Admiral Richard Levine is the Assistant Secretary for Health and Human Services (HHS) under President Trump. He is a physician, a Urologist, and served in the U.S. Air Force. He was nominated by President Trump in 2017 and confirmed by the Senate in 2018.
00:00:00.000This January on Paramount Plus, it began on the shores of New Jersey. Now, a new pack emerges in the great white north. Canada Shore, new original series, now streaming on Paramount Plus.
00:00:14.360Y'all remember this guy, Admiral Rachel Levine, really Richard Levine. You know, Democrats, they freak out over Bobby Kennedy, RFK Jr.
00:00:30.760They say that he doesn't have the necessary qualifications to be the secretary of HHS.
00:00:36.040Just shut up. Just shut up. You took health advice from a man who thinks he's a woman and also believes that men can get pregnant.
00:00:44.240Your opinion is totally disregarded. Second of all, scoreboard, look at RFK. He's 72, I think.
00:00:51.840And if you're watching on screen right now at YouTube.com, then you're watching him rep out pull-ups in a suit, mind you.
00:00:58.800So if you're asking me who I would rather get health advice from, it's not the semi-obese man who believes he's a woman.
00:01:08.340It's the dude who's repping out pull-ups in a suit.
00:01:12.040We've had a lot of notable upgrades from President Biden's administration to now President Trump's, right?
00:02:05.100So, number one, it's really special to be here with you.
00:02:09.140I have certainly followed you on your social media presence.
00:02:11.840I've followed you as you've stood up and you've spoken for women, you've spoken for athletes, you've spoken for fairness and what is true, you've spoken for what is beautiful and good, and so I appreciate that.
00:02:22.680So it really is an honor to be here with you.
00:02:25.440Yeah, I am the Assistant Secretary for Health in the Department of Health and Human Services.
00:02:29.200So I am the upgrade by President Trump from Rachel Levine, Richard Levine, Rachel Levine from the last administration who was the Assistant Secretary for Health.
00:02:39.560And I think President Trump has certainly made an upgrade there.
00:02:46.900By training, I went to medical school at Emory University in Atlanta.
00:02:50.520And then I made my way over to the University of Alabama at Birmingham, which is the medical arm of the University of Alabama system.
00:02:58.400Made my way to Birmingham for my residency in urology.
00:03:02.140I then joined a urology practice in Birmingham and practiced there for over 20 years with a real emphasis on men's health.
00:03:10.460That was kind of my area of subspecialization.
00:03:12.820And a little over a year ago, I expressed interest in wanting to serve the president and to serve the country at the Department of Health and Human Services and was able to get an interview and send my resume.
00:03:26.840Ultimately, I interviewed with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
00:04:18.440Most people listening to this or watching this, they only get to see what the media shows of President Trump and of RFK, Jr., the HHS secretary.
00:05:14.880Secretary Kennedy, you know, he's part of that amazing family, the Kennedys.
00:05:19.060I mean, literally, his uncle and his father literally laid down their life for the republic, for our country.
00:05:24.980And I have no doubt that RFK Jr. would do the same.
00:05:28.680Let's face it, does he have to be here doing this?
00:05:31.440The only reason he's here doing this is because he truly loves the country.
00:05:35.020He truly loves every man, woman, and child and wants us to be healthier and wants us to be better.
00:05:40.620So it's been a great ride so far and I'm enjoying it, working hard but enjoying it.
00:05:45.820And even still, of course, it seems as if there's an entire political party, at least in terms of elected representation, who opposes what you all are doing at HHS to make America healthy again.
00:06:00.300And I want to get to the new dietary guidelines.
00:06:03.280But before, you talk about President Trump and what he has done specifically in collaboration with HHS, in collaboration with Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of War.
00:06:14.100In your professional role, are you at all concerned about the previous or maybe even the current fitness standards or trends among new U.S. military recruits?
00:06:26.760What is, I guess, these new guidelines that we've seen from President Trump and Secretary Hegseth, what does that mean for force readiness?
00:06:34.260Yeah, I think that's a great question.
00:06:36.520Because if you look at, you know, about over 75 percent, I think the statistic is 77 percent of young men and women in this country cannot meet the physical requirements to serve in the United States Armed Forces.
00:06:52.260So that is a real concern for readiness, for defending this country and protecting us from our enemies.
00:06:59.500So when you have 75 percent of our young men and women who aren't fit to serve, that's a problem.
00:07:04.600And I think that the dietary guidelines then are not only about making America healthier, which they are, but they're also about making America better able to defend itself.
