Executive Border Order, Biden Trial Opening, MLB Betting Scandal
45:34 Share

Voters 50 and over have the power to decide elections. So candidates who want to win need to talk about the issues they care about. Learn more from our latest polling in Pennsylvania at aarp.org slash PA polling. It's Tuesday, June 4th right now on CNN this morning. President Biden poised to issue an executive order on the border crisis that is going to anger some members of his own party.

Opening statements about to begin in the federal gun trial of Hunter Biden and two passengers and a pilot injured after their hot air balloon hits power lines. That's one of our five things you've got to see this morning. And a Major League Baseball player facing a lifetime ban for allegedly betting on his own team. All right, 6 a.m. here in Washington. A live look at the White House. And this technically it's still spring Tuesday. Sun is up and shining. Good morning, everyone. I'm Casey Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

if congress won't do it president biden apparently will as soon as today the president expected to roll out an executive order that effectively closes the southern border to asylum seekers it will enable border officials to turn back migrants who illegally cross the border after border crossings meet a certain threshold reportedly 2500 per day the executive order relies on a regulation that was enforced under the trump administration and was widely denounced at the time

by Democrats. Now, this move by President Biden is being criticized by Republicans as political. It's too little, too late. Now he's trying to desperately show the American people somehow that he wants to address the issue that he himself created. Now he wants to issue some sort of executive order, I guess, to show that, oh no, he really does care about the issue. The only reason he's doing that is because the polls say that it's the biggest issue in America.

All right, our panel's here. Farnoosh Amiri, she's congressional reporter for the Associated Press. Jonah Goldberg, co-founder and editor-in-chief of Dispatch. And former White House communications director, Kate Bedingfield. Good morning to all of you. Kate, let me start with you because this is something that the president, you know, they've been talking about this for months. Why do it now?

Well, he's got a debate coming up in a couple of weeks. Is it just as clear as that? Well, look, I think there are a couple of things. First of all, yes, of course. Look, does that factor in? He's going to be on a big national stage. He's going to want to be able to talk about everything he's done comprehensively to try to tackle this problem. Yes. But secondly, remember, this comes after Republicans walked away from the comprehensive border bill, probably the most stringent and significant piece of proposed legislation on this issue in decades. And Republicans walked away. So by...

But taking executive action here, Biden can now say, listen, I wanted to do a bipartisan deal. Republicans didn't want to come to the table and participate in the solution. And so my hand has been forced. And so I'm going to do everything that I can alone to take this on. So I think it's important contextually to think about the fact that this comes after that bipartisan conversation fell apart. Frankly, I think it strengthens Biden's hand in this conversation because he can say,

we try to get this done they were all while I'll talk in the walk and so now I'm walking the walk I mean I think the challenge though Jonah is that the president has otherwise said why can't do anything about the border I can fix it any Congress so Congress tries Congress fails and then all the sudden he's now saying well actually I think the argument

Republicans are gonna level Adam is why did you do this like months ago yes look I'm actually sympathetic to the idea that the president can't give lawless unconstitutional executive orders I feel that way about I student loan forgiveness I feel that way about moratoriums on rent I you know President Biden said that I you know the Supreme Court tried to stop me on student loan forgiveness but I didn't let them well maybe he should let them because it was unconstitutional is trying to do similarly I think that there's a

colorable, decent argument that he can't do this stuff at the border. I think the Republicans were wrong about it. I think the Republicans in Congress should have passed the border legislation. And so now we're just going to see both sides sort of reverse. And the left-wing base is now going to say this is an outrageous executive order. He doesn't have the authority to do it. And the right's going to say he does have the authority to do it, but it's too little too late.

I mean, of course it would have been better to do it through Congress. I mean, I think Biden would say that. I mean, you know, you saw this executive order challenged in the courts under the Trump administration. I mean, this was not his first choice. But, you know, again, absent Republicans playing ball on this, he's left with no other option.

