Harry Litman : Welcome to Talking Feds a round table that brings together prominent former federal officials and special guests for a dynamic discussion of the most important legal topics of the day. I'm Harry Litman. We've had one of the most tumultuous weeks since the advent of the virus. The week seem to bring an increased national impatience to resume normal life and economic activity and different states lurched in fits and starts toward resumption of normal life.
Half the states have now moved to substantially ease their shelter and place orders in many cases without having satisfied the benchmarks that the CDC has set for doing so. President Trump and the White House continued their erratic and divisive ways. The president announced the disbanding of the Corona task force only to reverse field the next day. He insisted the country must open up and soon. “I'm not sure that we even have a choice,” He said. All the while abandoning his support for aid to state and local governments in the next stimulus package and abdicating any leadership role in the reopening process, insisting that decisions be left to the states.
And the week began with the explosive revelation that there've been over 30 whistleblower complaints alleging illegal conduct within the Executive Branch, including one by the Chief Vaccine Officer, charging widespread political interference with sound science and decision-making driven by political cronyism and the president's loopy ideas about effective treatments.
And it ended with a megaton bomb announcement that the Department of Justice after many years was dropping charges against Michael Flynn. Not withstanding his having twice pleaded guilty to lying about his contacts with Russia. In what seemed impossible to explain in anything other than rank political and partisan terms.
So another fairly breathless week, but draw a deep breath now because we have loads to talk about and an amazing set of guests to talk with. They are first Anne Milgrim, a professor of practice and a distinguished scholar at NYU school of law. She is the former attorney general of New Jersey as well as a former federal, state and local prosecutor. You can hear her frequently with Preet Bharara on the Stay Tuned podcast. Thanks for being here, Anne.
Anne Milgram: Thanks for having me
Harry Litman: Next, Ron Klain, the general counsel at Revolution LLC and a former chief of staff to vice presidents, Biden and Gore, and to attorney general Janet Reno.
Also the ex-Ebola czar under the Obama Biden administration. His podcast on the virus epidemic plays twice weekly and is must-listening. Ron, welcome.
Ron Klain: Thanks for having me.
Harry Litman: And finally, we are truly thrilled to welcome Andrea Mitchell to Talking Feds. Andrea is without doubt, one of the greatest and most respected journalists in our country's history.
She's the winner of more awards than we can list, including her 2019 Emmy for lifetime achievement in her incomparable career. She has covered Washington and the world and conducted indelible interviews with the most well known figures of the 20th century. Currently, she's the Chief Congressional Correspondent at NBC news. In addition to hosting the Mitchell reports on MSNBC. We thought she might enjoy a brief return to the other side of the table and to our delight. She accepted. Andrea Mitchell, thanks so much for joining talking feds.
Andrea Mitchell: Thank you. It's so great to be with you.
Harry Litman: Okay. I think we have to start with the jaw-dropping news about the dismissal of the charges against Flynn.
So many former prosecutors, DOJ alum, on all sides of the aisle, including, and, and me, reacted immediately without rage and suggested this eas the lowest point of a DOJ that has gone pretty glow under Bill Barr. Now that a little time has passed, how bad is it? Is it as bad as it looked yesterday? Anybody?
Anne Milgram: I think it's worse even than I thought it was yesterday. The—my initial reaction was, and I think many of us thought that it was very possible that President Trump was going to pardon Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort and Roger Stone. So it's not that I didn't see something coming. I think, I think many of us have sort of seen that this is being teed up. But what happened yesterday is, is really extraordinary and it's the kind of thing that just doesn't happen in the federal Department of Justice as a rule. I'm an alum. You're an alum. What we saw, and I want a separate process. Yeah, that's right.
That's right. Um, to separate process and substance just for a minute, you know, our colleague Asher Rangappa, made a great point of how deeply this undercuts the Mueller special counsel. Um, his office of special counsel and the regulations that try to keep these types of investigations from becoming politicized.
What happened yesterday is exactly what you don't want, which is a politically appointed Attorney General being able to just kick away a case that they don't like. And then on the substance, the argument, having read that that motion to dismiss a number of times, the argument really is essentially that there was no basis to believe that Flynn could pose a threat to national security, and that is that there are a number of sort of--it's really contortionists.
There are a number of sort of things that they're hanging their hat on. But given the circumstance where you have Michael Flynn, who's had two conversations with the Russian ambassador to the United States, um, Kislyak and those conversations subsequent to that, Michael Flynn has, has lied about what was said during those conversations to the Vice President of the United States.
