The Megyn Kelly Show - Scientific Establishment vs Trump Over CDC, Lisa Cook Fights On, Failing City Schools： AM Update 9⧸2

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00:00:30.000 Good morning, everyone. I'm Megan Kelly.

00:00:34.980 It's Tuesday, September 2nd, 2025, and this is your AM Update.

00:00:39.720 There's a lot of trouble at CDC, and it's going to require getting rid of some people over the long term.

00:00:46.440 It's the Trump administration versus former CDC officials over new vaccine guidelines and more.

00:00:52.660 The claim that this might be clerical error or just a mistake, that's not going to fly.

00:00:56.680 Fed Governor Lisa Cook continues her legal battle to keep her job despite mounting allegations of mortgage fraud against her.

00:01:04.700 And a deep dive into the failing schools in Baltimore and why it's fueling the crime epidemic in the city.

00:01:11.640 You know, the one their Democratic governor won't acknowledge?

00:01:14.340 All that and more coming up in just a moment on your AM Update.

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00:02:33.660 It's all-out war between President Trump's Department of Health and Human Services and the Old Guard establishment scientific figures.

00:02:42.420 Last week, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announcing a series of actions to end COVID vaccine mandates, demand more studies from the vaccine companies, and an end to the emergency use authorization,

00:02:54.220 which means boosters will still be widely available for seniors and high-risk groups, but no longer automatically authorized for mass use.

00:03:03.260 It's the latest in a series of moves aiming to fundamentally restructure the department he says is too entrenched in bureaucracy and no longer meeting the scientific gold standard.

00:03:12.920 In July, HHS announcing a substantial restructuring, consolidating and eliminating various departments.

00:03:19.980 In June, RFKJ dismissing the entire Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, the group that develops and sets vaccine guidance for the nation.

00:03:30.040 The group that failed to make clear that the vaccine had a real risk of causing myocarditis, particularly in teens, even though they knew.

00:03:41.000 Yeah, that group.

00:03:42.840 Last week, the Trump administration also firing CDC Director Susan Minares only about a month after her Senate confirmation amid a vaccine policy dispute.

00:03:52.740 Minares' lawyers saying she refused to, quote, rubber stamp unscientific, reckless directives and to fire dedicated health experts.

00:04:01.780 The White House citing Minares' clear refusal to implement Make America Healthy Again directives as the reason for her dismissal.

00:04:09.780 Four top-ranking CDC officials resigning in the wake of Minares' ouster, clearly trying to generate buzz and create a firestorm around RFKJ's management of HHS.

00:04:20.960 Secretary Kennedy responding to the fallout on Thursday at an event in Texas.

00:04:26.000 The CDC is an agency that is very troubled for a very long time.

00:04:31.060 And anybody who lives through the COVID pandemic and saw all of these bizarre recommendations that were not science-based, all the misinformation,

00:04:39.220 understands that the CDC has on its website today.

00:04:43.020 There's a lot of trouble at CDC, and it's going to require getting rid of some people over the long term in order for us to change the institutional culture.

00:04:53.800 Dr. Dimitri Daskalakis, who, when not posing for magazine covers in a leather pentagram harness or taking R-rated pictures in BDSM wear or lecturing us on how the proper term is pregnant people, not pregnant women,

00:05:10.500 when he was not doing that, he was overseeing the vaccine recommendations program.

00:05:15.180 He took to ABC over the weekend to sound the alarm about the failure to follow the science.

00:05:22.020 I only see harm coming. I may be wrong.

00:05:25.380 But based on what I'm seeing, based on what I've heard with the new members of the Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices, or ACIP,

00:05:32.700 they're really moving in an ideologic direction where they want to see the undoing of vaccination.

00:05:38.060 They do want to see the undoing of mRNA vaccination.

00:05:40.640 They have a very specific target on COVID, but I do fear that they have other things that they are going to be working on.

