Maria Bartiromo
Appearances
PBD Podcast
S&P 500 Dives As Trump Hints At Recession | PBD Podcast | Ep. 559
And I want to ask you about Ukraine and the blowup the other day with Zelensky. Let me stay on the economy for a moment, because there are rising worries about a slowdown. You've got the Atlanta Federal Reserve saying we're going to have a contraction in the first quarter. Look, I know that you inherited a mess, and you said that the other night. I've already been here.
PBD Podcast
S&P 500 Dives As Trump Hints At Recession | PBD Podcast | Ep. 559
But are you expecting a recession this year?
PBD Podcast
Canada CAVES To Trump Tariff Threats In Trade War | PBD Podcast | Ep. 561
You were at the business roundtable yesterday. Several major banks revising their economic forecast in the midst of this tariff uncertainty, including Goldman Sachs economists, by the way. What can you tell us in terms of your reaction and the impact of tariffs on the economy and your business?
PBD Podcast
Canada CAVES To Trump Tariff Threats In Trade War | PBD Podcast | Ep. 561
Yeah. And, you know, you've got other things within the president's agenda that seems to me occurs to me to be very positive for your company, Goldman Sachs, as well as corporate America in general. I'm talking about the deregulation. Cutting regulations is a huge thing and that's going to have a big impact. The extension of the tax cuts.
PBD Podcast
Canada CAVES To Trump Tariff Threats In Trade War | PBD Podcast | Ep. 561
So I want to get your sense on the macro story right now, David, because initially President Trump did not want to make a prediction. You heard him in that soundbite when I spoke with him on Sunday. That caused this massive sell-off in stocks. Yesterday, he did say, I don't see a recession coming. How would you assess the backdrop in terms of animal spirits?
PBD Podcast
Canada CAVES To Trump Tariff Threats In Trade War | PBD Podcast | Ep. 561
Do you see M&A and IPOs picking up for you at Goldman? Are things that used to be on the shelf now coming off the shelf, if you will?
Pod Save America
Trump's Crackdown on Dissent
You said, look, we're going to have a disruption, but we're okay with that. Is that what you meant? The stock market going down was the disruption?
REAL AF with Andy Frisella
858. Andy & DJ CTI: Trump Receives Applause As He Arrives At NCAA Wrestling Championship, Rolls-Royce Planning To Shift Production To U.S., & Court Of Appeals To Hear Oral Arguments In High-Profile Deportation Suit
AG, are we going to hear more about the January 6th commission? And what about the Epstein files? A lot of conversation about the Epstein files. And I recognize that when you're dealing with children, it takes much more time. You've got to ensure that what you're sending out publicly is not revealing any personal information.
REAL AF with Andy Frisella
858. Andy & DJ CTI: Trump Receives Applause As He Arrives At NCAA Wrestling Championship, Rolls-Royce Planning To Shift Production To U.S., & Court Of Appeals To Hear Oral Arguments In High-Profile Deportation Suit
But can you give us a sense of those two items and whether or not we'll learn more about them?
The Ben Shapiro Show
Ep. 2155 - Stock Market PLUNGES…So What’s Next?!
You said, look, we're going to have a disruption, but we're okay with that. Is that what you meant? The stock market going down was the disruption?
The Dan Bongino Show
Trump Drops The Hammer At Press Conference (Ep. 2389)
The inspector general is coming out with all of these facts. Does that mean that Liz Cheney and the J6 committee knew about this?
The Dan Bongino Show
The Liberal Meltdown Means They're Guilty In This Scandal (Ep. 2420)
So tell us about this upcoming look at the spending at the Defense Department. Should we expect hundreds of billions of dollars in wasteful spending there?
The Journal.
Neom, Pt 1: Skiing in the Desert
If only life had a remote control, you could pause or rewind. Well, life doesn't always give you time to change the outcome, but prediabetes does. Take the one-minute risk test today at doihaveprediabetes.org. Brought to you by the Ad Council and its prediabetes awareness partners.
The Journal.