One thing that stuck out to me in this, Farnoosh, is that they actually seem to have cut down the threshold for asylum seekers in this executive order. We're reporting that it's 2,500 a day. The New York Times reported when this was going through Congress that the level was actually set at 5,000 over the course of the week, exceeded 5,000 over the course of a week. So this number seems to be lower than that, this 2,500 threshold.

a week is my understanding. But this is already also getting criticism from the left. And AOC, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, tweeted this when we broke this news at CNN. She says, doing Trump impressions isn't how

we beat Trump. How is this going to be received on the left? I mean, you're already seeing, right, like you talked about earlier in your show about who's going to show up to the announcement of this executive order, right? Even, you know, tough district Democratic senators are not going to show up because they both see as much as they need border to be off the table for Democrats.

this election year, they know that the way that Biden has gone about this, they have not approved it. So Biden is now facing difficulty and criticism from those in tough districts.

and those on the progressive left who have said that this is not the humane and American way to go about immigration. I mean, those are some people who had a huge problem with the bipartisan border deal to begin with, but obviously they don't see that Biden needs to do this. Well, and Kate, I mean, this was how the president talked about it initially when he was first elected. This was Biden in 2020 on asylum.

This is the first president in the history of the United States of America that anybody seeking asylum has to do it in another country. That's never happened before in America. That's never happened before in America. You come to the United States and you make your case that I seek asylum based on the following premise, why I deserve it under American law. They're sitting in squalor on the other side of the river.

they're sitting in squalor on the other side of the river. He's now essentially going back to that. Well, I think you have to look at the reality of what has happened over the last four years at the border. He's acknowledging that. He's acknowledging that there has been an increase and he's doing everything in his power to try to mitigate that. I think, but I think the other thing to think about here, well, I think there are two things. First of all, you know, remember, he doesn't have to win voters who say that the border is their top priority. He has to mitigate some of the damage, right? I mean, he doesn't, he, he,

the majority of voters who say that the border is their top issue are Republican voters who are going to vote for Trump. There's absolutely a cohort of swing voters who are concerned about it, but he doesn't have to actually win those voters. He has to limit his damages here. Secondly, I would say don't forget Donald Trump is not absent from this narrative. The way Donald Trump talks about immigration is also incredibly important.

alienating to some of these moderate and swing voters talking about immigrants poisoning the blood of the country calling them vermin so as this conversation unfolds over the next five months Donald Trump and the and the kind of grotesque way that he talks about immigration is going to be a factor here too yeah I agree with that entirely at the same time I do think this is kind of indicative of

a larger pattern with Biden. Biden was never actually a centrist in terms of the idea of being like in the midpoint of American politics. He was always trying to position himself as the midpoint within the Democratic Party.

And what we can see on this, we can see on Israel, we can see a whole bunch of things. As the party moves in various ways, the center of gravity moves and so does Biden. And I think that this sort of reinforces trying, this image of him just sort of trying to chase this political compromise that will please everybody in his coalition. And it ends up reinforcing the image that he's kind of indecisive and vacillating. And I'm not sure it's going to have the political valence that he thinks it's going to have. Does it play into this weakness?

I think it does. But I also think that there is a power in recognizing and acknowledging when circumstances change. I mean, we have seen the numbers change at the border over the last four years. He, as president, is trying to grapple with that. And I think that's a reasonable case to make for the American people. I understand. When circumstances change, but if your principles are, if you state these bold, principled positions, and then you change because the political facts on the ground shift, whether it's on Israel, whether it's on the border...

it reinforces this image that he's just sort of trying to chase the sweet spot rather than actually stand his ground. And I do think it's an image problem. I think there's an element of pragmatism there that actually a lot of American voters want to see, but I hear you. All right. Well, we're going to continue this conversation for the next hour, but coming up next. Do the American people deserve to be abused like that, Mr. Fauci? Because you're not doctor, you're Mr. Fauci in my few minutes.

Dr. Fauci fending off Republican attacks. His former colleague in the COVID fight, Dr. Deborah Birx, is here joining me with her reaction and a warning about the virus. Plus, Democrats struggling to come up with a strategy after Donald Trump's conviction. And the moments after a deadly bank explosion caught on body cam, one of the five things you have to see this morning.

I'm Dr. Sanjay Gupta, host of the Chasing Life podcast. What are some of the social service agencies that have supported you and your family growing up? That's Dr. Robert Waldinger. He's a psychiatrist, a professor, and a Zen master. What kind of relationships actually help us maintain happiness? And what should we do in those moments where we have setbacks and things that don't work out? Listen to Chasing Life, streaming now, wherever you get your podcasts.