There is no plausible way in my mind, and I'd love to hear your thoughts, that that is not a reasonable basis for the FBI to walk in and say, ‘Hey, we want to talk to you.’ And so what we're seeing is, in my view, it's, it's not, there's no basis in process for it being done like this and there's no basis in substance being done.
And so it feels really like the department is being gutted in a way that I just, you know, as an alum, I love it there. I believe that the men and women who worked there are filled with integrity. It breaks my heart to see what's happening.
Andrea Mitchell: And if I could jump in as an the only non lawyer among you, it's Andrea here. I was just outraged by this. As someone who's covered intelligence and the former Soviet Union and Russia and Vladimir Putin for decades, to have the president of the United States then be calling Putin immediately afterward. And contrary to the guidance, the written guidance from the White House as to what the two leaders discussed, which did not include the election interference and the Russian investigation.
The President that immediately in the Oval Office said, “Yeah, and I told him, you know, that this Russia hoax is over. And now we can basically, um, you know, start a new relationship and work on our relationship with another great power.” I'm paraphrasing, but for him to call Putin immediately after the dropping of this prosecution, and then to acknowledge that he discussed it and discussed it in total contradiction to the uniform consensus. The united consensus of 17 intelligence agencies in 2017 and since, confirming that Russia was attempting to interfere with the U S election in 2016 it's just outrageous. And it raises questions about the timing of what happened with Flynn. Sorry.
Harry Litman: It does seem inescapable that it's done for ranked political reasons as Anne says. Impossibly flawed in both substance and process and the, and the DOJ, uh, argument, not passing a straight face test. Of course, an incoming national security advisor who's playing footsie with the Russians and lying about it as a cause for concern. But Ron, I wonder how, how you frame the, if it's obvious that it's a political agenda, but what agenda? I mean, part as Andrea sort of highlights with the call to Putin, it looks like, in part, this kind of crazy effort to scrub out history and make the Mueller probe never have happened or rewrite it as completely exculpatory. It also, of course, serves his potential interest in not having to pardon Flynn. Barr does the, uh, the, the dirty work, I mean, there are different ways to frame how Barr is serving, uh, Trump's political interests.
What, what do you see if you agree with the notion that it's not on the up and up, what exactly? Uh, was how exactly was Barr helping out his boss here?
Ron Klain: Well, look, I think here I first, obviously it's very much not on the up and up. I don't really know how there's any plausible argument to the contrary.
Autocratic style leaders do things just to prove they can get away with them. And I think that's what this is an example of here. I don't think there's a big elaborate, uh, theory of the case here. I think it's Trump continuing to show that only his raw power in his raw will purports to govern the country.
There is no rule of law. There are no procedures, there are no interests other than his interest. And so in this case, where you have the national security advisor, probably the second most senior position in the White House, the person whom we entrust to protect our country from foreign threats, uh, lying about his contacts with our principle geopolitical adversary, lying to elected leaders about them, and then ultimately lying to the FBI about them.
Him admitting that him pleading guilty to that him president, the Vice President, saying that's what happened here for Trump to do this as simply merely an exercise in showing us he can do it. And it sends a clear sign about what he intends to do when the 2020 campaign, which is to reward loyalty to him, Donald Trump, and nothing else, to make clear that his allies can do whatever they want to do.
And the nature and the essence of serving Donald Trump. And they will face no consequences, no ramifications, no laws. And that is the essence of autocratic leadership. And that's what we're seeing from Donald Trump.
Anne Milgram: You know, just jumping in on that for one second. One of the things that Barr said yesterday in the CBS interview, um, toward the end, he talked about what was coming, you know, he talked about he has this investigation.
This of course, was he, he's basically asked in, he's asked US Attorneys who are political appointments to basically look at all these Mueller cases, all the Mueller special counsel investigations. He's done. He has, um. the Connecticut US attorney looking at Crossfire Hurricane, which is all of the Russia investigation.
The beginning of that case with Carter Page, the FISA warrants, and of course the Russian election hacking. And then he had the St. Louis US attorney do this one on Michael Flynn. What he was talking about yesterday was, you know, he's waiting for the report from the Connecticut US attorney, but what he seen to date is really troubling.
And you know, he's asked whether he might even charge people criminally and he doesn't say no. And so to me, one of the things as bad a day as I think yesterday was for the rule of law in our country, I have this terrible feeling that we may not have, have hit rock bottom yet. And to Ron's point, you know, I think.
You know, Bill said very clearly the winner writes history, and it is very clear to me in their mind that they are going to make an effort to essentially erase, um, the Mueller probe and the Mueller investigations. And so I frankly, you know, I'd be curious to know what you all think. I don't think we're done yet.