Neom, Pt 1: Skiing in the Desert
A big day for women in Saudi Arabia, allowed behind the wheel for the first time as the world's last... He allowed women to drive and made it easier for them to enter the workforce.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 3/11/25
And I want to ask you about Ukraine and the blow up the other day with Zelensky. Let me stay on the economy for a moment because there are rising worries about a slowdown. You've got the Atlanta Federal Reserve saying we're going to have a contraction in the first quarter. Look, I know that you inherited a mess and you said that the other night. I've already been here.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 3/11/25
But are you expecting a recession this year?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 3/11/25
And it's one of the reasons I won the election. But you may get it again with these tariffs, right? I mean, one CEO said to me, my input costs have already started to go up. I'm going to have to raise prices.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 3/11/25
But I asked you about this before, and I know you told me when I asked you. I said, you did use some CA. You put this together.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 3/11/25
And yet then you come back and you change it up with these tariffs. And you said to me at that time, I did it because I can. I put an amendment in there, and I said in six years I can change it. But I think CEOs want to see predictability. They say, look, I have to speak with shareholders. I've got to make plans for CapEx spending.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 3/11/25
I can't if it's 20% one day and then it's off for a month and it's 25%. Yeah. So can you give us a sense of whether or not we are going to get clarity for the business community?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 3/11/25
Are we just about ready to land? Are you worried about a recession? Maria Martiromo asked you and you kind of hesitated.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Desperate Fox News Flips Out on Air as Trump Cracks
The other day you were asked a question by another outlet. Can you guarantee that we're not going to have a recession? And you wanted to address that this morning.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Desperate Fox News Flips Out on Air as Trump Cracks
See, these are the things that people are really worried about, because they first thought it was just about trade. Then they thought it was just about fentanyl. Then after that, we talked about, well, maybe it's currency manipulation and maybe it's now you're talking about food testing. And when I bring up the issue of clarity, that's that's what I'm talking about.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Desperate Fox News Flips Out on Air as Trump Cracks
And that's what I'm hearing from corporate America, that we're not sure where this is going. But of course, we will get resolution on on August, on April 2nd, rather. Secretary
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Please, no problem.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
We have outbreaks of Marburg and of Ebola in different countries across Africa. We have MPOCs that's, you know, in the DRC, but also spreading through international travel. These pathogens don't respect border, and we need a collective response, collective engagement to fight these threats. No one country can do it alone.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
No one country has the capacity to deal with these types of threats because they cross borders, because we live in this massively interconnected world, and also because of the geopolitics and the things that we're seeing. You know, surveillance is so critical. But no country wants to find the next pandemic virus. Nobody wants that blame.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
But in fact, the earlier you can detect something, the earlier you can react. If you're actually working on prevention and building those capacities, sustaining those capacities, many of which were massively improved during COVID, you have a better chance of actually
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
preventing that spillover event or that breach in, you know, turning into infecting humans to turn into an outbreak, to turn into an epidemic, to turn into a pandemic. The earlier you can do that and collectively working together. You know, my experience with WHO has been in outbreak investigations, mainly in the Middle East for MERS, but in Asia as well, in Africa as well.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And we show up, we're invited by countries. We show up at the worst possible moment a country is dealing with an outbreak. to help them bring it under control. And that is just support. It's not placing blame. It's not saying something is wrong. It's just bringing people, you know, to use your best minds to say, okay, where are we in the outbreak? How do we bring it under control?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And how do we alert the world to get them ready to have their system agile to scale up and scale down if needed?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Well, thanks for having me, and I appreciate the time to have a chance to chat. I love podcasts, I have to say. I feel like it's the greatest opportunity to have a discussion and really not be forced to get them in these tiny little segments. But I'm Maria Van Kerkhove. I'm an infectious disease epidemiologist here at WHO. I sit in headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
There's international law. The international health regulations is law that countries have signed up to to agree to share this information, yes.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Yeah, I mean, criticism is not a bad thing. I mean, criticism for me, unfair criticism, I have a problem with, but criticism that pushes us and drives us to do more. I mean, that's why we're here. We think every day, what can we be doing better? What can we be doing more? And I have to say, you know, at WHO... For me in particular, I don't have to work here. I want to work here.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Like, I want to be part of it. I've drunk the Kool-Aid. I believe wholeheartedly in what we're trying to do and wanting to make it better. And so many of my colleagues want to do the same, including our director general, including Mike Ryan. But there is criticisms of us. I mean, one of the things learning, and we're criticized of this, of, like, not acting fast enough.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
