Letitia James, the Attorney General of the State of New York, came out with a statement on who our Governor is, what he has allegedly done, and what he and his office did to cover up his misdeeds toward nearly a dozen women over the past year.
00:00:00.520Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest, and provocative conversations.
00:00:12.180Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.
00:00:15.760Oh my gosh, the breaking news today on Governor Andrew Cuomo in New York.
00:00:20.620Would you believe we had Janice Dean booked?
00:00:22.620Sometimes you just get lucky in foreseeing the news cycle.
00:00:26.120We had her booked for a few days now to talk about the latest.
00:00:31.500And this morning, Letitia James, the Attorney General of the State of New York, came out with quite a statement on who our governor is, what he has allegedly done, and what he and his office did to cover up his misdeeds toward nearly a dozen women over the past year plus.
00:00:50.540Janice is here. Janice is the one who's been doggedly pursuing Andrew Cuomo for the deaths in the New York City and New York State nursing homes, which took the lives of both of her in-laws, and initially felt torn about if he went down, would it be because of the women issue?
00:01:07.560And why didn't the thousands upon thousands of seniors who were killed by this order he issued, sending COVID-positive patients back into nursing homes, matter?
00:01:17.060Why wasn't that enough? Well, it's a complicated explanation.
00:01:20.540But hearing what he allegedly did to these women, state troopers, young executive assistants, women who waited on rope lines to meet him, who were allegedly inappropriately touched by him, time and time again, the stomach turning.
00:01:36.180And Chris Cuomo's role in helping to cover it up, to silence them, to diminish them while he sits in an anchor post and says to America, I care very deeply about these issues, sexual harassment.
00:02:27.780Just before we toss to her, if you haven't watched it today, and apparently, you know, we're taping this around noon, Governor Cuomo's out denying, denying everything and standing firm.
00:02:38.880This guy's not going anywhere unless he's forced out.
00:02:41.660Here was Letitia James, a Democrat, attorney general of the state of New York, with her conclusions after an independent investigation was conducted into his, his behavior.
00:02:52.240The independent investigation has concluded that Governor Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women and in doing so violated federal and state law.
00:03:04.240Specifically, the investigation found that Governor Andrew Cuomo sexually harassed current and former New York state employees by engaging in unwelcome and non-consensual touching and making numerous offensive comments of a suggestive and sexual nature that created a hostile work environment for women.
00:03:28.980Over the course of the investigation, the investigators spoke to 179 individuals, including complainants, current and former members of the executive chamber, state troopers, additional state employees, and others who interacted regularly with the governor.
00:03:50.980In addition, they reviewed more than 74,000 pieces of evidence.
00:03:59.440Governor Cuomo sexually harassed multiple women, many of whom were young women, by engaging in unwanted groping, kisses, hugging, and by making inappropriate comments.
00:04:14.400Further, the governor and his senior team took actions to retaliate against at least one former employee for coming forward with her story.
00:04:25.880This investigation has revealed conduct that corrodes the very fabric and character of our state government.
00:04:35.340But none of this, none of this would have been illuminated if not for the heroic women who came forward.
00:04:44.880And I am inspired by all the brave women who came forward.
00:05:06.400It has direct communications from his accusers to others at and around the time of the alleged incidents.
00:05:13.080It has an appendix, an appendix, um, which, which has an email from Chris, Chris Cuomo, uh, appearing to draft a statement for his brother.
00:05:29.060You come up to come to your own decision about whether this is appropriate from a sitting New York governor in a sitting CNN anchor who purports to be objective.
00:05:40.160But we're going to kick it off with Janice Dean.
00:06:07.800I don't know about you, but I'm reeling.
00:06:10.160I'm kind of reeling in my seat about what we just heard, the specifics of what these women alleged and what he and his office allegedly did in response.
00:06:23.260I don't even know how to put this into words.
00:06:25.840You know, I always assumed, uh, that the sexual harassment charges would be the thing that might get him for many reasons.
00:06:35.060And I am so proud of those brave women today, you know, those young women who really risked their careers and their livelihoods and their reputation to go against this powerful monster.
00:06:52.720And to see our attorney general, Letitia James, who's a Democrat, go up there and just line by line, you know, deliver the information, the disgusting behavior.
00:07:10.400And, you know, it doesn't matter if we're talking about the nursing homes or we're talking about him giving out friends and friends and family COVID tests.
00:07:20.260It's all about abuse of power with this guy.
00:07:23.300And I think today is the first day that we're going to hopefully see some accountability.
00:07:32.100And the New York state Senate majority leader, a Democrat has, has, uh, already said he can no longer serve.