Andrea Mitchell: I agree entirely. And I think when the President said, “There's more to come, just wait.” Uh, again, paraphrasing what he said after the Flynn announcement. I think it does look forward to what is going to be reported on the mother probe. And I think it also could involve Chris Ray because again, the next morning he also suggested that he didn't have full confidence in the FBI director saying that he was a creation of Rod Rosenstein or Rosenstein.
So, uh, I don't know about the tenure of Chris Ray or whether he even feels comfortable in his leadership at this stage.
Harry Litman: Yeah, I mean, it's really true that all the decision makers here, I can't think of a parallel case in which every career person is either quit or just pushed to the side, and it's only not just political appointees.
I mean, the previous DC US attorney was a political appointee. Uh, but she wasn't Timothy Shay, you know, the long time pal of, of Bill Barr, and it's a certain stripe of political appointees. But by the way, answer that. What? I mean, what do you make that Bill Barr comment is breathtaking: “History is written by the winners.”
Is that like just a poke in the eye to the to the law enforcement, uh, community or, or any, uh, Trump antagonists. That that was, you know, quite a cheeky thing to say in the, in the wake of this suggesting that, you know, none of this matters except basically winning. A perfect kind of encapsulation of the Trump, um, credo.
Ron Klain: Yeah. I mean, I think to just, uh, billable that here in what Anne and Andrea have said. I mean, I don't think we've seen the end of it yet. And I do think actually as bad as yesterday was, they’re worst days to come. The fact that a trade journal Barr did not rule out prosecuting people, uh, will we see an indictment of Mueller himself?
Will we see an indictment of Barack Obama? Will we see, uh, other kinds of politically motivated prosecutions? I mean, I think the slogan: “History is written by the winners.” You know, that's a slogan that generals, not attorneys general use, right? It's just, it's a slogan that conquers use. And, uh, it's certainly not a slogan that's engraved over the front of the department of justice building.
Andrea Mitchell: It’s a slogan dictators use.
Ron Klain: It's a slogan that dictators use. And I think that, um, uh, I think that we, there are still almost six months to Election Day. And, uh, I, I, again, I just think the clear signal of yesterday is that, uh, nothing, but Trump's Will will govern our country for the next six months. And, uh, and they will make crassly political decisions about how to use the power of the Justice Department to get Donald Trump reelected.
Anne Milgram: You know, it feels, it feels very much to me. Like, you know, this is very much, it feels very authoritarian to me. And there are a couple of ways in which, in which that's the case. I mean, when the, when the law enforcement folks are investigating people that the President would like, he's a fan of investigation. Remember, you know, we've all lived through the Ukraine, um, impeachment days, and the president was essentially asking the president of Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, his political rival. When it's used to basically look at people who he's associated with or affiliated with he does everything he can to undercut the investigations. And one of the things we haven't talked about yet, but it's worth noting, is that what happened here is not only that the dismissal is extraordinary, just the fact that Bill Barr brought in an internal DOJ US attorney, a political appointment--a political appointee--to look at what had been done in the Flynn case. And then to basically get the internal--these were, these are internal decision making documents. You know, when I was AG or even when I was senior in the Department of Justice, there are times where you have these conversations, which is, should you charge this case?
How should you charge this case? Should you approach this person? That's all normal. Barr released those to the defense lawyer and then essentially created this sort of public, um, argument for him to then go and dismiss the case. So there, I mean, I would almost call it leaking documents. And again, it goes back to this view of: they think that there's a deep state, they have vilified the men and women who are the day to day law enforcement folks who are on the frontline and making, I think, very difficult decisions.
They're far from perfect as all of us know. But you know. Again, the inspector general had looked at the question of, was the Crossfire Hurricane, the 2016 election case open legitimately, or was it biased? He found no bias. And so, you know, Barr is taking these like multiple bites at the apple to try to get to the result that he wants.
And it really does. I mean, I think this will have devastating and lasting impacts on the department and really on the view of law enforcement. Which in many ways is just, you know, I think tt's going to be the outcome of this. And the President doesn't care. His goal is to exonerate himself, his campaign and his, his associates.
Andrea Mitchell: And you know, I, I see this as a layman, but as a, as a journalist and a citizen, as an attack on the rule of law, at its most profound and fundamental level. And I do think it's analogous to the systematic attack on science in the current pandemic. But also in environmental issues throughout the administration, throughout the agencies, against professionalism, but in particular against the expertise of scientists affecting, you know, the EPA and other agencies.
And now we see it so importantly and so critically during the Coronavirus. And the fact that he would be willing, that they would be willing to attack the professional, you know, nonpartisan people who have been leading the Department of Justice and the culture of the Department of Justice brings us back to some of the rhetoric of his inaugural address.