I mean, one of the lessons you learn every single time is to act fast. And I have to say, you know, this is one of the criticisms I find the most strange. Could we have done more? Absolutely. Could we have done better? Absolutely. There's no other answer to that question. But in terms of acting fast, what we were able to do is from that first
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
instance of this cluster of pneumonia of unknown etiology, we activated what we call our emergency response framework. We do this for every outbreak, whether it's a big signal or it's a small signal. We knew right away something was wrong. A cluster of 27, no health workers involved.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
We didn't know the cause in a country that has very strong lab surveillance, meaning it's not flu, it's not MERS, it's not SARS, it's not adenovirus, it's not Legionella, it's not, not, not, right? What is it? I immediately thought coronavirus because that's my background, but that's just, you know, what we, but immediately red flags. We set up an incident management team.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
We informed our member states through our closed system. And then we informed publicly. We issued a package of guidance, technical guidance within two weeks. The 9th of January to the 12th of January issued guidance. The sequence was shared around the 9th, 10th, 11th, depending on the day, depending on the, you know, the source of that. But the first PCR test,
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
We are an organization of thousands of individuals, 6,000, 7,000 individuals worldwide. We work in regions and in countries in more than 150 countries. And the job that we do here and the job that I'm responsible for is to promote, provide, protect health.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
was actually, the protocol was published on the 13th of January. And we started activating our systems. And we started warning the world. Now, the thing where I think we can improve, and I think this is coming through with the updated and amended international health regulations, and certainly from the pandemic accord that is being discussed, is the warnings that we can issue.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
how loud that actual alarm is and how serious people take that. I mean, people arguably did not wake up to COVID until Lombardi was hit because it was some unknown pathogen in some faraway country. When Lombardi was hit, it was significant. When New York was hit, really people started to wake up and think, oh my gosh, this is here. And the hubris that we had of like, we could handle this.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
I talked to health workers all over and you know this, you've treated patients, right? That anticipation of waiting for patients to arrive is So acting fast is one huge one. A second one is around using science as a foundation, but it's not the only important element, right? Data and knowledge and evidence-based guidance is very different than policies that are set.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And policies take into consideration so many other things. Let alone availability of the material that you actually need to have that intervention, but the acceptability of people, the trust of communities. Communities, you know, outbreaks begin and end in communities, but communities can actually prevent those outbreaks from happening in the first place. When are we going to learn?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And I've learned a ton on communication. I mean, you know, what we say, how we say it. I've not trained in risk communication. I'm not trained in communication. But my goal always to say what we know, what we don't know, what we're doing to find out, and what it means for you.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
But I think trying to correct, coming out there all the time, and even when we make mistakes, and we've made mistakes, and I've made mistakes, to correct that, correct the record and say science is a process. Science evolves. And therefore, your evidence and your advice needs to evolve. But, you know, we never issued mandates. Never, never.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And one of the things we hear all the time as a criticism is we didn't issue masks, advice on masks fast enough. But in fact, in January, we advised anyone who was sick to be wearing a mask, anyone who was caring for an individual who was sick to wear a mask. Obviously, that changed over time. We were the first organization to issue guidance on how to make a three-layer mask.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
I sit in our health emergencies program and I lead our Department of Epidemic and Pandemic Threat Management, which is essentially where we develop prevention control programs, evidence-based guidance, tools, materials to support countries to detect, prevent, respond to pathogens with epidemic and pandemic potential. And we deal with some of the nasty ones.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
than not just wear a bandana or a piece of fabric. And you have to remember supply. Could we have communicated that better? Absolutely. Really. I mean, that's where you draw lessons of how we could have said what we said and when. But that's where we need to learn. But we never issued mandates. We never said lockdown.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