00:07:39.120He himself, um, said this, this tweet is making the rounds May 17th, 2013 quote.
00:07:45.660There should be a zero tolerance policy when it comes to sexual harassment.
00:07:49.720And we must send a clear message that this behavior is not tolerated.
00:07:55.060Um, there's no room for any of this in any workplace.
00:08:01.560And certainly not in the state house of the great state of New York.
00:08:06.600I want to go through with you some of the specific allegations because we learned a lot, a lot from Tish James, that presser and the document, the executive summary and so on that they put out, which is over 160 pages long.
00:08:19.400Um, just so people don't have to take your word for it or my word for it.
00:08:22.880Let's, let's see exactly what the women went in and told Letitia James.
00:08:27.840And by the way, her, her independent investigators, a lot of these, they take pains in the report to point out are corroborated by independent texts, friends who came forward, aides who admitted they saw it.
00:08:39.620And state troopers who witnessed the, some of the behaviors, it's not to say Andrew Cuomo doesn't deny it, but just know this isn't just, I mean, with all due respect to Christine Blasey Ford, it isn't just somebody coming forward after 30 years and saying, this is what I remember without any corroboration.
00:08:55.460This is painstaking executive assistant.
00:09:03.060According to the executive summary had close and intimate hugs with him, kisses on the cheeks, forehead, at least one kiss on the lips, touching and grabbing of her butt during hugs.
00:09:13.260And on one occasion while taking selfies with him, comments about her personal life relationships, calling her and another girl mingle mamas, inquiring multiple times about whether she had cheated or would cheat on her husband, asking for
00:09:25.440her, her, her help finding him a girlfriend.
00:09:27.500And then there was this at the executive mansion, November, 2020, when the governor during another close hug with this young executive assistant quote reached under her blouse and grabbed her breast.
00:11:02.640He, I mean, I just having gone through this, you've gone through this.
00:11:06.280You just want him to go away and shame.
00:11:10.080He, he allegedly did this to this woman.
00:11:13.780And the complaint says for over three months, this executive assistant kept this groping incident to herself and quote, planned to take it to the grave.
00:11:24.580Been there, but she found herself becoming emotional while watching the governor's state at a press conference on March 3rd, 2021, the following, listen to the comment that brought this woman forward.
00:11:38.600I want New Yorkers to hear from me directly on this.
00:11:46.080I fully support a woman's right to come forward.
00:11:50.940I now understand that I acted in a way that made people feel uncomfortable.
00:12:17.860Even though other women had come forward already, the dam had already broken.
00:12:22.200This young woman wasn't going to tell because, you know, very well, as along with me, that women are terrified of getting this label slapped around them, that they're a complainer, that they're going to be a me to her.
00:12:40.800She actually she confided to colleagues who reported her allegations to senior staff in the executive chamber who honestly, J.D., the stories about the senior staff are almost as concerning.
00:12:51.920The web of aides who couldn't have cared less about the 11 women staffers and outside the department as well who came forward.
00:13:08.720And the fact that these people, his administration, continued to try to smear these women, you know, up until a couple of weeks ago when Rich as a party, his top aide, was saying,
00:13:19.980I don't know if we can trust, you know, what's going on in the AG department.
00:13:23.740I don't know if we could trust these women and what they're saying.
00:13:49.980Well, you got to hand it to Lindsay Boylan, who came forward first in December of last year, I think it was, in a tweet who broke the dam, right?
00:13:59.020She was the first to actually say, this happened to me.
00:14:01.920He kissed me inappropriately on the lips.
00:14:03.780He touched other body parts, made me feel very uncomfortable, asked me to play strip poker.
00:14:07.880And at the time she was running for office and they went for her.
00:14:12.040They dismissed her as a political operative.
00:14:13.760She's a Democrat, but they dismissed her as some sort of a political operative.
00:14:17.000And she stood alone for a while there.
00:14:18.760And I'm sure she was scared because he is a bully.
00:14:21.560And then one by one, other women started started coming forward.
00:14:26.100One one that I need to talk to you about trooper number one is how she's described in the complaint.
00:14:32.160They talk about how in early November 2017, the governor briefly met this trooper on at an event on the RF Kennedy Bridge known as the Triborough Bridge in New York.
00:14:44.040After meeting her, he basically asked to have her join his protective services unit, even though she hadn't met the requirement to have at least three years of police service.
00:14:52.000He clearly just had an eye for this young woman and brought her on board.
00:15:00.920This is a state trooper harassed her on numerous occasions by number one, running his hand across her stomach from her belly button to her right hip when she held a door open for him in an event.
00:15:16.120But this is an independent investigation that says he did it.