And it's very disturbing to say the least.
Harry Litman: Yeah, I mean, this is perhaps highfalutin, but you know, they'll write books about this in the future. But it's also, you know, of a piece with, with Barr's comment that that history is the propaganda of the victors, I think is what is the statement he was referring to.
There's almost an attack here on the actual notion of objectivity, truth, science across the board, and a replacement of it with raw power as I think you know, you have pointed out. All right. I, I, there, um, uh, to second where Anne started, I can, I think everyone now in the panel sees it in some ways it's even worse than yesterday because, you know, we have these sort of vague predictions and something to watch that we haven't hit rock bottom.
And this is just preparing for an even more extensive demolition job and everything that Meuller has done, and even most outrageously, the prospect of, of criminal, uh, attack, assault on, on people whose main, um, sin or crime will have been actually investigating the President. So, um, the, the, the bottom line is an, you know, an attempt to just, um. Power through any kind of lasting criticism dating back to 2016 so we'll, we will look glumly at the possibility that, that, that there are even more shoes to drop. And I think we leave it here for now. Um, and I'd like to move to the current state of play with the virus, which would have been front and center, but for the stunning announcement of yesterday.
Um, so what's your sense of sort of where things stand? It seems to me we're looking at a kind of a patchwork pattern here. Some states are easing dramatically, some marginally, some not at all. Um, and the, the States that, um, uh, there are some States that are opening up that clearly haven't reached the peak of their curve.
Is this just kind of a short term, political calculus that they haven't thought through? What, you know, what is, what is driving the, the disparate, um, results, especially in certain red states that are opening up when they seem to be, uh, premature in doing so?
Ron Klain: Well, I’ll start. I mean, first of all, we do have this bizarre circumstance where there are States where the disease is going down, but still the level of incidence remains very, very high. New York is a good example of that. It's going down there, but there's still an epidemic raging in New York. Other states where the incidents still is lower compared to New York, but they're going up and so it's the exact wrong time to, uh, uh, to be reopening things.
The fact of the matter is that on April 16th the President in the briefing room allowed Dr. Fauci, Dr. Burks, to lay out a three stage process for reopening and stage one was 14 consecutive days of decline before you even begin to reopen. And virtually no state that has reopening has hit that standard.So--
Harry Litman: And in some, some of the opposite, right? You know, Texas and Georgia..
Ron Klain: Right. They're, they're opening while going up, let alone for a little, not 14 days of decline, but actually door opening while going up. And look, I just think this is a decision by some of these governors, uh, as a result in small, no small part because of the President abandoning his own guidelines.
I mean, he is cheerleading states that are opening in contravention to the guidelines he announced three weeks ago. Okay. So there's no rationality to that. There's no policy to that. There's just a naked calculation that, uh, you know that the economy is bad and somehow this will fix it. It's not going to fix it.
And that, uh, and that he's responding to his allies, his, uh, his, his base that, uh, have turned this into an issue of kind of libertarianism and, uh, politics. And as a result, uh, you know, he is, he is creating a, both a healthcare disaster and an economic disaster. And that's the last point I want to make on this area, which is you know, the president thinks he's fixing the economy by telling these states to open up. But in fact, what we're seeing already is that states are opening up and consumers aren't showing up because still 80% of Americans think it's too soon to open their state. And so what he's really doing is he's making the economic situation worse because people are losing confidence, they are doubting that it's safe because it isn't safe.
And as a result, instead of waiting till you really could open up safely, he's creating this worse anxiety, getting workers sick, getting shoppes sick, having shoppers stay home that's going to make this last longer. Opening too soon is not only bad healthcare policy, it's bad economic policy. It's going to make the economic crisis worse than it would have to be.
Harry Litman: Yeah,I mean, and especially if you pause it, some kind of substantial second wave consumer confidence is the name of the game, and it could, it could freeze people up for four months to come.
Andrea Mitchell: I just, I would just say it's also bad politics.
Harry Litman: Yes. Well, that's, that's right.I mean, that's what I was going to, why does it seem, first, why does it seem to track red bull lines in the first place? But second, doesn't it seem like an obvious kind of situation in which a couple months from now he's gonna be, you know, looking to, to have, to have, uh, owned a, um, uh, a policy of opening up prematurely that's been potentially disastrous.