00:05:48.120 Nine former heads of the CDC, including Rochelle Walensky, best known for her public crying during the pandemic,

00:05:57.100 and her open lamentations about how scared she was about the impending doom we were facing if people did not take the COVID vax,

00:06:06.060 writing in a New York Times op-ed yesterday, quote,

00:06:08.820 What Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has done to the CDC

00:06:13.580 and to our nation's public health system over the past several months,

00:06:17.680 culminating in his decision to fire Dr. Susan Menares as CDC director days ago,

00:06:23.120 is unlike anything we have ever seen at the agency,

00:06:26.800 and unlike anything our country had ever experienced.

00:06:30.520 Last week, Secretary Kennedy announcing September 18th and 19th as the next meeting of the newly appointed

00:06:37.640 Vaccine Advisory Committee.

00:06:39.760 That committee now headed by Dr. Martin Kulldorff, an expert in vaccine safety, like a real expert,

00:06:47.100 and a former longtime Harvard Medical School professor who says he was fired last year over his stance on COVID vaccine mandates.

00:06:55.800 Along with now-NIH director Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, Kulldorff was part of the Great Barrington Project,

00:07:03.200 correctly arguing against mass lockdowns early in the pandemic,

00:07:08.340 a recommendation that was correct, but for which he was attacked by Dr. Fauci and Francis Collins,

00:07:15.220 who headed up the NIH, with orders that he be smeared as some sort of fringe doctor.

00:07:20.880 Republican Senator from Louisiana, Bill Cassidy, whose Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee

00:07:26.980 provides oversight of HHS, and who almost tanked the RFKJ nomination,

00:07:32.640 calling for this meeting to be canceled in a statement, quote,

00:07:36.180 serious allegations have been made about the meeting agenda, membership, and lack of scientific process

00:07:40.880 being followed for the now-announced September meeting.

00:07:44.020 The meeting should not occur until significant oversight has been conducted.

00:07:47.720 If the meeting proceeds, any recommendations made should be rejected as lacking legitimacy,

00:07:53.300 given the seriousness of the allegations and the current turmoil in CDC leadership.

00:07:58.420 President Trump writing yesterday on Truth Social, quote,

00:08:00.760 it is very important that the drug companies justify the success of their various COVID drugs.

00:08:06.080 Many people think they are a miracle that saved millions of lives.

00:08:09.480 Others disagree.

00:08:10.780 With CDC being ripped apart over this question, I want the answer and I want it now.

00:08:14.980 I have been shown information from Pfizer and others that is extraordinary,

00:08:19.560 but they never seem to show those results to the public.

00:08:22.660 Why not?

00:08:23.580 I want them to show them now to CDC and the public and clear up this mess one way or the other.

00:08:30.080 I hope Operation Warp Speed was as brilliant as many say it was.

00:08:34.240 If not, we all want to know about it and why.

00:08:37.920 President Trump's Operation Warp Speed helped bring COVID vaccines to the market in record time,

00:08:42.980 though not without controversy.

00:08:44.220 Under Trump 2.0, the administration is focusing on bringing greater transparency

00:08:48.740 and requiring more transparency from the drug companies, too.

00:08:53.260 Big pharma.

00:08:54.400 Despite the professed panic of the scientific establishment.

00:09:00.660 Fed overseer Lisa Cook fighting in court this week to retain her position 0.99

00:09:05.000 on the semi-independent Federal Reserve Board

00:09:07.920 after President Trump fired her for cause amid multiple mortgage fraud allegations.

00:09:13.100 At stake when a president can remove a person who oversees the Federal Reserve for cause.

00:09:19.400 The Fed, the body that sets interest rates for the nation,

00:09:22.820 described in May by the U.S. Supreme Court as a uniquely structured quasi-private entity

00:09:27.400 with a distinct historical tradition.

00:09:29.460 The agency operates independently of the executive branch,

00:09:33.420 though board members are nominated by the president and confirmed by the Senate for 14-year terms.