00:15:19.700That says his denials do not hold credibility that talk about independent witnesses who verify these women.
00:15:24.320A state trooper there to protect his ass gets her stomach, such an intimate body part felt up by him as she's trying to open the door for him.
00:15:32.900She's already in a subservient position to him.
00:15:35.540Then he ran his finger down her back from the top of her neck to her spine, saying, hey, you while she was standing in front of him at an elevator.
00:15:43.380This poor woman needed a protective detail of her own, kissing her and only her on the cheek in front of another trooper, asking to kiss her on another another occasion, making sexually suggestive and gender based comments, including he asked her to help him find a girlfriend and described his criteria for a girlfriend as someone who, quote, can handle pain.
00:16:02.860It's been corroborated by several other troopers who witnessed much of this behavior, J.D.
00:16:30.840And I've always said I don't care what ultimately brings him down.
00:16:35.320I don't, you know, I don't care what it is.
00:16:38.440I do want justice for my in-laws because there's a laundry list of scandals, not only with the sexual harassment,
00:16:44.340but, you know, with the nursing homes and him covering up the numbers and the $5.1 million book and using state resources and the friends and family COVID tests when nursing homes couldn't get them.
00:16:55.500And his brother, his brother needs to be looked at as well.
00:17:00.160His brother was giving detailed information almost as a lawyer to his brother and the administration on what to do about his sexual harassment charges.
00:22:02.360I mean, she she's out there basically saying, I believe these women.
00:22:05.460And well, I mean, there's I don't know what person except for his family would go on the record and try to defend him right now, to be honest.
00:40:05.180But the mortality, we're not going to see the kind of mortality that we have had in the last year and a half.
00:40:10.680Every season, there will be some older people who have a weakened immune system that will, unfortunately, die from this virus in future years.
00:40:22.340But these huge waves that we have seen on mortality, those we will not see once the pandemic is over, once it's endemic.
00:40:33.660All right, a couple of things to follow up in there.
00:40:53.240And I don't know, because to me, as a public health scientist and somebody who's been working with vaccines for a long, long time, it's just stunning.
00:41:05.360Two and a half thousand years ago, the Greeks, they knew that there were natural immunity.
00:41:09.720So when they had an epidemic, they used people who had survived the disease to care for those who were sick, which was smart to do.
00:41:23.960So it reminds me of any mother who's had a sick child over and over in their toddler years knows that she must have some sort of immunities because we don't get the virus over and over that our kids are getting.
00:41:38.800Because, you know, for me, I'm 50 years old.
00:42:12.420So maybe that has changed people not understanding natural immunity as much as we used to do.
00:42:20.380But in the beginning, there was no reason to believe that COVID will not provide immunity for the future.
00:42:29.680And now we have the scientific studies that shows that if you've had COVID, you have very good immunity, not only to actually COVID.
00:42:41.280There has been a study out of Fred Hutchinson and Emory who shows that those who have recovered from COVID-19, they also have immunity against SARS-CoV-1.
00:42:52.800So SARS-CoV-1 that we had earlier in this century, as well as immunity against the four common coronavirus that have been around for a long time.
00:43:09.740I mean, other than does the CDC want to line the pockets of Pfizer and Moderna and J&J?
00:43:15.820Because that that would make sense, right?
00:43:17.340Just we want to get as many people getting vaccines and therefore these companies getting paid as possible.
00:43:24.140Or they have a sincerely held belief that you can raise your immunity level from, I don't know, prevention of 80 percent to prevention 90 percent of the time.
00:43:34.560If you just add on to your natural immunity with the vaccine.
00:43:38.360I mean, what do you think is the reason they're essentially harassing people who have had COVID to not go in restaurants and not get on airplanes and not go into arenas if they don't get jabbed?
00:43:50.200I don't know what the reason, because there's no public health reasons for it.
00:43:55.200And it's also stunning that you have scientists who obviously understand this, but they're not speaking out about it.
00:44:01.920I mean, we have had the virus for about almost two years now.
00:44:09.200So we have very solid evidence that we have long term protection.
00:44:14.560The vaccine hasn't been around, has been around for a year shorter.
00:44:19.180So we have less evidence for the vaccines.
00:44:21.980And you wouldn't normally for viruses, you would expect the vaccines to be not quite as good in terms of generating the same immunity as natural disease.
00:44:32.900But this idea that people who have had COVID need to get vaccinated is very strange.
00:44:39.100And it's also very damaging because there are places in this world where older people who need this vaccine because they are at high risk.
00:44:58.020And there are many people in South Asia, in Africa, in South America, and so on, who has not received the vaccine.