Andrea Mitchell: Absolutely. And he's doing it primarily in battleground states. That's where he's either planning to go, is already beginning to go or inviting people in, other than the invitation to Cuomo. Which was predicated by, by Andrew Como asking if he could come in. It is such a bad health policy. There is no question, as Ron just pointed out, that there's not a single state that has met that 14 day objective guideline, advisory, whatever you want to call it. Not only that, but according to the doctors, the public health scientists whom I've been interviewing, they believe that actually 21 days is the more appropriate amount of time to expect a declining incidence of infection before you begin opening up. There's no question that there can be some partial reopenings in some areas, let's say, of the large Western states, but certainly not in the Southern belt and not in dense areas and not in Florida and not in parts of Texas. And you're seeing in Oklahoma and in Texas, individual mayors, certainly in Georgia, the rebellion against what Governor Camp declared without having any notification to the major mayors--Atlanta and the other big cities completely blindsiding them and doing it for political reasons. Some of these governors are doing it because the minute they open, they don't have to pay unemployment insurance journey workers who are too afraid to show up.
It is also creating hotspots now throughout the plain states and in the Midwest around prisons and around meat processing plants where the death and sensity and the lack of testing and the lack of protective gear has made it impossible for workers on these front lines to be safe. So you have a, basically a conflagration of a lack of protection and frontline workers who are often in the lower economic groups who are exposing themselves and their family and creating hotspots where none would have existed if they had taken more time and done this correctly.
Anne Milgram: I think it's such a good point. To Andrew's point on um, you know, the way that this works, I mean, if you open up too soon and people have to open up businesses or risk that they no longer will be able to get unemployment insurance or have a legitimate basis to file for, um, some of the loans.
I mean, it, it really just creates this devastating cycle of, you know, essentially illness and financial crisis. And I guess one, one thing. I'm sitting here listening, and again, I'm not a health expert, of course I'm, I'm sitting here listening and I was thinking a little bit about this question of attacking science, attacking the rule of law and basically challenging what we believe is true by trying to, we've seen the President repeatedly try to frame issues in a way that is at odds with actual facts and data and reality. And so, you know, from, from his initial, “the virus isn't going to come here” to this sort of what feels very political to me as well, this stance of “it's okay to reopen” even though, you know, people can look around them and see, at least for us, you know, we know, we know people who've passed away, we know many people who've been ill. It just feels so out of touch with reality. But it's almost this ultimate touch of, you know, can the president tell people that the moon is green and they will believe him? Um, and it looks like it's that the Republican governors at this point, some of them will. And so I sort of, I, you know, I don't know Ron, like, what's the, or Andrea--like, what's the, you know, what's the go-forward in a situation where I think what the President is doing is so at odds with the science and the data, and the American public is really left on our own in some ways to figure out what the right courses?
Ron Klain: Yeah, I think, Anne I think it's a great question. I think though we're seeing in the political data some of the answer to that question, which is that how voters feel about Trump's handling of this on both the healthcare side, on the economic side, correlates largely to one question: Do they know someone who's become sick with COVID? And the warning sign for president Trump here is that because of what he's done, more and more Americans are going to know someone who's been struck by COVID. And in fact, specifically because of what he's done, more and more Americans in Red states are going to increasingly know someone who was struck with COVID.
And so I think the handwriting is on the wall here that while I absolutely agree, he has, uh, had his success in these three years telling people that red is blue night is day. Don’t believe what you read. Don't believe what you see with your own eyes. Don't believe the fake news. Don't believe the scientists.He now faces a challenge where people increasingly know someone in their lives who matters to them, who got gravely ill or who died because of his mishandling of this virus. And I do not believe he is going to be able to spin that away. Or tell people who've had that experience in their own lives, but this didn't actually happen.
Harry Litman: Yeah, and I, you know, that is the question. I hate even to dwell on the politics and to his and his wrong headedness, but he's had this odd kind of, uh, uh, two faced approach where he, as you say, Ron is clearly cheerleading for the states that are opening up. And yet he's made a point of saying that really it's all up to the states and they'll make their individual decisions.
And that seems to me to be setting up the argument down the line, well, you know, it was this governor's fault or that governor's fault. It had nothing to do with me that they opened up and everybody, uh, died. Um, Ron, back to you because of your experience with Ebola. I was reading recently that with the Spanish Virus of 1918, the second and third waves were worse than the, than the first ones. I assume you really studied at the, at the time, you know, that, that kind of possibility. Uh, you know, what will determine, I guess, the severity of the, of the certain, uh, subsequent, uh, waves of, uh, sickness and, you know, can the country absorb it If we go into a whole new lockdown and we seem to be back at square one?
Ron Klain: Well, you know, Harry, it's a, it's a, it is an absolutely important point that particularly with the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-19, the second wave was worse than the first one. Now, it's really important to stress that we aren't even through the first one yet. I mean, as a, as a, as I said in some places, the first one is actually not even, uh, halfway over.