00:07:15.620Because if we can eliminate the scourge of obesity in this country, think how much better off our war fighters are going to be, how much better we will be positioned to bring young men and women into the services who are fit and ready to go.
00:07:29.100So the dietary guidelines are incredibly important to keep this country fit and ready, to make this country healthier, and to make this country safer.
00:07:42.360We've seen increases of chronic illness, obesity rates, fertility issues, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.
00:07:49.300Being there when the new dietary guidelines were unveiled, it was one of the most amazing experiences.
00:07:55.340And I will tell you, as someone who, I mean, takes my health and my fitness very seriously, I had no idea that the previous guidelines were as faulty as they have now shown themselves to be.
00:08:07.460I can remember very vividly being in fifth grade, sitting in our PE class.
00:08:11.920We talked about the guidelines, the food pyramid.
00:08:14.300Can you walk us through the changes from the old food pyramid to now the new and improved one?
00:08:20.040And I think highlighting explicitly what was wrong with the old food pyramid.
00:08:24.740No, I appreciate you asking that question, and I certainly will.
00:08:27.980And you point this out, the old guidelines.
00:08:30.800For instance, in the last administration, the advisory committee that was advising on these kind of things, you know, nine of the 20 members, I believe, had really deep interest in either pharma or medical industry.
00:08:46.360You had individuals who weren't disclosing their financial relationships.
00:08:49.580And so, yes, I think certainly in the past and certainly in the last administration, anything related to health and food and dietary guidance was really co-opted by big industry and big pharma and big ag interests, doing not what was best for the American people, but what fulfilled an agenda, believe it or not, even an equity and diversity, some kind of agenda in those food recommendations.
00:09:15.880And so we've eliminated all of those things.
00:09:17.880What we have now, Riley, we have dietary guidelines whose sole purpose, whose sole function is to help guide us and make dietary recommendations to make this country healthier than she's ever been.
00:10:00.280And we're saying to the American people, follow these guidelines.
00:10:03.800And the guidelines do have flexibility because perhaps what an athlete needs versus me as a 62-year-old man is probably going to be different.
00:10:11.140But the guidelines give us those recommendations.
00:10:14.020They point out what's right, the right way for us to eat, certainly a shift from guidelines in the past and absolutely a new paradigm to make America healthier.
00:10:23.580You mentioned big pharma and big ag and big food.
00:10:30.860I think a lot of us, those who maybe weren't necessarily overly inclined in paying attention in that realm, I think a lot of us had the veil lifted during COVID.
00:10:40.980At least I'll speak personally for myself to how big pharma operates, how they manipulate and how they fearmongered to get so many of us to comply with what I would deem their pretty autocratic mandates.
00:10:53.560As it pertains to food and what you've seen in your professional role now at HHS, what are some of those, I guess, big corporations, big businesses, how are they able to profit and to benefit from what we've seen?
00:11:09.400Well, I think, for instance, if you can get a whole country hooked on ultra-processed sugary foods, sugary cereals, ultra-processed cereals, if you can have a bunch of people eating that for breakfast every morning, that's going to be a huge financial win for the company.
00:11:28.600It's not a health win for the country, but it was a huge financial win for these companies.
00:11:33.580Again, these dietary guidelines, their purpose is not to put money in the pockets of industry.
00:11:40.360The purpose is to put health back into the people, to make our lives better, to make our lives healthier, so we can support our military, so we can be out there with our kids doing the things we need to do, so that we can have healthy, active, vibrant children, so we can make America healthier and make America greater.
00:11:58.620I mean, the guidelines certainly feed into this, and I really have to say that the Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Kennedy, the Department of Agriculture under Secretary Rollins worked so hard to make these guidelines a reality, and it's really amazing.
00:12:17.740For years, surgeons like myself have known, if I took an obese patient to the operating room, there's going to be a higher risk of death or a higher risk of complications, and we knew that that obesity was caused, at least in part, by dietary guidance that have come previously.
00:12:53.880One other thing I wanted to ask you about that we've seen roll out from HHS recently is the newborn vaccine schedule.
00:13:00.900Of course, this is something that, whether I wanted to or not, came to my husband and myself, our attention, as we welcomed our daughter into the world just a few months ago.
00:13:10.640Can you talk about some of the changes that were made?
00:13:13.840There's been a graphic going around online that, I mean, when you see it visually, it's like this little cartoon baby, and I think there was like 72 vaccines by the time they're 12, to now that number has been reduced to, I think, 11.
00:13:29.920One of the things that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary Kennedy, has always said, he has always said this, is that he will never be afraid to lead where gold standard science guides.