00:45:06.800So instead of vaccinated people in the U.S. and Europe who already had the disease and who are therefore immune, those vaccines should go to other countries.
00:45:30.720And I don't know, you tell me whether you think it's appropriate for them to even be, they haven't yet talked about mandating it for the young ones, but some of the schools are going to do that.
00:46:44.740And that's sort of surprising because that's sort of their job, I think.
00:46:47.800But even if all of those were COVID deaths, it's still less than an average influenza season.
00:46:56.520So the risk, the mortality risk for children, that they can get infected, most are asymptomatics and will be mildly asymptomatic.
00:47:04.320Very few will be hospitalized and almost nobody would have mortality from this.
00:47:09.540So it's very surprising that there's this push and drive to vaccinate children because we don't know enough about adverse reactions.
00:47:19.400We know that myocarditis, which is that the vaccine causes myocarditis in young people.
00:47:27.180But we don't yet know what exactly, we don't have a precise estimate of the risk for children of myocarditis as of yet.
00:47:35.900Yeah, right. And I think that's a legitimate worry for parents, myocarditis.
00:47:41.760I mean, families like my own, where we have a bad history, especially with the male population in my family, of heart disease and heart events.
00:47:49.620And I don't want anything that's going to further potentially compromise my children's hearts when the risk on the other side is essentially a mild cold.
00:47:59.620Yeah. And a good example is actually Sweden, because in the first wave in the spring of 2020, Sweden was the only major Western country who did not close the schools, where schools were open throughout the pandemic, throughout the height of that wave.
00:48:14.840And there were, and this was done without any mask in the school, without social distancing in the schools.
00:48:25.600Six children were told to go home, but there was no testing of the children.
00:48:33.040And upon the 1.8 million children ages 1 to 15, both in preschool, daycare and schools, of those 1.8 million children in Sweden during that first wave, there were exactly zero deaths from COVID.
00:48:50.320And there were a few hospitalizations, but not many, maybe half a dozen, two dozen.
00:48:56.700So this is not a serious disease for children.
00:49:02.500How the immune system works is when children are young, they are exposed to various viruses, and that builds their immune system that they rely on for the rest of their lives.
00:49:12.780So I would say that with this pandemic, we're actually kind of lucky in the sense that it is not something that affects children very much.
00:49:23.160Well, and now we've vaccinated 90% of the old people, 90% of the people over 65 in America have gotten at least one jab, 80%, and it's growing, have gotten double jabbed, so they're fully vaccinated.
00:49:38.500So the most vulnerable population is protected, or if they haven't gotten the jab, there's a reason for it, right?
00:49:45.280They've chosen they can't, and therefore they'll take the appropriate precautions, or they just don't believe in it, and that's freedom, that's their choice.
00:49:53.040They'll live with the consequences one way or the other.
00:49:55.220But what we're hearing from Fauci right now, this is a quote, is that the fact is, if you get infected, even if you are without symptoms, you very well may infect another person who may be vulnerable.
00:50:08.000But then he says, so in essence, you are encroaching on their individual rights.
00:50:15.000So if you get it, if you've been vaccinated, but you get it, and you have the virus in your nose, and you give it to somebody else who is not vaccinated, Fauci's message is, you're encroaching on their individual rights.
00:50:30.200How are we supposed to deal with that?
00:51:05.360That's the only thing I can say about it.
00:51:07.540Well, I mean, the unvaccinated are the ones who are getting sick, right?
00:51:10.520It's the people who are vaccinated who are getting these breakthrough infections.
00:51:14.020First of all, the numbers are very low, which you wouldn't know to watch the news right now.
00:51:17.780Axios had a report pointing out that less than 0.1% of vaccinated Americans are testing positive for COVID-19.
00:51:27.380So it's 164 million Americans have been vaccinated.
00:51:32.020They say around 125,000 people have tested positive for breakthrough infections in about 38 states.
00:51:38.120Again, that represents less than 0.08% of those who have been vaccinated and 0.001% have died.
00:51:47.980So, you know, your risks of getting this thing, if you've been vaccinated, are still extremely low.
00:51:53.680And then when you get it, your risks of getting seriously sick from it are even lower.
00:51:57.420And your risk of dying if you've been vaccinated are next to nothing.
00:52:00.340So this is about the people who have chosen not to get vaccinated, falling subject to the Delta variant.
00:52:07.280And the CDC's messaging is somehow the rest of us who've been vaccinated have an obligation to protect them by masking up now, universal masking.
00:52:19.740Well, if somebody doesn't want to get vaccinated, that's their own responsibility for doing that.
00:52:31.020And if they're old, I think they've made a wrong decision.
