebro's defense attorney asked that the plea be thrown out on the grounds that it violated his constitutional right to due process. Four of Trump's co-defendants have pleaded guilty in the case and are cooperating with prosecutors. The case is on hold while an appellate court decides whether Fulton County District Attorney, Fani Willis, should be removed from overseeing it due to ethical and financial conflicts of interest alleged by defendants.
In a quick response, Fulton County Superior Judge Scott McAfee concluded in his ruling yesterday that Chesebro's request was procedurally defective in more ways than one. You can read more with a link in today's show notes.
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As we enter the final weeks of his presidency, Joe Biden is trying to Trump-proof his legacy. I spoke with Paste BN White House correspondent Joey Garrison to learn more. Thanks for hopping on Joey.
Joey Garrison:
Hey Taylor. Thanks for having me.
Taylor Wilson:
So as you outlined in this piece, Biden is trying to really Trump-proof some of his actions while he was in office. He's directed his administration to spend as much funding as possible from the four spending packages he pushed through Congress. Can you talk through these a little bit, Joey, and kind of what's his real priority here? What's he pushing for?
Joey Garrison:
Yeah, this is kind of a common tradition in Washington when you have the takeover of the White House from a different party where the outgoing administration tries to protect what it thinks of as some of its big achievements, its big accomplishments. When it comes to President Biden, and he outlined this in a speech this past week here in Washington, he really thinks he put the country back on good financial, economic ground coming out of the pandemic, although of course we know he's gotten poor marks from the electorate regarding the economy, and we saw that play out in the election. But nevertheless, he's pushed that theme as well as this rejuvenation of manufacturing here in the United States, particularly on clean energy. He got that going through the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act. Now, a lot of Republicans voted against these bills, yet President Biden points out all the time, hey, they often celebrate these projects when they're opening in their Republican districts or states creating a lot of jobs there.
So Biden's doing a couple things. First of all, he's almost daring the incoming president saying, "Hey, I know you've promised to overturn, on the campaign trail, the Inflation Reduction Act, but see if you want to take out 2000 jobs going here or there in these Republican districts." He's also, and this is what you alluded to in your question, Taylor, told his administration, get out the door as fast as you can. This money, authorize it, the unspent dollars from these various bills. That includes the Inflation Reduction Act also, his infrastructure bill, the American Rescue Plan so it's obligated before Trump can come in and maybe undo it.
Taylor Wilson:
Joey, there's also this focus on getting federal judges confirmed while Democrats still control the Senate. We know they'll pass the baton to Republican control in the new year as well. What can you tell us on this front?
Joey Garrison:
Since mid-November, there's been over a dozen judges confirmed by the Democratic controlled Senate, I believe 16 in all. There's only a few more weeks where Democrats have control of the Senate. Republicans will be taking over when Trump comes in January, so there's been a real priority to get those vacancies filled that have been held up by Republicans for weeks, and there's been some success on this effort since the election, and so that's one of the big priorities. Interestingly, on a similar issue, there is a bipartisan piece of legislation that one of Biden's senate allies, Chris Coons, of Biden State, Delaware, he supported with Republicans. It's cleared both chambers of Congress. It would create 66 new federal judgeships. Supporters say this is needed to help accommodate a big backlog of cases, but it would essentially give Trump 66 new vacancies in which to fill. Biden said this week that he is going to veto this bill even though it was backed by Democrats in addition to Republicans. And essentially, that is another lasting thing he is trying to do to prevent Trump from having even more sway on the federal bench.
Taylor Wilson:
Joey, on the foreign policy front, we've already seen world leaders kind of focus more on Trump than Biden over these last few weeks. It was Trump that was in Paris for the Notre Dame reopening, we saw Justin Trudeau at Mar-a-Lago meet with Trump, but what is Biden doing on the foreign policy side of this to Trump proof his legacy on that?
Joey Garrison:
One, obviously the big distinction I think foreign policy-wise that a lot of folks are wondering about is the approach to Ukraine. Biden has been a steadfast supporter of Ukraine. Trump has been kind of wishy-washy in terms of how lasting the U.S support will be. So again, what the Biden administration is doing back in September, they directed the Defense Department to draw down by the end of the year all the remaining funds that Congress had approved earlier this year for financial military aid for Ukraine. The goal there being to equip Ukraine with as much military support as possible. What direction the administration then goes, the next one, will be of course up to Trump. Another big issue foreign policy-wise, what Biden would really like to get done in the final weeks is a ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas to end fighting in Gaza. There's actually been some collaboration between the incoming Trump folks and the Biden White House in terms of trying to get that done, but that's something that of course Biden wants to sign off on.
Might be a lofty goal, but sign off on here in the final weeks. And then interestingly, the Biden National Security Team this past week finalized a memorandum that's sort of a roadmap of sorts, where it's suggesting to the next administration where they prioritize the national security team looking at the four nations of China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran almost as an axis of quartet adversaries cooperating together and to view them as such. And it's sort of behind-the-scenes kind policy look that the administration has created in hopes that the next Trump team will take that lead.
Taylor Wilson:
Interesting stuff. Joey Garrison is a White House correspondent with Paste BN. Thank you, Joey.
Joey Garrison:
Hey, thank you.
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Taylor Wilson:
Global consulting firm McKinsey and Company agreed yesterday to pay $650 million to resolve criminal and civil investigations into the advice it provided to opioids manufacturer, Purdue Pharma. As part of the agreement, McKinsey admitted in a court filing that had chose to continue working with Purdue Pharma to improve sales of Oxycontin despite knowing the risks of the addictive opioid. McKinsey was paid more than $93 million by Purdue Pharma across dozens of engagements from 2004 to 2019. The court filing includes several admissions by McKinsey, including that after being retained by Purdue in 2013, to do a rapid assessment of Oxycontin's performance, it said the drug manufacturer's organizational mindset and culture would need to evolve in order to turbocharge its sales.
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What were some of the biggest moments in music in 2024? A bar song, Tipsy by Shaboozey, is not only the longest running number one song of the year, but also of the decade. Madonna and Bad Bunny took the top spots on Pollstar's list of the highest grossing tours of the year. But where did Taylor Swift's Eras tour land? A decade from now, what will we remember about 2024's year in music? Tune in tomorrow when Paste BN music reporter Melissa Ruggieri joined by co-host Dana Taylor to break down some of the biggest music stories of the year.
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And thanks for listening to the Excerpt. You can get the podcast wherever you get your audio, and if you're on a smart speaker, just ask for the Excerpt. I'm Taylor Wilson and I'll be back Monday with more of The Excerpt from Paste BN.