What we were trying to do was to apply a layered approach, a tiered approach, so that businesses could keep open. And countries went into lockdown and different levels of lockdown because they had to, because they were overwhelmed and the healthcare system was absolutely overwhelmed. And you remember that.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And the things that strike me the most, the things that keep me up at night, that give me chills every time are the refrigerated trucks, are the fire pyres in India. And did you ever see this image from Brazil where there were people dying in ICU and there was a glove filled with warm water And they put the glove in the hand of an individual dying in ICU so that they didn't die alone.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
You know, that's the level that we were dealing with. And so everything that propels us, everything that's being negotiated in this pandemic accord is about not just a handshake to say, oh, gee, we should do better. We have to do better. And if I wasn't on a podcast, I'd probably use some colorful language, but we have to do better. It didn't have to be this bad.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And the next one doesn't have to be as bad as COVID.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
So COVID, flu, RSV, which is particularly challenging for young kids and for older adults, but also orthopoxviruses and the MPOX public health emergency that we're dealing with. We deal with high threat pathogens like Marburg and Ebola. We deal with arboviruses like dengue and chikungunya and Zika and urapucha and, you know, many of these types of threats.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Yeah. We still don't know the origins of COVID-19 five plus years on. For us, it's not just a scientific endeavor. It's a moral and an ethical imperative that we find out because it's not just enough to know if it was zoonotic or lab. We need to know the details surrounding all of that because without knowing that detail, we're not going to be able to prevent it the next time.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
I think for us, there's a couple of elements to this. One is the early days of COVID and how people saw us. And if we were, you know, I hear a lot, you're in China's pocket, but for a while we were in America's pocket. And so you kind of can't win on that side of things. We did not have the information that we needed early on from China. That's a fact. We've been very vocal about it.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And I think I hear some people use that when they want to and others just say, we just believed everything that they said. But as an organization, as scientists, you know, you already think there's human to human transmission. You already know that it's probably bigger than what's actually being reported. And so we act. We acted already as if that were happening.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
I think on the origin side of things, this is extremely frustrating for me. I fully, fully believe that much more information is actually out there that has not been shared with us about how this pandemic began. And we had several missions. I was part of a mission that went to China in February 2020.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
One of the earliest groups that were in there of actually looking at and in fact, in many parts of the country in China, the cases were coming down. It was it was pretty incredible. Learning was the first time we got information out of the country to say what was happening. It was the first time we knew people could be infectious before they tested positive. I mean, it's it's developed symptoms.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Excuse me. It's incredible. Right. And the origins is unknown. And right now, we don't know when, where, and how this pandemic began. The totality of available evidence, and the key word here is available, is zoonotic in origin, right? We're looking at the market, the amplification at the market, but we don't have the upstream study. So where did the first cases occur?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
I don't fully believe they occurred at that market. I believe that these animals were important in terms of potential spillover, but we don't have evidence that it actually happened at the market. It could have happened as part of the trade route. It could have happened at some of the source farms. We have no information on the labs.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Yeah, so that's transmission between animals and humans. And when I say zoonotic, the hypothesis is that an animal was infected, some kind of an intermediate host, maybe a raccoon dog or a civet cat or something like that. And people came in contact with those animals. And usually what happens when you have a spillover event, you have what we call almost like a stuttering.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Some people might get infected. They may not develop severe disease and therefore they don't seek health care. So they might get missed. And the pathogen may not be, it may not have developed enough characteristics to transmit between people easily. And so you have a petering out. But other times when the virus is able to transmit efficiently, that's when you start to have an outbreak.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And usually you'll pick up people in a health care system because they develop severe disease. But at that point, there's normally more cases. Now, the other hypothesis is that there was a breach in biosafety, biosecurity leaked from a lab. This is the lab leak hypothesis, not an intentional release, but that either the Wuhan Institute of Virology or the
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
The CDC lab that was in Wuhan, the China Centers for Disease Control lab in Wuhan was working with similar viruses. The virus infected someone working in that lab, and then the outbreak began. The problem is, is that China has not been forthcoming. They have not collaborated with, they have not communicated with us to the ability that we believe that they could.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And the frustration that I have at WHO is we cannot force a country to tell us. We cannot force a country to work with us. We couldn't do this with the U.S. We couldn't do this with France. We couldn't do this with South Africa. We have to rely on countries to share this information with us.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