00:52:33.720But that's a decision that they can make.
00:52:36.300But they shouldn't then demand that other people put masks on to protect them, especially since there's not much evidence about masks, actually.
00:52:46.120So the key thing we should do is to encourage all people to get the vaccines.
00:52:53.740If they got only one shot, they should be encouraged to get the second if it was Pfizer or Moderna.
00:52:58.880And the way to do that is not through mandates or vaccine passports, because public health should be based on trust.
00:53:06.160So they should be encouraged to do so.
00:53:09.380And if there are people who want it, who haven't gotten it yet, maybe because they are homeless and so on, then we should have more outreach efforts to get the vaccines to them.
00:53:21.420But to put masks on people or children, for example, that's not the right way to do this.
00:53:31.480I saw you said something like you had an alternative way of referring to masks on children that you proposed.
00:53:38.600What do you think people should be saying?
00:53:43.520Children should not wear masks, I think, at all.
00:55:34.680Jim Garrity of National Review had a great line who said, clearly, these educators were not all that worried about catching COVID.
00:55:40.700But he says, apparently, the fear of COVID was just powerful enough to make returning to the classroom unthinkable, but not quite powerful enough to get them to get off their butts and go get vaccinated.
00:55:54.460Yeah, I think that should teachers should be able to decide themselves if they want to be vaccinated.
00:55:59.280So I don't think there should be compulsory vaccinations.
00:56:01.680I don't believe in mandatory vaccination on COVID-19.
00:56:23.560And Sweden has never had vaccine mandates for any vaccines.
00:56:27.300And Sweden has one of the highest vaccination rates in the world.
00:56:30.420And did very well with vaccinating older people with limited vaccine supplies.
00:56:35.700So it's much better to have voluntary vaccinations.
00:56:41.640And I think that those people who are pushing vaccine passports and vaccine mandates, they have done much more to damage the confidence in vaccines than the so-called anti-vaxxers have ever done in the last, over several decades.
00:56:57.260So I've been working with vaccines for a long time.
00:57:01.760I think it's one of the greatest invention of mankind has saved so many lives from smallpox and onwards.
00:57:08.300And we spent decades to build up a trust in vaccines through various monitoring, the safety and so on, and education.
00:57:22.860And now, and there's been a small group of people, anti-vaxxers, who has been sort of arguing, but they haven't been successful because there is very high confidence in vaccines.
00:57:33.400But now these, they call themselves pro-vaccine people, but I think they're actually more anti-vaccine because they are arguing for vaccine passports and vaccine mandates.
00:57:43.760And that has, it's very counterproductive.
00:57:45.620So they have done more damage to vaccine confidence than the anti-vaxxers ever did over a couple of decades.
00:57:53.780Can we spend a minute on vaccines since you are an expert?
00:57:59.220There's a belief, I know by many, that the vaccine could cause infertility in women in particular, but possibly in men as well.
00:58:08.960Is there any reason to actually believe that?
00:58:11.820I don't think there's any data on that as of yet.
00:58:17.240But the key thing to remember is that when you have a new vaccine and when you have a new drug on the market, there are always questions about the safety.
00:58:28.760For example, when the COVID vaccines came out, we didn't know about the myocarditis.
00:58:32.880Now we do know that the vaccines causes myocarditis, and especially in younger men.
00:58:39.720But we didn't know that in the beginning.
00:58:41.880So when a new vaccine or new drugs comes from the market, there are questions and marks about the safety, which is why we monitor the safety.
00:58:50.800And it takes a few years before we actually have a really good picture of that.
00:58:55.220So if we look at the COVID vaccine, if you are, let's say, 75 years old, well, your risk from dying from COVID is quite high.
00:59:07.260So even if there's a small risk for some adverse reaction to the vaccine, it's still worthwhile for you to take the vaccines.
00:59:15.900But you lower your risk of COVID quite a bit for a potential small increase risk for something else that we don't necessarily know about yet.
00:59:30.780If you're 75 years old, you should absolutely get the vaccine.
00:59:34.260On the other hand, if you're 15 years old, your risk from dying from COVID is minuscule.
00:59:42.460So then the thing is, even a small risk from a vaccine from myocarditis or something else can tip the balance so that it's no longer an advantage-benefit-risk ratio.
00:59:59.020And that takes time to figure out exactly what those risks are.
01:00:05.540So we shouldn't, at this point, I think, push vaccines on children.
01:00:10.020We should certainly not mandate vaccines on anybody when we don't know exactly what the safety profile is of these vaccines.
01:00:17.360Up next, we're going to talk about some testimonials from doctors in various places, like Louisiana, saying hospitals are starting to fill up.