-Mr. President, can you tell us, sir, Donald Trump prefers himself as a political prisoner and blames you directly. What's your response to that, sir? -That looks like me when I use the Fast Pass at Disney World. It's like, "My kids want to go on the ride." Looks like a guy who would just make eye contact with his wife in a Cialis commercial. You know what I'm saying?

Oh dear. More fallout from the conviction of Donald Trump as President Biden makes his first comments about his rival's criminal record on the campaign trail. He told donors last night that, quote, "It's the first time in American history a former president that is a convicted felon is now seeking the office of the presidency," end quote. And warning of Trump's, quote, "all-out assault on the American justice system." Some Democratic lawmakers, however, are advising the president to not make Trump's conviction a major focus on the campaign trail.

I think the president needs to campaign on his record and what he's delivered for the American people. I think people see it, they feel it, and in their heart they've internalized it. So you don't have to go out and beat the drum on that. All right, panel's back. Who's right here?

Well, I think actually the way Biden and the Biden team are handling it so far is right, which is to say it is not the central focus of their message. They have not pivoted the entire messages of the campaign to be about this verdict, but they've made very clear they're not going to shy away from something that we are seeing in the data post verdict is, uh,

is a hurdle for people to sending Donald Trump back to the Oval Office. So I don't think that they need to be shy. I don't think they need to be afraid to say he's a convicted felon, to say that a jury of his peers found him guilty of crimes. That is a relevant piece of information if you're deciding who you want to be president of the United States.

However, it's not the entire ballgame. It is not. It is the outcome of this trial is not something that is going to impact people's lives day to day. And Biden has to keep driving the contrast on the things that are going to impact people's lives day to day, like abortion, like the economy, like as you're seeing him do today, the border. So, you know, I think this is one piece of the puzzle. It's not the entire puzzle.

Yeah. Jonah Goldberg, here was Tom Tillis talking about this from the Republican side. He says, quote, those kitchen table issues are the key issues that are driving voters on November. Why on earth would we shift our attention away from that for any sort of quick fix on this decision? It doesn't make sense to me. So he's coming at it from the other direction. Is he right? Because certainly there are

a lot of Republicans who are out there seizing on this. I mean, I think a lot of them are performing probably for Donald Trump. But what do you make of that? Yeah, no, I think he is onto something. I think, you know, I just wrote my LA Times column about this. I think that the impact of this with voters is going to be minimal. Over the next 150 days, it is going to seem like agent history at some point. And the fact that Donald Trump's a felon is sort of going to be just priced in as part of the chaos of Donald Trump.

The real impact of this is how it changes candidate behavior, not voter behavior. And I agree with Kate. If Biden makes this the centerpiece, that would be really bad. If Trump makes it the centerpiece, where he uses this as an excuse to do 20 minutes at rallies, where he just gets reinforced

from his fans about how this is the most important thing that's ever happened. And he listens to all the people who say you're a political prisoner, which is such an unbelievably stupid. He's not a prisoner. I mean, whatever. I mean, he's just not a freaking prisoner. But if he takes from this that he can start talking about himself again, rather than sort of stay disciplined about the economy,

That could be a big impact. Absolutely. I mean, this is the thing, right? This is fundamentally an argument about Donald Trump on both sides, for Trump and for Biden focused on this, too. I mean, it's ultimately about Trump. It's not about the voters, which in some ways is sort of like a crazy thing to say that somebody who's a former president of the United States who was convicted of multiple felonies and that is somehow removed from our politics. That's

That's a completely wild statement about the state of things right now. But I do think for Biden and for Democrats to sort of take their eye off the ball and let this argument subsume all of the other important things that they're talking about and all the ways in which Donald Trump is going to have a negative impact on your life if you're a voter in Michigan or Wisconsin.

I do think that would be a mistake. And Jonah's right. This is, it is all because it is through the lens of Trump. And the, you know, a successful campaign is about making an argument to people about what you're going to do for them, not, you know, what the candidate's doing himself. All right. Coming up next here, Senator Joe Manchin's next move after switching from Democrat to independent. Plus, a hot air balloon crashes into power lines in Indiana. It's one of the five things you have to see this morning.

All right, 23 minutes past the hour. Five things you have to see this morning. The FAA is investigating why a hot air balloon crashed into power lines in Indiana on Sunday. Two passengers and a pilot were taken to the hospital with burn injuries. Evacuation orders are being lifted for some people living near an eight alarm fire at a construction site outside of San Jose, California. The cause of the fire still under investigation. No one was hurt.