But not only the biological risks, we also look at laboratory biosafety, biosecurity. So looking at the unintentional potential. potential release of these types of pathogens into the human population. And we also deal with the deliberate release. So working with many other UN agencies on a security side of things in case there were to be a deliberate release.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Now, there's a lot of intelligence reports that have come out from the U.S., from France, from Germany, and many of them say they believe it was a lab leak. But none of those reports actually provide any evidence or data to show that that had happened. So right now it's a debate. We want it to be a scientific debate and not a political debate. Right now it's politics.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And this is hurting everything. It's hurting all of the work that we do on surveillance. It's hurting all of the work for collaboration and trust in science. And this is the frustration that I have. So would I like us to do more? Absolutely. But we will not stop until we have exhausted every avenue to understand how this pandemic began.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Listen, I mean, I am glad people know what WHO does. I'm glad we have an opportunity to answer these questions. We are in lacrosse hairs, but we are in the long game. You know, you mentioned in one of your earlier questions here, you know, these outbreaks, these epidemics, the work that we do, whether it's climate change or pandemic preparedness, outlives any election cycle.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
These transcend election cycles. And politicians need to show their people that they are responsible for, that they've got them through this.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And so there's this collective amnesia right now about what's happening with COVID, which is very detrimental, again, to what we need to do for it, especially in a constricting fiscal space of most of the money from health, certainly from COVID crisis shrinking. going to Gaza, going to Ukraine, and now many of the government budgets going from health to defense.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
That area of work is constricting even further. I think we don't mind criticism. Like, we are not sitting here saying, oh, you know, please don't talk bad about us. We want to do better, but we do need, as a member state organization, our member states give us the power they want us to have.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
So they sit every year at the executive board in January or January and the World Health Assembly every May here in Geneva. And they come together to outline what they want us to do in support of all member states. We have a global program of work. All of that is online. You can see what it is that our member states are asking us to do. But we have the power that they want us to have.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And I think that's the crux of like how, and you can hear, I mean, there's been recordings of us leaked, you know, which is a terrible thing to happen. But, you know, it's happened to me several times. And the threats on myself and my colleagues and my children, you know, we're here to do a job. We want to do that to the best of our ability. And just like you.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And lastly, in my department, we deal with the landscape of medical countermeasures in terms of looking at access and benefits for diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines. Now, obviously, I work with tons and tons of people, you know, and across the health emergencies program in WHO.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Just like you who want to see us do better, we want to do better as well. But we are restricted on what we can do, and that's limited by what our member states want us to be able to do and give us the power to do.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
So to us, we convene the world's expertise and bring people together to tackle some of the biggest challenges that we know. and anticipate the challenges of the future, like climate change, like war, like humanitarian crises. The world is incredibly complex, and health is just one element. What we do is we bring people together to make sure that that information is shared.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
There's a democratizing of that information. There's a transparency of that information to be able to prevent bad things from happening. And here we're talking about outbreaks and epidemics. And when they do happen, when we can't prevent them, because we can't prevent everything, that we mitigate their impact.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And that impacts the lives, the livelihoods, the mental health, the well-being of children, of families, of communities globally, because the pathogens that we deal with don't respect borders. And so when anyone is at risk, everyone is at risk. And so WHO managing this type of work and working together with people around the world keeps people safer.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Even if we didn't exist, the world would have to create us.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Thank you so much for having me.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
But one of the things that I love the most and I hope we could potentially get into is that we are the secretariat of 194 member states and we work with incredible experts in every single country. So the best minds coming together to combat the world's biggest health challenges.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
I love this question because I think it's so practical. I mean, I'm an American as well. Proud American. I'm also a very proud international civil servant. And to be working at WHO, working with what we call multilateralism, which just means working with lots of countries. I think we don't make the work that we do...