01:00:24.380And this is becoming an ongoing problem.
01:00:26.000And what does Dr. Koldorf think about that?
01:00:29.160And then I'll ask him about his experience on that CDC committee and why they bounced him off.
01:00:35.300But first, we want to bring you a feature we have here on the MK Show called Asked and Answered, where we answer some of our listener mail.
01:00:42.400And Steve Krakauer, who's our executive producer, culls through the many submissions to find a few that sound interesting.
01:00:49.120And today, what's the one that we've chosen, Steve?
01:00:51.260Yeah, Megan, this one came to us from questions at devilmaycaremedia.com.
01:00:55.920Love the questions that we're getting in there.
01:01:28.100I've heard it all from students like you and their parents as well.
01:01:31.100And I have a very good friend who's very well educated and wants her kids to be as well.
01:01:35.420And she tells her kids, just go along.
01:01:38.420You just while you're in school, you just yes, of course, whatever you think, because, you know, she just wants them to get into the best school possible.
01:02:11.080That's true to who you are and your own values.
01:02:12.920And I think understanding that it's dicey doing that in an environment in which they will be against you, right, especially the people in power over you will be against you.
01:02:21.180I think it can be helpful to to use other people.
01:02:25.020So, you know, whatever it is, like you might cite Abigail Schreier or you might cite Glenn Lowry or whoever, some sort of well-respected people in the field rather than putting it in your own words.
01:02:36.360You can say, well, what do you think of whatever Coleman Hughes's assertion as follows about the police?
01:02:43.680Or, you know, you could you could let's say you were talking about a Me Too issue and everybody was like, yes, you know, these people are all terrible and they deserve to lose their jobs.
01:02:51.640You could say, what do you think about Megyn Kelly's assertion that as a Me Too participant, I guess you could say.
01:02:58.780That, you know, this the movement's gone too far and that we've eroded due process to the point where the movement's lost credibility.
01:03:05.000Right. So if you can sort of put it in the in the mouth of somebody who's lived it, somebody with credibility and take it away from you, Charlotte.
01:03:13.140I think that can help because it's you're introducing ideas into the discussion as opposed to arguing your own personal viewpoint, which makes you a bigger target in an environment like that.
01:03:24.660I think that's worthwhile. And I think it I think we're going to get back to the place where that kind of thing is OK.
01:03:31.340I'm not saying you're going to win hearts and minds, but you might.
01:03:34.880And what I have found is when you are the voice of reason in a situation like that, you do have secret.
01:03:40.560But I don't know if I want to say admirers, but people who agree with you, secret allies who are so glad you did it.
01:03:47.680And I think it's almost how a leader is born.
01:03:50.500Right. It's just taking risks that other people are too afraid to take.
01:03:54.500And let's say it does lead to a B plus instead of an A.
01:03:59.000Right. Like what? Let's play that out. Where does that go?
01:04:01.660So your grade point average is going to be a little lower. So you're not going to get into Harvard.
01:04:04.860We shouldn't go there anyway, because if you're not woke, you're going to have a miserable experience at Harvard.
01:04:08.900And you don't need to go to Harvard at all. I mean, are you dying to become an investment banker?
01:04:13.980I guess it could be helpful or go on to med school.
01:04:16.900Sure. OK, I guess that would increase your odds of getting in.
01:04:19.600But why would you want to do those two things that becoming an investment banker is basically assuring yourself a lifetime at the office?
01:04:26.720Yes, you get a big paycheck. When are you going to spend your money?
01:04:29.320I just think reevaluate your life goals. Right.
01:04:31.980Like, do you want to surround yourself with people who don't see the world at all the way you do and think you're a terrible person for the next eight years?
01:04:38.900I wouldn't. I went to Syracuse undergrad in Albany Law School and it worked out fine.
01:04:43.800Why? Because when I got there, I actually worked my butt off and that opens just as many doors, just as many doors.
01:04:49.600If you work on your EQ, you work on your personality, you work on being well-rounded.
01:04:53.780Those will open a lot of doors that just a high GPA won't.
01:04:56.600So it's not all about pleasing some jerk teacher who's going to judge you for having a different viewpoint.
01:05:02.560Some of it is about ethics, values and maintaining your full self.
01:05:07.640So for whatever that's worth, that's what I'm going to tell my own kids and what I already have told my own kids.
01:05:59.860Let's talk about 20 to 40, because if you're between the ages of 20 and 40, you're not in the high, high risk group or even 20 to 50, let's say.
01:06:07.440Not the high, high risk group, but there is some risk.
01:06:10.000And even now I heard there was a there was a clip online that went viral of a doctor out of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, a female doctor saying we the beds are filling up.