00:13:43.680And so that's been a mantra of Secretary Kennedy's.
00:13:46.360He, like myself, understands that vaccines can save lives.
00:13:50.420We also understand that not every vaccine is the same, have to be individualized.
00:13:55.920Science is leading this Department of Health and Human Services under Secretary Kennedy, gold standard science.
00:14:03.200And so ultimately what our job is, is to provide guidance and recommendations.
00:14:08.820But, you know, ultimately the choice for a parent, for instance, for their children, is going to be the parent's choice.
00:14:13.980What we want is parents and people in this country to be well-educated, to have good information, so they can make decisions about what is right for themselves.
00:14:23.580They can make decisions about what's going to be right for their children or for themselves.
00:14:28.760And that's one of the things that drives us forward at the Department of Health and Human Services.
00:14:33.340The best science there is and the freedom for people to make those decisions themselves.
00:14:38.440Science is, I like to say that science is dynamic, not static.
00:14:49.940We have to be able to be nimble and to pivot in terms of our recommendations and to understand what's best.
00:14:55.720So, again, our goal under Secretary Kennedy and certainly under President Trump is the best science there can be, the best recommendations, and let people make the decision that's right for them having real access to the best information.
00:15:10.420Yeah, and the My Body, My Choice people are really quiet when it comes to that.
00:15:18.260Now, of course, gender dysphoria, I mean, you mentioned the person who filled your role before you took over.
00:15:25.420Gender dysphoria has become a major topic in both civilian and military health care.
00:15:30.620And so, from a medical readiness standpoint, how should the military in particular be approaching this?
00:15:38.180Again, we've seen some guidelines from Secretary Hegseth, from President Trump.
00:15:56.380And so, Secretary Hegseth has been clear that he wants to have the strongest, the most capable warfighting force that we can in this country.
00:16:04.680And I think his guidance has been critical.
00:16:06.780I think his leadership has been amazing.
00:16:10.060And certainly the leadership of our Commander-in-Chief, Donald Trump.
00:16:13.640You know, gender dysphoria, particularly in minors, because that's what we focused on here at the Department of Health and Human Services.
00:16:19.580To tell little boys that they can be little girls, or to tell little girls they can be little boys, and to say, oh, you know what we're going to do?
00:16:27.660We're going to give you castrating chemicals or cross-sex hormones, or we are going to do surgery that will remove body parts that you can never have back again.
00:16:39.560That is an agenda that's absolutely terrible.
00:16:42.920That is not the agenda of this administration.
00:16:45.580This agenda is, we believe, and we know, and science has shown, we have proven this, that the best way to treat these children is with compassionate, competent mental health care and support.
00:16:57.200It is not to simply tell them, we're going to cut off your body parts, or we're going to throw castrating chemicals at you, and that's going to make everything better, because it doesn't.
00:17:05.580So we stand, we stand very firmly, and I stand very firmly, to protect children in this country.
00:17:13.940Our minors with gender dysphoria, they deserve love, they deserve compassion, they deserve competent counseling.
00:17:20.680What they do not deserve is surgery and these horrible chemicals that cause irreversible harm.
00:17:27.840It is such an evil lie, gender ideology, an evil lie from the pit of hell that is a lie built on deception and discouragement and destruction.
00:17:40.400I've got a video I want to play for you here of a detransitioner, so a beautiful young woman who believed the lie that she was born in the wrong body, transitioned to a man, began to detransition.
00:17:53.360They told you what was going to happen before you started testosterone, so really it's your fault, you should have been paying more attention.
00:18:01.160They told me the outwardly observable effect that I would immediately notice, like that my voice was going to drop, not that my vocal cords were going to dramatically thicken, and that a lot of women's larynxes aren't big enough to accommodate that thickness, meaning that my voice just always hurts.
00:18:17.480It also means that I can't scream or raise my voice above a certain volume.
00:18:20.560I used to do theater. They knew that. That was something very important to me, and I've lost that ability because I can't project my voice anymore.
00:18:27.080They told me that I might experience vaginal dryness, not that the cells in my gynecological and urological anatomy are highly estrogen-dependent, and that depleting them of that estrogen by going on testosterone is almost certainly going to cause them to irreversibly atrophy,
00:18:40.920which causes a slew of issues, ranging from, yes, vaginal dryness and pain and bleeding upon penetration, to losing the ability to give vaginal birth, to urinary incontinence and healthy floor dysfunction.
00:18:53.340I mean, goodness gracious, what happened to inform consent?
00:18:59.880Exactly. No, exactly. And Riley, when I saw that online, I did make a comment about that for that particular individual.