A warning: This next video may be disturbing. Police in Ohio releasing body cam footage of the moments following a deadly gas explosion at a bank in Youngstown last week. A Chase Bank employee was killed and several others were injured.

Hawaii's Kailua volcano erupting. It's happening in an area within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park that last erupted in 1974. Officials say it does not pose an immediate threat to human life or critical infrastructure. And this. Man, I feel like a woman.

Shania Twain laughing off an onstage faux pas, sharing video of herself at a recent show, accidentally singing into a drumstick instead of her microphone. She's calling the incident hilarious. Who could disagree with that? All right, time now for weather. Parts of the central U.S. under severe storm threats this morning, while millions cope with excessive heat from California to Texas over the next several days. Our weatherman, Van Damme, tracking all of it. Derek, good morning. What are you seeing?

Is this thing on? Oh, this is my clicker. Sorry. Not a drumstick. Love that video. Okay, that's great. So this is the time of year. We're talking about the heat that is going to impact the southwestern U.S. It's all about this heat dome. That's just an area of high pressure that suppresses cloud cover, brings maximum sunshine.

but also allows for the southwest to just bake under excessive heat. And that's what's going to happen for the next several days. Right through the rest of the week, 100 record temperatures could be potentially set. Get this, the mercury in the thermometer, if you're heading to Vegas, yeah, could reach 120. That's just incredible. That would be the fields-like temperature as you step outside. But the actual temperature there, right around 110 degrees.

just incredible. So that heat dome, of course, provides that opportunity for severe storms to develop on the eastern side of it. So over 60 million Americans today from Minneapolis all the way to Dallas, chances of severe storms.

Casey. All right. Our weatherman Van Damme, Derek. Yeah, the microphone. It's right here. Oh, yeah. That's what that is. Still to come here. Opening statements about to begin in Hunter Biden's federal gun trial. Plus, a Nebraska woman pronounced dead in hospice found still breathing at the funeral home.

Welcome back. Just hours from now, opening statements will begin in the federal gun trial of the president's son, Hunter Biden, who's accused of failing to disclose his use of illegal drugs when he purchased a firearm in 2018. He is pleading not guilty to all three felony charges.

Yesterday, 12 jurors and four alternates were seated in the case, among them gun owners and relatives of addicts. The president issuing a statement of support for his son, writing this, quote, as the president, I don't and won't comment on pending federal cases. But as a dad, I have boundless love for my son, confidence in him and respect for his strength.

Our panel is back. Jonah Goldberg, this of course, something that is incredibly difficult for any father to have to go through. He is also though the President of the United States. What is the right way to balance these two roles here for him, for the President?

I don't know. I think the statement is about as good as you can expect from a president. I don't know. It would be inappropriate for him to go outside the four corners of being the defendant's dad. At the same time, they're kind of I mean, they're in a way they're kind of lucky that this is as narrowly focused on the gun charge and not the full, rich tapestry of Hunter Biden problems, which is one reason why the talking point with a lot of Republicans doesn't work when you say, well,

The DOJ isn't targeting Trump. It's also going after Hunter Biden. They're like, yeah, but they're only going after this very narrow thing. So look, I don't know. I think he should, that should be his last statement. It's fine. Just stay out of it is the only advice I would give him. And Kate's the pro at this stuff. Well, I was curious from someone who's not quite, you know, has not been in the sympathetic corner or the official, shall we say, sympathetic corner for President Biden. But Kate, I mean, how do you feel

How does this, I mean, you've been inside the White House, you know the family. This has obviously been an ongoing thing. It is not new. And it's clear the president himself feels a lot of guilt. I was talking to Alex Thompson, the Axios reporter earlier, who's been covering the trial, and he was saying that there's no small amount of guilt felt by the president in terms of the timeline of when this all unfolded, which is when President Biden was thinking about running for president the first time.

Yeah, I think that's true. And look, you really can't underestimate or underappreciate how close-knit the Biden family is. You know, I sat in countless meetings in many situations where Joe Biden stopped the meeting and took a call from his kid, his grandkid, his sibling. I mean, he truly is somebody...

who puts family first and for him, family supersedes all else. So it is hard for him, obviously as a father, it's hard for all of them, for their family member to be going through this. But also don't forget, he's somebody who is balanced

personal tragedy and familial challenges with the obligations of public service his entire life. I mean he lost his his first wife and his daughter in a car crash weeks after he was elected to the Senate. So you know he I think he will remain very focused, laser focused on his duties as president. I certainly saw him do that as he was grappling with family issues.