00:09:39.900 Ms. Cook was nominated by President Biden and narrowly confirmed her term set to expire in 2038.

00:09:46.620 Last Friday, Cook's lawyer, Abby Lowell, asking Biden-appointed D.C. District Court judge,

00:09:51.800 Gia Cobb, to block Ms. Cook's removal, to declare her termination illegal, and define the term for cause. 0.68

00:09:59.940 Judge Cobb not issuing a ruling on Friday,

00:10:02.520 instead giving Cook's attorneys until today to respond to a legal brief

00:10:05.800 filed by the DOJ shortly before Friday's hearing.

00:10:08.920 The DOJ arguing, quote,

00:10:10.280 The filing also noting Cook has yet to offer any counter to the allegations against her.

00:10:30.800 Indeed, we have yet to hear a denial.

00:10:32.580 To the contrary, her lawyers argued last week that at least one of the allegedly fraudulent actions

00:10:37.660 was merely, quote, an error, not that it didn't happen.

00:10:42.440 In August, the nation's top housing finance regulator, Bill Pulte,

00:10:46.280 submitting two criminal referrals against Cook,

00:10:49.300 alleging fraud on mortgage loan applications across three different properties,

00:10:54.000 where Cook allegedly wrongly classified the purpose of the properties,

00:10:57.760 potentially to secure more favorable financial terms.

00:11:01.280 Cook's legal team pointing to President Trump's highly public battle with the Fed

00:11:04.700 as the true motive for her firing.

00:11:06.760 Attorney Lowell also arguing the incidents occurred before her term began in 2022,

00:11:13.160 and therefore somehow do not qualify as proper cause for termination.

00:11:18.380 Even CNN's senior legal analyst, Ellie Honig,

00:11:21.860 skeptical Cook's arguments will hold up in court.

00:11:24.540 Thus far, and I find this really notable, in the briefs that have been submitted by Lisa Cook's lawyer,

00:11:30.360 she was the plaintiff here.

00:11:31.340 She filed the opening brief.

00:11:32.880 No explanation of what she did, how this happened.

00:11:35.760 There's some reference to maybe it's a clerical error.

00:11:38.260 Today, in court, Abby Lowell, very good lawyer.

00:11:40.940 Again, no explanation of how this happened.

00:11:44.600 And the claim that this might be clerical error or just a mistake,

00:11:47.980 that's not going to fly because Lisa Cook is one of the most established, accomplished financial 0.92

00:11:53.500 and economic experts in this country.

00:11:56.240 Who has to show what here?

00:11:58.580 I think that the allegations on their face could be enough for a judge to say,

00:12:03.200 look, I'm going to defer to the president on cause.

00:12:05.720 For now, Cook remains on the Fed board pending a decision from the judge.

00:12:09.320 A ruling in favor of the Trump administration could reshape the independence of agencies

00:12:13.720 across the executive branch.

00:12:16.040 However, the Supreme Court's clarification of the Fed's unique status

00:12:19.640 may throw a monkey wrench into any Trump plan to interfere with the Federal Reserve.

00:12:26.460 Coming up, as President Trump clashes with Maryland Governor Wes Moore over crime in Baltimore,

00:12:32.540 a local investigative reporter says the real problem fueling this crisis

00:12:36.060 is a broken education system.

00:12:38.040 That's next.

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00:13:41.740 A once great American city, Baltimore, now plagued by entrenched poverty, persistent violence, and failing institutions.

00:13:53.240 Just last week, President Trump and Maryland Governor Wes Moore, a Democrat, publicly clashing over city safety

00:13:58.760 as President Trump floats the idea of mobilizing the National Guard into crime-plagued cities around the country.

00:14:05.060 Donald Trump, if you are not willing to walk our communities, keep our name out of your mouth.

00:14:12.200 Wes Moore was telling me he wants, I want to walk with the president.

00:14:15.280 Well, I said, I want to walk with you too someday.