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
necessarily clear necessarily accessible to individuals i think about my own family we i was from from upstate new york but my family lives in different parts of the us right now and how does the work that we do globally resonate to someone sitting around the kitchen table how does it resonate with parents how does it resonate with people who are you know caring for their children wanting to make sure that they're safe but also caring for older individuals and not just health but the context of education and paying the bills and filling up the gas tank and
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Thinking of a secure future. We don't talk about health like we talk about security. We don't talk about health the way we talk about defense. Everybody invests in defense because we see the threat that's there, this hypothetical threat. Maybe not so hypothetical because we have wars that are happening right now. But health is a fundamental right. And much of what I do is prevention.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
You know, much of what I do doesn't make headlines because if you prevent an outbreak from happening, there's nothing to actually show for it. Now, we all went through COVID and I was the COVID lead. As an American, I have a very significant leadership role. So proud to have had that in
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
incredible responsibility with Dr. Tedros and Dr. Mike Ryan, our director general and the lead of our health emergencies program. Incredible men, incredible dedicated people, but more so the people that we work with and we work for. We serve people to keep them safe. And when I was growing up, we didn't need to know about WHO because we had good health care.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
We weren't worried about the interconnectedness so much that we need to deal with now. The pathogens that I deal with don't respect borders. They don't care about any background that you may have, your political affiliation, the color of your skin, how much money you have in the bank.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And what we, in the interconnected world that we live in, where something emerges on one side of the planet, it could be on the other side of the planet within 24 to 48 hours. So what WHO does, and this is not a perfect example, it's not a perfect similarity, but what US CDC does is,
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
For the U.S., we try to do with every single country across the globe, whether it's improving surveillance, whether it's improving capacities for clinical care, whether it's developing evidence-based guidance to turn data and knowledge into practical advice for leaders, for doctors, for parents. And that matters at the kitchen table because just think of COVID. Take COVID as the example.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
How many people no longer sit at that kitchen table? That didn't have to happen. Certainly we were going to have a pandemic because of this pathogen and how it spread and the immunity profile of the globe, but it didn't have to have the impact that it did. It didn't have to kill 20 million plus people.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And the fact that we no longer have people at that kitchen table, maybe not at your immediate kitchen table, but certainly at that Thanksgiving table or that Christmas table, whatever holiday table that you have where you bring people together. Sunday dinners were big in my Italian upbringing family. They're not there anymore.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And what we do at WHO is we share information across every country as soon as we have it to have governments take decisions to keep their citizens safe. We advance research and development so that not only the vaccines for pathogens that we know about, we're preparing for coronaviruses. We're preparing for threats that may be somewhere far over there.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
that could end up in your community in the near future, to be prepared, to anticipate. And we turn that science into action and into things that can protect you and your family. And you don't have to talk about it every day. You don't have to think about it every day. But people like me, people like you, people who work across institutions in every country do. And I think that's a privilege.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
I think that's actually a blessing because we love what we do. I love what I do. I don't know about you, Vin, but... I feel so lucky to work in this field of work. I don't want a pandemic. I don't want the devastation that we dealt with before. But there's passion, there's dedication, and there's a willingness to be challenged constantly to do better. But WHO's work protects Americans.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Our work protects you home and abroad.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
If we didn't exist, it would need to be created. If WHO did not exist, countries would need to come together to create it. We're part of the United Nations, and we're the health entity of the United Nations coming together. More than 76 years, we just celebrated our 77th birthday. coming together across countries to work together on just one aspect of this. Just think of surveillance, for example.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