So talking about the second wave to me seems really premature. And indeed, we may not experience a second wave in part because we never get rid of the first wave. I mean, I think if you look at some of the charts here, I've said repeatedly, one of the most deceptive concepts we have right now in public life is the idea that this epidemic looks like a parabola like you studied in high school geometry. Goes up, comes down very smooth, very even. That's not the way this is working. It went up very quickly and a lot of places, it's going down very slowly. It's nowhere near the X axis. It's not like your parabola that kind of comes down and then there's a second hill.
Ron Klain: What's happening now is we're looking at what, what epidemiologists call it, endemic disease.
Something that doesn't really go away but stays with us, uh, persistently and continually. Now, that may drop off to a lower level. But I think it's hard to really know what the second wave looks like until we see what the end of the first wave, if it ends is. I mean, look, we had, we just finished a month April, where more Americans died of COVID in a month than died in Vietnam in a decade. And May may be worse than April, which is stunning. And so, yes, I do think we have to worry about reoccurrence of the disease. But right now we haven't licked the thing in its first iteration in any way, shape or form.
Harry Litman: And I sense, I wonder if you agree, a kind of a national, as I said, up front impatience, but just the kind of feeling that people, for whatever reason, have, have begun to take on the view that, ‘Oh, we're kind of coming out of this.’ And it, you know, in, in that kind of situation, if they learn that, you know, actually we're maybe somewhere in the first half of the game, uh, you know, could be a, a kind of a national, uh, crisis.
Andrea Mitchell: Harry, this sounds like: mission accomplished.
Harry Litman: Yes, yes.
Andrea Mitchell: The banner on the, you know, on the aircraft carrier. We are in the beginning of the middle of this from everyone I've talked to and in terms of a resurgence, it's almost anticipated in the fall. And one fear is that it could come back in a mutated form. Which would not be as vulnerable to whatever vaccine does rise to the top where thee was several vaccines.
So there's all of that. If it comes back, you know, slightly modified a vaccine might work. Ron, you may know more about this than I, but that's what the doctors we interview are talking about. But, we don't know in what form it might come back in because apparently what ha, what came in from Europe was slightly different than what had come in from China. It did mutate to some extent according to the health advisors who were talking to Andrew Cuomo.
Ron Klain: Yeah. I do think it's fair to say that there's some evidence that there are two different strains of this virus. Some of the vaccines that are being explored would be effective against, either it might well be affected against the change virus.
I think the challenge with the vaccine is a different one, in my view. The challenge with the vaccine is, first of all, it has to be scientifically discovered and tested. That's hard. I mean, I think we, we, we, we believe in our scientists. We have great scientists working on this, but, uh, you know, this is a problem that has not been solved. So that's the first challenge. But in some ways, the bigger challenge is going to be making that vaccine and then getting it in people's arms.
Andrea Mitchell: Distribution, right.
Ron Klain: Distribution and acceptance. So first of all, you got to make it, and we're talking about billions of doses of a vaccine. That's a big manufacturing challenge. I mean, one reason why the flu vaccine each year is not so great is because to get it ready for the fall of 2020 they start making it more than a year in advance to make a flu vaccine. So now we're gonna have to make a lot of this COVID vaccine once it's ready. That's going to be a big challenge.
We're going to have to get it to people. That's going to be a challenge, and we're going to have to get them to take it. And on that front, I know that seems like, of course people will take it. There's no, of course to that. Okay. President Trump today said, “Maybe I'll take it, maybe I won't.” We see the people out there protesting for opening are closely aligned with the anti-vaccine movement in this country.
So there's going to be a huge push from the anti-vaccine movement to say, people shouldn't take the vaccine, it's some corporate conspiracy. There are already people out there protesting the signs that Bill Gates invented the virus so he could profit off the vaccine. There's literally zero truth in that, of course.
And so I don't think we should underestimate that the same kind of things we're seeing right now around reopening we will see a year from now around the question of whether or not people should take this vaccine. And so we have a lot of challenges ahead. Before this vaccine is widely administered, widely distributed.
And the last challenge is this. As we know, the Trump administration has really been attacking global health authorities and has been unwilling to work with our European partners on this vaccine solution. And so I think in the Trump administration, there's a big assumption that the vaccine is going to be invented here, tested here, made here, and under our control.
But if in fact it's invented it and tested and made in Europe, and we're at war with our European allies. Uh, you know, scientific war, economic war. We may not be the first ones in line to get that vaccine. We may not even be in the top 10 in line to get that vaccine. And that's gonna be a whole other struggle if that's what happens.