00:14:17.960 But first you've got to clean up your crime because I'm not walking in Baltimore right now. 0.89

00:14:23.700 Baltimore is a hellhole.

00:14:25.560 For years, Baltimore spiraling downward with seemingly little hope for recovery.

00:14:30.140 Fox 45 investigative reporter Chris Pabst says much of this is due to the failure of Baltimore City schools.

00:14:37.920 Pabst uncovering widespread grade changing and data manipulation, exposing a system where

00:14:43.020 thousands of students are unable to read, write, or do basic math and yet are still graduating.

00:14:50.080 We spoke with Pabst about his findings, chronicled in his new book called Failure Factory,

00:14:55.060 How Baltimore City Public Schools Deprived Taxpayers and Students of a Future.

00:15:00.120 So I started digging through test scores for Baltimore City.

00:15:05.740 And there's about 160 schools, 165 individual schools in the city at the time.

00:15:10.580 And I just made a massive spreadsheet of all of the data.

00:15:14.140 I found that there were six schools in Baltimore City that did not have a single student that was

00:15:20.960 proficient in any state testing, not math, not English.

00:15:27.020 These six schools could not produce one student who could pass any state test.

00:15:32.840 And at the time, Baltimore City Public Schools was the third or fourth most funded large school system

00:15:40.100 in America, according to federal numbers.

00:15:43.520 Following that report concerned parents and students reaching out to Pabst,

00:15:47.460 saying the problem goes much deeper.

00:15:49.220 In his reporting, Pabst uncovering thousands of instances of grade changing,

00:15:54.680 failing grades lifted to a passing 60 percent,

00:15:58.120 allowing students to advance despite not meeting proficiency standards.

00:16:02.600 City schools also adopting a so-called one-fail policy,

00:16:06.620 meaning a student can only be held back one time before ninth grade,

00:16:10.740 regardless of whether he or she meets academic standards

00:16:13.780 and regardless of whether they deserve to move on.

00:16:16.340 Even if desperate parents beg for their child to be held back,

00:16:20.580 Pabst here explains the inverted incentives leading to such dismal outcomes.

00:16:25.800 School systems prioritize data and money over everything else.

00:16:32.540 The reason that these kids are getting pushed through the school system

00:16:35.340 without getting the education that they need is because of the funding.

00:16:39.760 Student enrollment determines funding for a school.

00:16:44.440 And the more kids that you have enrolled, the more money you get.

00:16:47.700 So as long as these kids are passing through the school system

00:16:50.700 and they're going from grade to grade, it doesn't matter if they can read.

00:16:54.800 It doesn't matter if they can do basic math.

00:16:57.580 The school system is going to get the money for that kid. 0.83

00:17:00.440 And that's why in Baltimore City and many other cities and school systems around the country,

00:17:06.020 we are seeing a lack of education because money, the quality of education that a kid gets

00:17:15.200 does not have anything to do with the amount of money the school gets.

00:17:18.940 The money a school gets is based on enrollment and kids passing, not learning.

00:17:24.880 It's about passing more students so the data looks better.

00:17:28.280 Despite poor student results, Baltimore City Public Schools are among the most

00:17:32.660 highly funded districts in the nation.

00:17:35.560 As funding increases, outcomes are getting worse, Papp says.

00:17:39.380 The school system academically is in a worse place now than it was eight years ago.

00:17:46.120 But the school system financially is in a much better place.

00:17:50.780 In 2017, Baltimore City Public Schools was getting a $1.3 billion budget.

00:17:55.780 In 2024, which is eight school years later, it had a $1.7 billion budget.

00:18:03.000 The school system is getting $400 million more dollars than it was eight years ago.

00:18:09.520 And the student outcomes are worse.

00:18:12.580 The other thing that's extremely important to look at is enrollment.

00:18:15.760 You have 6,500 fewer students in that school system.

00:18:19.540 So the school system is getting more money to educate fewer students, and the outcomes are

00:18:27.220 getting worse.

00:18:28.980 Papp's finding data fudging goes beyond academics.