01:06:20.000And she said there are no more beds for non covid emergency patients.
01:06:24.560You know, people who have heart attacks and so on are getting I don't know if turned away is the right phrase, but they're they're struggling to find a place in these Louisiana hospitals for them.
01:06:33.380And she said we're missing too many staff because of covid infections.
01:06:36.820And this would be among younger staff.
01:06:39.880Right. This is she's not talking about 70 year old nurses and doctors.
01:06:43.120But her point is this Delta surge is having a very real effect in the hospitals that she sees.
01:06:50.120And I think that people in that age group are more thinking, I'm probably not going to die from it.
01:06:56.620I don't know what the long term effects of the vaccine are.
01:06:59.160I know women have talked about fertility.
01:07:02.260And so what would you say to that group, 20 to 50 year olds who are not vaccinated, who are have the same concerns about we don't know the long term effects?
01:07:08.860So in science, there are certain things we sort of do know, but there's also gray areas.
01:07:14.620And I I strongly encourage people who are older people to get the vaccines.
01:07:20.780I don't think children should get the vaccines, but there's the gray area between 20 and 50, where I think it has to be left to each person to make a decision, because we have a pretty good picture of what the risk from covid is.
01:07:36.260But we don't necessarily have a good overall picture of what the benefit risk ratio is.
01:07:43.940So if somebody wants to get the vaccine, I don't think they should be afraid of the vaccine.
01:07:49.700But if somebody doesn't want to get it, I don't think we should hold that against them.
01:07:54.960Now, if you work in a hospital or if you work in a nursing home and you're 25 years old, then I do think it makes sense to get the vaccine to protect the older people that you work with.
01:08:06.260So I think that is and I think that's that's why health care personnel and nursing home staff were sort of priority when these vaccines were rolled out, not so much for their own protection, but to protect the people they work with.
01:08:20.940So they're the vaccine mandates are spreading.
01:08:24.580We just heard in New York that they're they're now saying that you're going to need proof of vaccination for indoor dining.
01:08:33.200So you're not going to be able to go to a restaurant in New York City anymore unless you can prove you've been vaccinated.
01:08:46.220But as a practical matter, I feel like we're going to see more and more and more of them.
01:08:52.600And I just wonder whether, you know, what would happen if there were something, a terrible long term effect of the vaccine that we haven't yet uncovered.
01:09:01.400Like, do you have any concerns about that?
01:09:03.620As somebody who's been dealing with vaccines for your for your professional life, do you worry that something's going to come out two, three years down the line?
01:09:12.360It's going to really be a game changer on these things.
01:09:16.220I'm not losing sleep over it, but of course, it can happen.
01:09:20.380We have found a few different adverse reactions.
01:09:24.360Luckily, they are very rare, not common, but there could be others that we haven't found yet.
01:09:32.460There are certain types of adverse reactions that are easy to detect.
01:09:36.060For example, we know anaphylaxis, which can happen after vaccines, and it usually happen within half an hour.
01:10:07.420I wouldn't not get the vaccine because I was worried about it.
01:10:12.140But if you if you've had COVID, I don't see any reasons to take even those small risks because you're going to have good immunity.
01:10:20.920And more importantly, I think it's unethical for universities or restaurants or so to require vaccine mandates because, as I said, these vaccines are needed elsewhere in the in the in the in the developing world.
01:10:35.920The other thing is, there may be there may be a long term effect of the vaccine that we don't yet know, but there may also be a long term effect of COVID.
01:10:42.200So, you know, you have you do have to engage in a risk calculation on a personal basis.
01:10:48.440Now, let me ask you about Delta, because they're saying that Delta peaked in India and in the UK pretty quickly.
01:10:55.260It was basically over the course of a month.
01:10:58.880Do you think that's what's going to happen here?
01:11:01.080Because I think folks are wondering how long we're going to be dealing with this very infectious Delta variant.
01:11:05.760And as we go back into school and we go back into the cities after the summer, do you think it's going to look like it looked in April 2020 for the next 10 months?
01:11:18.280No, but also the U.S. is such a big country, so the patterns are very different.
01:11:25.460We're seeing increased cases in the southern parts of the United States, for example, but we're only seeing very modest increases in mortality there.
01:11:37.540So it could very well be, I think, that in those states it's going to come down again, and it has already started to come down in some of them.
01:11:44.640But then there might be other states where we will see an upsurge in the fall that would not surprise me in terms of cases.
01:11:54.320On the other hand, the key thing is we should not worry about cases.