But the other thing I would say about this is, you know, this is also something I had a front row seat to in 2019 and 2020. You know, Republicans have really tried to make this line of attack against Hunter, you know, driving an effective attack. And it really just hasn't worked. I mean, if you look at go back and look at the first debate between Trump and Biden and Trump really wound up and tried to go at Hunter and had spent all this time at his rallies, you know, with the where's Hunter?

and all of that. And Biden just looked in the camera and said, I love my son. And I think everyone in this country can relate to having somebody they love struggling with addiction or mental illness. And I will tell you, that was one of the most powerful moments in the debate. It was a moment that we saw popped in focus groups after the debate. We saw in the campaign, I should say, the Biden campaign.

popped in focus groups, popped in polling. That's what people remembered. So this notion that coming at Joe Biden's family is a way to undermine Joe Biden, it doesn't work. Yeah, well, and we've also seen Hunter Biden's team change their strategy, Farnoosh. This was Abby Lowell, who is Hunter Biden's very high-powered, well-known Washington attorney, talking about the oversight chairman, Comer. This was back in September of 2023. Watch.

It is the folks like Chairman Comer and the Republican MAGA crazies who have been pressuring this U.S. attorney to do something to vindicate their political position. And guess what? They succeeded.

So this is really, Farnoosh, a somewhat Trumpian strategy. And while we have, you know, Jamie Raskin out there saying, look, we're not doing what Democrats are not doing, what Republicans are doing around Donald Trump. Abby Lowell's doing a little bit of it, saying this is political. Yeah, no, I mean, it's really fascinating if you also go back to the conversation we were just having about the president's statement about his son, right? He is making a statement about his son's case.

days after the former president, that he knows that he has to set the tone for what he thinks is the responsible behavior in a court proceeding, right? How much should a former president or a current president get involved in the legal proceedings, whether it's against him or his son? I think, you know, what Abby Lowell's tactics are, obviously he is the attorney for

the president's son, so him. But Raskin has said this many times and so have many members of Congress, including Democrats. We are not electing Hunter Biden to become president. No one is saying Hunter Biden is perfect. I have said that several times. I think many Democrats want to stop talking about Hunter Biden and want to focus on the accomplishments of President Joe Biden. But that's clearly not the case since it's become a political toy for Republicans.

All right, let's turn now to Capitol Hill today, where Attorney General Merrick Garland will fend off GOP attacks against his Department of Justice during his annual oversight hearing before the House Judiciary Committee. His testimony will come just a week after two Republican-led committees voted to advance contempt proceedings against Garland over his refusal to turn over audio recordings of President Biden's interview with Special Counsel Robert Huer. According to remarks shared with CNN, the AG plans to say this, quote,

I will not be intimidated and the Justice Department will not be intimidated. We will continue to do our jobs free from political influence and we will not back down from defending our democracy. Jonah, this is an interesting, I mean, when these contempt charges against Garland happened,

were moving forward. He came out and made rare public comments really defending the department. Now he's going to go in and say this. Of course, after he's gotten some criticism behind the scenes from Democrats for not being aggressive enough on January 6th, he's been very protective of the department. It seems like you are seeing that here, but in a more aggressive way. Is it the right move?

Yeah, I mean, look, I think both the criticism and the defense of Garland is that he is a pretty passionate institutionalist before he's anything else. I just want to, just as a level-setting thing, I think the administration's arguments for not handing over the audio

are constitutional garbage. And I think the Congress's arguments for demanding it are constitutional garbage. They're both entirely driven- - Aggressive Jonah criticism, by the way. - No winners in Jonah's work. - Constitutional garbage. - They're both just doing this for partisan reasons. 'Cause they both think the audio will hurt Biden. That's why the Republicans want it. And that's why the DOJ doesn't wanna release it.

All other things being equal, tie goes to Congress. Congress is the supreme branch according to our Constitution. But it is all of the high-mindedness of this I just find utterly unpersuasive. This is purely a partisan gutter fight.