00:19:06.260I'm so sorry that individual has suffered the way they have.
00:19:11.180You know, one thing that we're not going to do, and I believe I said this in my post or something to this effect, we are going to stand with children.
00:19:17.780We are going to stand with their parents. We are not going to lie to them.
00:19:21.440We are not going to try to push them down some road driven not by concern for their true health, mental health condition, because gender dysphoria is a real condition.
00:19:32.960These children do suffer, but we're not going to push them down a road where you castrate them with chemicals or with surgery, or you remove their womb, or you do things that cause irreversible, lifelong damage and harm.
00:19:46.140We're not going to do that to them. We stand with these kids. We stand with these parents.
00:19:50.440With Secretary Kennedy and President Trump and me as the Assistant Secretary for Hope, what we offer is truth, we offer hope, and we offer the truth of science, which is that the best way to treat these children is not the way my predecessor tried to treat these kids and the prior administration did.
00:20:10.580My predecessor, Levine, actually pushed to have age requirements lowered to let these kids have surgery and these terrible chemicals. Can you believe that?
00:20:21.600No. We stand for life. We stand for respect. We stand for—we believe in the dignity, the inherent dignity, and every man, woman, and child given by the Creator, we stand for that dignity.
00:20:34.260We respect that dignity, and we are never going to harm kids in this way, not in this administration.
00:20:38.740Yeah, these detransitioners, their voices are so powerful because they're able to, I mean, so horrifically speak to the practices that they had firsthand experience in dealing with, whether it's their bones and the chronic and consistent and lasting pain that they're in.
00:21:00.820I mean, just horrible things across the board. So, praise God. Thank you. We've seen—it's become more common now where political opinions and biases are affecting health care, which, of course, that is the one place where those things really should not matter.
00:21:20.200Sports, I believe, is another place, but health care, I mean, we're talking about people's lives. I've got two more videos I want to show you here. Let's play the first one.
00:21:29.020And for today's resistance tip, I vote. Anybody got any poison ivy, poison oak in their yard? Get some of that up with gloves, obviously. Get it in some water, like a gallon of water. Get some—get the poison ivy oak water, and I'm going to put it into a water gun. Aim for—aim for faces, hands.
00:21:57.200I don't know if you could hear that well, but this is a health care—I'm using that in air quotes—professional who is openly encouraging—there's more videos of her talking about the poisoning and the drugging and the incapacitating of ICE agents. That's a concern. One more quick video. Let's watch it here.
00:22:18.020As a labor and delivery nurse, it gives me great joy to wish Caroline Leavitt a fourth-degree tear. I hope that you fucking rip from, bow to stern, and never shit normally again, you cunt.
00:22:32.300I honestly feel uncomfortable as a fully grown adult even hearing that kind of language. Again, never mind coming from someone who is entrusted with people's lives, their health care. I believe that's gravely concerning. What's your take?
00:22:51.140It's just disgusting. I mean, addressing that second video first. So here you have a nurse, first of all, using that incredibly foul language. I would never use that kind of language referring to a patient.
00:23:05.240It's unbelievable. Really foul, disgusting language. But this individual wishing that someone—in this case, Caroline Leavitt, who is a patriot, right, who is out there—does she have to be doing what she's doing? No, she's doing it because she loves the country.
00:23:21.000She wants to serve this country. She wants to serve our amazing president. And so, what does this woman say? Hopes that she has a fourth-degree tear.
00:23:29.240Now, for those who don't know, that's talking about during labor, vaginal delivery, a woman could have a tear of the tissue of the vagina and those tissues because of the baby coming out.
00:23:39.880But a fourth-degree tear is a very, very serious situation. And she's wishing that upon Caroline Leavitt. The fact that she's wishing it upon anybody, that's not what a health care professional should be.
00:23:52.060I can't even use the term health care professional for that woman. That is a hate-filled woman. Let me tell you, I've taken care of many patients who have different political opinions than I do.
00:24:04.680And do I take care of them differently because of different politics? No. You love your patient. You take care of your patient.
00:24:11.840You treat that patient as the good Samaritan would act. This is disgusting what she said. That woman should have her license revoked. She should never be able to work again.
00:24:22.960And if that doesn't happen, that is a travesty. For the first video, again—
00:24:28.460Yeah. I mean, you know, well, you—I mean, Riley, you've gone through labor. And I don't know—I honestly don't know if you labor had a C-section.
00:24:35.600Regardless, you've gone through the birth process. And so think about wishing that on someone.