Andrea Mitchell: Let me just raise one other thing wrong, which I know you think about, which is the rich poor divide because with a global pandemic let’s assume the best case scenario where the vaccine is discovered and is somehow, you know, scaled up in a reasonable amount of time. What is going to be available to the countries in Africa and other less developed countries that don't have access to it? And how do you cure a pandemic if you're not immunizing a good portion of the world?
Harry Liman: And possibly even here. I mean, the tale of two cities is emerging. This kind of dovetails with something Anne said with the, the whole, um, experience here. I was speaking earlier today with the governor of Michigan. 14% of Michigan's populations, African-American, 40% of the deaths from the virus have have come from, uh, among the African American population. It's just part and parcel of the overall problem that certain people have to be on the front lines and they're, they're the ones who are weathering the biggest part of the storm. Okay. Um, we, um, this also will, uh, especially, uh, with all the pressure to reopen will look very different, um, at least in a couple months from how it does now.
I wanted to leave just a little bit of time to talk about the, uh, fuselage of whistleblower complaints about corrupt or illegal conduct by the administration. In its programmatic responses to the virus. So it most, um, uh, prominently this week, Dr. Rick Bright, who'd been the director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority. Basically our guy for viruses and vaccines, excuse me, our guy for vaccines, um, who had filed a whistleblower complaint alleging he was shoved to the side because he expressed concern about efforts by the administration, uh, to promote Trump's cockamamie ideas about, um, hydroxychloroquine and, and he alleged sort of naked cronyism and patronage award of contracts.
You know, the whole thing that we've worried about over the last three years, but with the overlay of really life and death, um, considerations. Um, uh, Andrea, I, you know, we've seen some very incendiary whistleblower complaints come to nothing in the Trump administration, including arguably Atkinson and the impeachment. We've seen Trump retaliate illegally against them with impunity. What happens here? Will this one stick?
Andrea Mitchell: Well, the, he won the first round with the Office of Special Counsel saying that he has been improperly retaliated against and should be restored to his job, but our White House correspondents are suggesting to us that the President will heed the Office of Special Counsel, which has an advisory function as much as he heeded Robert Mueller or anybody else. He's already removed two key whistleblowers and downgraded a very fine career civil servant in HHS by putting somebody political in overheard, so she's no longer the acting--
Harry: And done that in plain sight. That's, that's been so striking about it.
Andrea Mitchell: Just for her report on the shortages and the lack of preparation, a very fine report. I've talked to people who are former HHS secretaries in different administrations. This is someone who started under Clinton and was there through Bush and through Obama and had a stellar career.
And Atkinson is also very highly regarded. So at the DNIG. So, we now have two, at least two and really three whistleblowers removed. And now Rick Bright. I think he's going to have to end up in court because he's won this first round. But it is, as I say, advisory, and he's got good lawyers and he's got a pretty impressive whistleblower complaint. Which alleges not just that he was retaliated against on hydroxychloroquine, but he has outlined a series of seemingly detailed allegations of cronyism, lack of competitive bids, waste, what you would really call fraud in the awarding of contracts at BARDA and at HHS more broadly. And that mirrors the reports in both the New York Times and Washington Post about Jared Kushner's parallel taskforce and his recruitment. A very bright and eager young graduates to come as volunteers and some left and obviously are quietly whistleblowing and telling reporters about contracts that were awarded without any kind of competitive bidding. A ventilator contract for $69 million where not a single ventilator was achieved by New York state. They thought that it had all been vetted, it hadn't been. And just a complete combination of incompetence, cronyism, and political partisanship and what'd you'd have to call corruption and bureaucratic ineptness in the face of a pandemic It is--
Anne Milgram: Yeah. I mean, I think what Andrea just detailed, I mean, it's, it's a great encapsulation of what we're seeing. What also struck me on Dr, um, on Dr. Bright for what it's worth is reading through the complaint and just the fact that in, at the end of January and the beginning of February, he is literally screaming at the top of his lungs about the lack of personal protective equipment and the need for the N-95 masks for healthcare workers.
And you sort of read this detailed explanation of all the calls, all the emails, all the meetings, and that, that's sort of his boss who was a political appointee and a former Senate staffer. And, um, you know, Secretary Azar, like they're just the repeated efforts to keep him out of meetings, to silence the conversation, to disregard requests for funding.
And it really is, I mean, on top of all the, what, what appears to be if true, deep, deep fraud of the awarding of contracts, there's just this basic moment of reading it and thinking: how could you not have understood that someone who is an expert in vaccines is telling you we don't have enough equipment for our frontline healthcare workers and and other first responders.