I actually think the fact that this is a partisan gutter fight makes this moment today politically problematic for Republicans, coming on the tail of the Trump verdict and what we know about how their argument that the weaponization of the justice system is landing with independent voters, which is to say not all that well based on the polling. So I think to see them kind of front and center today, like hard charging at this idea that the Department of Justice is weaponized, again, while

the president's son is literally on trial in Delaware. So I'm not sure that argument holds. But it's not a good argument for them. I would also remember this is kind of the consolation prize of sorts since their Biden impeachment effort fell apart. They sort of

pivoted to this to kind of save face a little bit. So, you know, I just think that this argument across the board is not a winner for Republicans. And so, you know, the AG, I think, will be forceful defender of process and Department of Justice today. And I think for Americans who are paying attention, that will land with them. The best thing that could happen is if the whole fight descends around whether or not Biden ordered the assassination of Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago.

Because that will bring out all the crazy, Garland will look like a normal human being, and odds are a lot of Republicans are going to take that bait. Again, Jonah is...

Talking about some right wing, I would describe them as conspiracies around a pretty standard FBI procedure that was used when the raid was conducted on Mar-a-Lago. All right, let's move on. Coming up next, Say It Ain't So. Major League Baseball may be dealing with another betting scandal. Plus, Dr. Deborah Birx is here to talk to us about COVID and Republican attacks on Dr. Fauci. Do you represent science, Mr. Fauci? Yes or no? No, that's not a yes or no answer. Yes, it's a yes or no. This is science.

What does dogs have to do with anything that we're talking about today? These are scientific experiments. You're not doctor, you're Mr. Fauci in my few minutes. He belongs in prison. I've instructed her to address him as doctor. I'm not addressing him as doctor. We should be writing a criminal referral because you should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity. You belong in prison, Dr. Fauci.

Okay, some tense moments on Capitol Hill yesterday where Dr. Anthony Fauci pushed back against Republican criticisms of his handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. He denied accusations that he aided Chinese efforts to create the coronavirus, hid pandemic data, and made up social distancing guidelines. Fauci choked up at one point as he described the threats that his family has faced as a result of all of those claims.

There have been credible death threats leading to the arrests of two individuals. And credible death threats means someone who clearly was on their way to kill me. It is very troublesome to me. It is much more troublesome because they've involved my wife and my three daughters. All right. Joining me now is Dr. Deborah Burke. She was the response coordinator for the White House Coronavirus Task Force yesterday.

in the Trump administration. Dr. Birx, very grateful for your time today. You obviously have worked closely in your career with Dr. Fauci and you have come to understand some of the same dynamics that he was talking about there in terms of the threats. When you see something like what played out with Marjorie Taylor Greene happen in this hearing, I mean, how do you understand the real world ramifications of that?

My parents taught me that we can have an honest and transparent dialogue without name-calling and without disparaging people as humans, as their families.

I appreciate where Dr. Fauci is and what he's experienced. I've experienced much of the same. I have two daughters too, and they screened my mail because there were so many death threats that came by mail, by text. And they're not just death threats, they're sexual threats, which are very disconcerting to your daughters when you're trying to teach them that America is safe.

So, and we have to be able to, I was on the debate team, a little bit of a nerd, and you got to argue both sides and you understood that you could make your points in a collegial way. And the one thing good coming out of the hearing, I believe, and I think Dr. Fauci made this point over and over again, we're at a place where we can definitively say we do not know if it was lab or zoonotic from animals.

We do a lot of zoonotic work. It's our opportunity to really decide as a global community how we're going to control laboratory experiments in a way that protects the public. Do you think there is any veracity to some of the Republican accusations that there was an effort to discredit the lab leak theory? I think early on people did take very definitive sides.

And it did divide along party lines. And we're still suffering from that four years later in a whole set of issues related to pandemic and pandemic preparedness. Sure. But on the lab leak specifically, you think that happened? I do think it happened. I think people were, if you look at what people said about Bob Redfield and how they disparaged him as a scientist because he wanted to bring forward the lab leak.

And I think the reason he felt he needed to bring it forward was to push against this, it had to be this way, because we didn't know. And we knew we would never know. I mean, we knew with SARS that China was not transparent. We knew with the second SARS

China was not transparent. So we were not going to get an answer, but that shouldn't have held us back four and a half years later from both ensuring that we protect against lab leaks and we protect that public. I mean, people got infected with HIV in the lab. It happens. It definitely happens. And so we have to put different rules and regulations and guidelines in place to protect the public. We can do that. We've done that before.