00:24:42.140Because not only are you talking about wishing them to have horrible pain and complications, but that provides complications down the road, that kind of injury during a vaginal delivery.
00:24:51.720So it's just disgusting. The first video talking about how you're going to harm ICE agents.
00:24:57.280ICE agents are there doing what they're doing, trying to help the country, doing what the president has commanded them to do.
00:25:03.520So it's unbelievable that these kind of things are going on. It really is.
00:25:09.120And this is why we have to fight even harder, people like you, people like me, people like our president, like Secretary Hegseth, Secretary Rollins, Secretary Kennedy.
00:25:19.320We have to fight even harder to bring this country forward, to heal this country, and to always do the right thing.
00:25:26.140And I truly believe in this administration. We always do the right thing.
00:25:30.400We always do what we believe is best for the country, best for our kids, for our moms and our dads, men and women.
00:25:36.340We're never going to back away from that. But those videos are disgusting. They're disgusting.
00:25:41.120Yeah. And they say this. I don't know if they genuinely believe that they're justified in saying it, or that they're the morally superior ones.
00:25:54.980But I'm right there with you. It's horrific, is what it is.
00:25:58.440I've said it time and time again, that the MAGA-Maha collab, I believe, was one of the most consequential things that could have happened leading up to November of 2024.
00:26:10.160Of course, the MAHA messaging, it resonated with a lot of voters across many different demographics.
00:26:20.160I mean, I would imagine most people care about their health, their longevity.
00:26:25.780Do you think that these issues, again, what MAHA, what HHS is pushing for, advocating for, what you guys are doing, do you think that will play a role in midterms as well?
00:26:36.580I think so. And it's so important to remember that the victories that we've had, and we've had so many victories in this country under President Trump and under Secretary Kennedy, victories with the dietary guidelines, truly important, victories with our declarations on gender dysphoria, the things that we're doing to protect our children, the victories that we've had even through my office, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health.
00:27:01.380So we had recently, believe it or not, Riley, we had $2.3 million of grants that had been accepted previously by Planned Parenthood.
00:27:13.400They returned those grants because of our oversight of Planned Parenthood.
00:27:17.400$2.3 million that is no longer going to go to killing children.
00:27:22.400$2.3 million that will no longer go to harming women.
00:27:26.460That was returned because of our oversight.
00:27:28.880So we've had so many victories under Secretary Kennedy, so many victories under President Trump, but it only takes one election cycle to start to reverse those wins.
00:27:39.040So November is so critically important.
00:27:42.100People like you and me, men and women like you and me, who really care about this country, who care about the children in the womb, who care about our kids with gender dysphoria, who care about women athletes being given a fair chance to compete.
00:28:32.680So a couple things coming up very big.
00:28:34.720One thing is really important, in March, there's going to be a National Women's Health Conference that is being run by the Department of Health and Human Services.
00:28:43.580It's going to be incredibly important.
00:28:45.300We want people to understand that we focus on the health of all Americans.
00:28:50.100Secretary Kennedy and President Trump are incredibly, incredibly committed to advancing the health of women in this country.
00:29:05.240Great content for America and for the health of women.
00:29:08.260For my office, we're going to continue to amplify and help America understand just how important the dietary guidelines are, what a huge win this has been for the country.
00:29:17.360We're going to continue to bring forth information about gender dysphoria and how we protect our children.
00:29:23.780Because this gender theory and treating kids the way my predecessor and the last administration treated kids, minors with gender dysphoria, that attitude is like a vampire.
00:29:36.320If you don't stake it through the heart and kill it, it'll come back when an administration changes.
00:29:40.500We're going to continue to hammer away on that.
00:29:42.520We're never taking our foot off the accelerator on that.
00:29:46.020We're going to continue to work to make America healthier, to make America greater.
00:29:49.640One of my roles is as the senior flag officer, in other words, the senior admiral in the Commission Corps of the Public Health Service.
00:29:58.620The Commission Corps of the Public Health Service is about 5,300, 5,400 physicians, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, therapists.
00:30:06.840And we are the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
00:30:09.740We are Secretary Kennedy's strike force.
00:30:11.980We are the tip of the spear, really the sharp edge on the blade when it comes to leading initiatives to improve public health in America.
00:30:19.220We're going to continue to work to make America healthier by carrying out what Secretary Kennedy wants us to do.
00:33:22.640Pray for us at the Department of Health and Human Services.
00:33:24.920Pray that we will continue to be strong and to do the right thing because we certainly have enemies on the left, as you know, individuals who want us to fail.
00:33:34.160But we have many more people who want us to succeed.