01:13:31.320And then the other thing that we have to deal with is, and I think that's the top priority now, because of the lockdowns, we have a backlog of other things for other health, for cancer, for cardiovascular disease, for diabetes, for mental health, and so on, for childhood vaccinations.
01:13:54.440So if I were in charge, I would focus on catching up with all of those things, catching up with cancer treatments and cancer screenings, catching up with diabetes treatments, dealing with all the mental health issues that we're dealing with.
01:14:14.100And it's not just a public health issue.
01:14:16.560I think it's something we have to sort of take care of each other.
01:14:18.820So it's not just the public health that has to deal with these mental health issues that we now have.
01:14:25.600It's something that we have to try to help each other with, with neighbors and family members and colleagues at work and so on to help us all overcome those issues that we have seen now with these lockdowns.
01:14:40.820So all that harms from the lockdowns is something that we're going to have to live with and die with for many years to come now.
01:14:47.660Because, for example, if we didn't detect a cancer or if the cancer wasn't treated in time, most of those wouldn't have died in 2020, 2021, but they might die three or four years from now instead of living another 15, 20 years.
01:15:02.320Can I just round back with you on masks for one second, because there has been an ongoing debate about whether they work as we bring back this, the CDC is recommending national mask mandates.
01:15:14.020The former covid advisor to Joe Biden was on TV this week admitting that the masks we all wear, they don't work, that, you know, sort of the the garden varieties mask that we buy in any given store, that they don't work.
01:15:30.540We know today that many of the face cloth coverings that people wear are not very effective in reducing any of the virus movement in or out.
01:15:37.800Either you're breathing out or you're breathing in.
01:15:39.740And so basically he went on to say without an N95, it's kind of pointless.
01:17:03.840So so this public health message that masks will keep you safe have actually been very dishonest.
01:17:14.780And I think a lot of people did not did not socially distance them or physically distance themselves sufficiently because they thought they'd believe this public health message is that masks kept them safe when they didn't.
01:17:28.760So if you're a 75 year old and you haven't gotten the vaccine yet, you it is important to physically distance yourself so you don't expose to the virus from others.
01:18:04.240We've been following your work for a while here.
01:18:05.920We love the Great Barrington Declaration where you actually you and some other very well respected doctors called for focused protection of older high risk people instead of these oppressive lockdowns, which caused incalculable harm around the globe.
01:19:00.820And I objected to the pause for those about 50.
01:19:03.640I think for for people below 50, I think there was a good rationale for doing a pause.
01:19:08.180But for those over 50, because there was absolutely no evidence that these blood clots were risk for older people and there was evidence that they were not at increased risk.
01:19:23.000So and this J&J vaccine actually had a very important role because it's a one dose vaccine.
01:19:31.460So for certain populations, which are harder to reach, less affluent people or people in very rural areas, which is difficult to go to the doctor, a one dose vaccine is quite an advantage to have.
01:19:47.460So by pausing it, it made it more difficult to vaccinate older people who needed this vaccine.
01:19:55.020And I think it undermined confidence in the vaccine.
01:19:58.020I mean, that was kind of the end of the Johnson & Johnson vaccine for many.
01:20:03.800So I guess I'm in the usual position of having been removed from CDC committee for being too pro vaccine.
01:20:12.660Well, and then four days later, the CDC once again allowed the J&J vaccine and Rochelle Walensky used your exact reasoning in reversing that decision.
01:20:38.340I feel like Rochelle Walensky is she is a true sky is falling type public health official.
01:20:44.480I mean, she just seems to put the worst spin on everything.
01:20:47.360She seems to assume disaster lurks around every corner.
01:20:50.640And I've kind of stopped listening to her.
01:20:53.080But what is your opinion of her and those making these decisions for us?
01:20:57.300I think one important principle of public health is that one should not use fear and shame as a tool in public health.
01:21:12.040One should base it on trust by giving honest assessment of public health issues, including vaccines.
01:21:20.640And it's also important to let many different voices to be heard, because it's okay for scientists to sometimes have different views.
01:21:31.620They see things from different perspectives.
01:21:33.680But the key thing is then to let all the voices be heard and compare notes between what different scientists think.
01:21:41.720So to remove certain scientists because they have a different opinion about some topic, I wouldn't do that, because as a scientist, those who think similar to me, I don't really need to listen to them, because I know what they think.
01:21:57.360But the people who view things differently from me, those are the ones who are really interesting for me to listen to, because those are the ones I can learn something from or see from a different perspective.
01:22:06.800And then I have to sort of see if my own views holds up or not after listening to them.
01:22:12.660So I think it's more important to listen to the scientists who have different views than I have than it is to listen to those who have the same views that I have.
01:22:22.080And that's not what they're doing right now?