- I realize hindsight is 20/20 and you and everyone in our government who worked hard to keep Americans safe deserve all of the thanks in the world for taking that on on behalf of all of us. But with hindsight being 20/20, is there anything you think you would do differently? It does strike me in trying to figure out how to cover this that if we do face another pandemic

It's going to be a serious crisis of trust in the people that are going to be trying to battle it in the types of roles you and Dr. Fauci held in 2020. Because we didn't address community issues. And we learned that in HIV. This is what bothers me because Tony and I and Bob all faced HIV and understood the way you battle and the way we're controlling HIV without a vaccine.

is working with the community and listening to what they need. And still, we're not listening to their concerns and saying, "This is a study that addresses that," or, "We don't have the study that addresses that, and we're going to get the information because we know it's important to you." We can't ignore people. And when you ignore people and they get pushed to the side, they even get more vehement because they know they're being ignored. When you look at what happened in rural health,

People died in rural communities because they've been dying at 20% higher rates across all diseases for more than a decade. They know that. They know that they've been ignored from the healthcare system. So these are the kinds of things that we have to address to rebuild trust. It's not going to happen as a one-off. It's going to happen as a continuously listening, not sitting in Atlanta or Washington, but getting out in the communities and listening to their concerns. If we do that... And you don't think you did enough of it?

Well, it's why I went out state by state. Because what was, I think, not appreciated is amazing things were done.

And we're not capitalizing on that. We're not capitalizing on the FDA nimbleness and really creating that as a future pathway. We're not capitalizing on bringing the private sector to all pandemic preparedness because they're the ones that brought us tests. There's the one that brought us treatments. They're the ones that brought us vaccines in a very quick period of time. But we haven't onshored.

active pharmaceutical ingredients. We're still very dependent on elsewhere. You mean that we don't make the stuff that goes into our drugs here in America? Sorry to translate this. Yes, yes, absolutely. Thank you. We're not on ensuring critical essential medicines that can protect American people. Yeah, so while

I have you, can I just ask, and again, I'm sort of thinking about how does this look if we potentially face another pandemic, which I know, again, everyone in the system is constantly preparing for. We're seeing a lot of concerning reports about bird flu at the moment, the outbreaks in cows leading to tests in milk. I'm getting questions from my friends who are also moms. Is this safe? Is it not? What is the level of concern right now about that potentially becoming a pandemic?

Well, thank you, Casey, because this is why I'm really concerned, because we're making the same mistakes today that we made with COVID. Okay. And what do I mean by that? We're not testing to really see how many people have been exposed and got asymptomatically infected.

We should be testing every cow weekly. You can do pooled PCR. We have the technology. The great thing about America is we're incredibly innovative and we have the ability to have these breakthroughs. We could be pool testing every dairy worker. I do believe that there's undetected cases in humans because we're once again only tracking people with symptoms. When we did that with COVID,

The virus spread throughout the Northeast undetected because it took a long time to get to the vulnerable individuals. But in the meantime, thousands, hundreds of thousands of people were infected with asymptomatic or mild disease and never came to medical attention. We have to switch from symptoms to actually definitive laboratory testing. We have the capacity to do that today like that. Well, that's cheerful. Thank you.

I don't know exactly what to say, but it does, there's so much that happened that we saw play out in 2020 that I think is going to matter in terms of the future. And you're right that we learned a lot as well in terms of PCR testing. Dr. Brooks, I'm very grateful for your time today. Thank you for having me on. All right, 54 minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup. A 74-year-old woman in Nebraska pronounced dead by a doctor at a nursing home and transported to a funeral home

where an employee noticed that she was still breathing. She was given CPR and taken to the hospital. A juror in Minnesota dismissed yesterday after reporting a woman dropped a bag with $120,000 in cash at her home and offered her more money if she voted to acquit seven people in a fraud case. Wow.

A gambling scandal at Major League Baseball. San Diego Padres infielder Tukapita Marcano facing a possible lifetime ban for allegedly betting on games involving the Pittsburgh Pirates while he was on the team last season. And this story. There's Carrie and Peppers, Mary and Peppers, Diet Peppers, Quiet Peppers, wouldn't you like to be a pepper too?