It just, it was really chilling to me to see that in writing, that we had an opportunity to do a better job than we did and that not only that, but we've, the President has now ousted the person who was telling him early on, this is serious and we have to do better.
Harry Litman: And of course, the alternative hypothesis is they definitely saw it, but they understood that as between, uh, opting for science and the right thing and going crosswise within the political, um, pipeline ending with, with Trump, they, they knew which way they had to go.
Um, okay. So we, what we have, I, you know, he's only asked for, and probably the only thing the regulatory scheme provides for him is reinstatement, uh, you know, query, if that's going to be even practically possible. He does have, as Andrea pointed out, really sophisticated counsel, Deborah Katz, who actually represented Christine Blasey Ford in the, uh, in the Kavanaugh embroilio.
Um, but we've got. Um, you know, I think this is, this might play out first at the political level. There's a, he's going to be in front of the House and, uh, next week I think on the, on the 14th. How do you see that playing out and how likely is it that the Democrats are gonna, you know, try to make real hay with this?
Ron Klain: Well, you know, Harry, I actually think it's interesting in some ways. This first plays out with Alex Azar. Now, I think Secretary Azar is in a very interesting situation here, which is he's tried to position himself, even if he's made some mistakes as a pretty straight shooter. He's got very establishment credentials and he's not really a Trumper in the classical sense.
He obviously, you know, has got excellent legal credentials and, and you know, really tries to portray himself as kind of a, you know, Republican establishment figure. A little different than the rest of the Trumpers. And, uh, you know, and it falls on him in the first instance to decide whether or not he is going to follow this opinion from the Office of Special Counsel and, uh, reinstate Bright to his position. Now he could, I guess, hide behind an edict from the White House not to do that. But I think this really is going to be a moment of real key decision for Alex Azar and kind of where he goes from here and what he, what his trajectory is, uh, from here. Doctor--
Harry Litman: Well, if he's reinstated, do you think that ends it or do you think there's an effort to have some kind of oversight of what happened? Let's say he's reinstated tomorrow, do is the hearing on the 14th not go off?
Ron Klain: Don’t know. No, probably still goes off. I mean, I suppose, uh, he's in a slightly different position if he's reinstated we'll have to see. Uh, I do think that to Andrea's point here, uh, whatever happens with Dr. Bright, uh, it is part of a broader picture here that, uh, does sweep in also this reporting, uh, over last weekend from the Post and the Times about Jared Kushner's efforts here at the White House.
And the, and the whole thing reflects this view, uh, that has been emblematic of the Trump administration now is having life or death consequences by the President, by Jared Kushner, by others that the government's filled with knuckleheads. That their buddies from the private sector are just better, smarter, that these kids with great credentials who are at Boston Consulting or McKinsey can run wings around the people at FEMA and so on and so forth and all these things.
And that mindset has been a disaster for dealing with this. You know, when I came back to the government to run the Ebola response, uh, I viewed it as my job to take, uh, have the strategic guidance come from Tony Fauci, come from Tom Frieden, let the medical experts set the strategy, and then let the career experts in the government who whizzes at procurement, who are whizzes at making things work, cut through the different roadblocks in their path to get them to do the job here.
And the idea that you'd replace all that expertise with a bunch of 20 somethings from McKinsey, uh, is crazy. But it reflects the core philosophy of Jared Kushner and Donald Trump, and we're all paying the price for that now.
Harry Litman: Yeah. I mean, you could call it irony. You could call it tragedy. A guy like, like Dr. Bright has been in the government for years waiting for exactly this moment. He's literally the person the United States has selected in the event that there's a, you know, comes to pass exactly what has, and he is, um, uh, disabled under the most, um, alleged any way, rank, uh, patronage and cronyism.
All right. Um. Wow. That was a fast 50 minutes. We have a, just a couple minutes for the, um, Talking Feds, a final feature of five words or fewer, where we ask all the participants to give an answer to a listener's question in five words or fewer. Uh, today's question really picks up what on the discussion we were just having, uh, from Martha Angler on Twitter, which is: Will Dr. Bright's allegations be the subject of hearings in Congress? And, um, uh, we, we, we all need to answer it in five words or fewer, although, or what has never been clear. So anybody, uh, anybody wish to hazard a, a first pithy answer.
Ron Klain: Sure. Um, my answer is: Yes, you betcha. For sure.
Andrea Mitchell: Yes. The Democrats can't wait,
Anne Milgram: And I would say, um, they should be.
Harry Litman: Yeah. Well, I, I can't resist this wave of optimism. I'll go with them: Damn right, they will be. All right. Thank you very much to Ron, Anne, and especially Andrea. And thank you very much listeners for tuning in to Talking Feds.