00:18:32.900 Baltimore City Schools, over a 12-year period or a 10-year period, saw a 98% drop in arrests.

00:18:41.980 Most people would look at that and they would say, wow, Baltimore City Schools is really getting

00:18:47.240 safer.

00:18:48.340 But we know when we look at crime data in the city, we look at murders in the city.

00:18:53.460 At the time when that was happening, when the drop of arrests were happening in schools,

00:18:58.200 the crime in Baltimore was skyrocketing.

00:19:02.820 And Baltimore City was labeled the most dangerous city in America.

00:19:06.920 But there was a 98% drop in the number of kids being arrested in schools.

00:19:11.240 And it was simply because the school system decided, we're not going to arrest students

00:19:15.780 anymore.

00:19:16.840 Pabst contends that the crime problems facing Baltimore are directly related to the failing

00:19:20.980 school system.

00:19:22.200 The problem is the failing school system.

00:19:25.140 That the people that are coming out of the school system don't have the skills that are

00:19:30.220 needed to take care of their families.

00:19:33.780 That's the problem.

00:19:35.160 That's what needs to be fixed.

00:19:37.080 The greatest hurdle preventing systemic change?

00:19:39.400 There is no public official that I'm aware of inside Baltimore City that is screaming for

00:19:45.820 the school system to educate the students better.

00:19:49.800 The only elected Republican in America that has any jurisdiction over Baltimore City is Donald

00:19:57.220 Trump and J.D. Vance.

00:19:59.160 Every other elected official in Baltimore City is a Democrat.

00:20:04.220 It is one party rule to the greatest possible extent.

00:20:07.860 There is nobody who is standing up to my knowledge, at least they're not doing it publicly, who

00:20:14.740 is saying to the school system, if we're going to keep giving you $1.7 billion, you cannot

00:20:20.580 have 10% of students who are proficient in math, which is the data from 2024.

00:20:25.900 A $1.7 billion budget, 10% of students in the entire school system who are proficient in

00:20:32.540 math. And I've spent the last eight years going to politician from politician to politician saying,

00:20:39.680 do you find this acceptable? And there is simply nobody who is willing to come out publicly and

00:20:45.760 demand better for the students of Baltimore City, for the parents of Baltimore City, for the taxpayers.

00:20:51.720 The problems facing Baltimore plaguing inner city schools across the nation, Detroit, Cleveland, Chicago,

00:21:00.200 thousands of children across America failed by the public school system.

00:21:04.480 Pabst identifies two immediate steps that could right the ship, not just in Baltimore, but in public schools

00:21:10.240 in other failing cities.

00:21:11.560 The first one is they have to increase the expectations of the students. For decades,

00:21:19.720 we've been lowering the academic bar. Students will achieve the level that the adults set for

00:21:26.940 them. And if the adults are setting a low bar, that's what the kids are going to achieve.

00:21:31.620 You have to raise the bar. Now, in the short term, what's going to happen is you're going to have a lot

00:21:37.020 more kids failing. But in the long run, those kids are going to adapt and they're going to raise their

00:21:43.520 level of education to be able to meet the standard the adults set for them. The second thing to improve

00:21:49.940 the schools is you have to address the violence. You cannot learn in a school system when they are

00:21:57.200 continually being disrupted by fights and disorderly kids. That has to change.

00:22:02.880 We asked Baltimore public schools for comment on Pabst claims and have not yet heard anything back.

00:22:10.660 And that'll do it for your AM update. I'm Megan Kelly. Join me back here for The Megan Kelly Show.

00:22:15.300 We have Ben Shapiro for the full show today, live on SiriusXM Triumph Channel 111 at noon east,

00:22:20.820 on youtube.com slash Megan Kelly, and on all podcast platforms.

The Megyn Kelly Show - September 02, 2025

Scientific Establishment vs Trump Over CDC, Lisa Cook Fights On, Failing City Schools： AM Update 9⧸2

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