Dr. Pepper overtaking Pepsi to become the second most popular soda in America. Coke, Coca-Cola still the dominant number one brand. That surprises me. Does anybody drink Dr. Pepper? I used to. I was like a young kid. I shouldn't have been drinking it, but as a child I drank it a lot. I had Dr. Pepper. Kind of delicious. Yeah, not the worst. Coke is still the best. Coke is king. I'm from Atlanta, so. Satan's urine. Coke is king. Or that.

all right now to this story two more u.s senators leaving the democratic party for very different reasons west virginia senator joe manchin and new jersey senator bob menendez both filing to become independents menendez's decision comes after a criminal indictment on federal corruption charges that led him to lose support for members of his party mansion chose to drop the democratic label because he claims it became toxic in his home state

Our own Manu Raju spoke to Manchin yesterday about his political future. No, I'm not running for any office, political office. I've been very clear about that. Closing the door completely on both of those. Well, I'm not. I have not. I never leave any. You never leave any political opportunity and walk away from that. So you always have options because life is full of surprises. But I have no intention of running for political office. I have intention of being in the political fray by talking to people.

That's Joe Manchin's political philosophy right there in a 30-second soundbite. Sherman-esque. Never leave a political opportunity unavailable to yourself.

- Yeah, I mean look, I think all these guys have very healthy egos and they can envision this moment where America calls forth for Cincinnati's to lay down his plow and save us. And that's what I think he's referring to. But I don't think he's organizing to run for anything. I think he wants to be called to service. - Yes. - Don't we all? - Don't we all?

Farnoosh, can we talk about Menendez for a second? Because again, I mean, we're talking about these two stories together because they're both running as independents. But I do want to make sure that we separate the reasons for that, right? This is Joe Manchin's choice entirely. Senator Menendez was basically pushed off the Democratic stage by a primary because he has refused to step down in the context of these independents.

Still allegations he is currently on trial. The thing that I kind of wonder about Menendez is, is this the first test we get of whether Donald Trump is the only one who can overcome stuff like this? Because, I mean, I'd be really surprised if he were to, you know, actually win a Senate race. But he seems to be trying the things that Trump has successfully tried.

Yeah, I think with Menendez, I mean, past this, you know, pretense of what he already, you know, beat. This is the second time he's going through allegations of this kind. The second time he's going through an indictment. He survived that one. The party stood by him. He regained his chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, a high perch for any senator.

And, you know, you're seeing this happen for the second time and we'll see if he survives it. I mean, obviously, the Andy Kim, the New Jersey Democrat who is running for the Senate seat, is likely to become the Democratic favorite. And, you know, there are some conversations about Republicans, but New Jersey has not had a Republican.

Republican senator in 40, 50 years. So I don't see that happening. But, you know, Menendez's future beyond this moment will be interesting, right? We've seen a lot of people take some time off from public life after facing legal troubles or any sort of controversy and then come back stronger. But I think you're right. I think we'll see if Donald Trump is going to be the only political character of our time who can overcome legal battles and still get public office. Yes.

The stakes and the level of it is... It's definitely, yeah. Senator and president are a little different, but yeah. All right. I'll leave you with this. In a political climate, we talk about it here all the time, lawmakers seem to...

Unfortunately, sometimes behave like school children. It is only fitting that it was a kindergartner who stole the show on the House floor on Monday. Tennessee Republican John Rose was passionately defending Donald Trump, but I'm pretty sure no one listened to a word he said because his six-year-old son was behind him putting on quite a show. We'd be well served to remember the long and cherished tradition.

The guy ended up for the cameras it went viral on social media. We got these comments from Capitol Hill staffers quote So sorry, I was slow responding to your email I was tied up watching this over and over again and this quote he knows something from the minority leaders press

press secretary rose soon got wise and shared this quote this is what i get for telling my son guy to smile at the camera for his little brother i have to say that's the most adorable thing i've seen in a while um we could all use it in terms of how we think about our politics thanks to the panel thanks to you for joining us i'm casey hunt sienna news central starts right now

I'm Oprah Winfrey, and I am delighted to introduce you to my podcast, Super Soul Conversations. You can listen to some of the most universal, powerful life lessons. I hope these conversations will help illuminate your path to all that you've been meaning to be and all that you were meant to be.

You want to feel better about your life, where you're headed? Subscribe to my Super Soul Conversations on Apple Podcasts and begin the journey to your best self.