What is out there? What is circulating? The known pathogens that cause disease, cause death, cause economic disruption, change livelihoods, changes the course of your life. Think of the lives that have been changed for COVID, businesses that closed. You know, the biggest histories and wars were changed because of diseases that were spreading.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
What we do is we bring countries together to communicate under international law, the international health regulations, to rapidly share information within 24 hours when there's the detection of certain types of pathogens. We, together with experts from around the world, do risk assessments to say, what does this mean for you?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
What is the actual potential that this could cause something really bad? And we warn. We warn the world. You don't have eyes and ears in every country. We do in the sense, and I do not mean this from a detective surveillance point of view, but we have this type of reach in countries because we're working with the member states. We are the secretariat of government.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
We don't actually have any power to go into countries to do different things. And I think that's really a critical distinction because people don't necessarily know what WHO does, or if they don't, they believe a lot of the misrepresentation and misinformation about us. Countries have sovereign rights. We don't go in and tell anyone what to do. What we do is we develop evidence-based guidance.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
take the best information to say, to prevent this infection from spreading or to prevent this infection from turning into a deadly disease, do the following. But we work with governments, we work with medical ministries of health and
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
actually other sectors as well, to turn that evidence-based guidance into policy, which obviously there's a lot of other factors, economic factors and political factors, acceptance, trust in governments to work with countries to do that. The world needs, we actually often say we're not just WHO, we're not just the World Health Organization, we're the world's health organization.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And I think that helps, you know, to say that we are here. Our only job, our only job is to keep people safe. We have no other motivation. I just want to say one other thing, Vin, is the budget. You know, we mentioned defense. Our budget at WHO is less than one hospital, one hospital in one city in one high-income country. Less than one hospital in New York City, for example.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And so it's not a lot of money. And a lot of people think that the U.S. gives us huge amounts of money, and they do, through assessed contributions, which are dues, which are dues member states pay, but also in a lot of voluntary contribution, which can change. But the amount of money that the U.S. gives to WHO is very tiny in terms of the budget of the U.S. government.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And in fact, one of the biggest challenges that right now is not only the change to WHO, but to global health. And you and I talked about this before, the cuts in funding from the U.S. to global programs. I'm impacting more than 50 countries right now. USAID, not an operation. This is having huge impacts and life changing. It's really detrimental at the moment.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
And that's really scary for us right now.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Meidas Health, Episode 4: Why Trump’s WHO Exit Puts Us All at Risk (Dr. Van Kerkhove)
Well, no one country could do this alone. No one country could do this alone because the notion that a pandemic or an epidemic is going to start in some faraway country is a false sense of security. I mean, look at the 2009 flu pandemic, which began in North America. COVID, we don't know the complete origins of COVID, but the first cases were identified in China.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Yikes! Fox News Loses It as Trump Tanks Bad
On your point that you just made about not having Ukraine be in NATO, borders returning to what they were pre-2014, which Hegseth said was off the table. If a Trump official was here tonight and they argued, well, that's just being realistic, what would you say to that?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Yikes! Fox News Loses It as Trump Tanks Bad
Egg prices are soaring. Last week, the average wholesale price for large white shell eggs reached $8 for a dozen. This is wholesale. Retail, it's higher than this. The previous all-time wholesale price was $5.46 back in December 2022. How much are eggs retail right now?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Yikes! Fox News Loses It as Trump Tanks Bad
I've never seen anything like that. $14 for a dozen eggs.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Yikes! Fox News Loses It as Trump Tanks Bad
Appreciate it very much. Congressman Chip Roy, always interesting to talk to you. Thank you so much, sir, for being with us tonight. It's great to see you again.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Fox News Is Terrified On Air as Trump Betrays His Voters
We've seen worries about growth. I know you said you're not expecting a recession, but investors are on edge over the possibility of a recession this year after the Atlanta Federal Reserve said that it's predicting a 2.4% contraction in the first quarter. And of course, President Trump would not... Wait, wait, wait.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Fox News Is Terrified On Air as Trump Betrays His Voters
A what? The Atlantic Federal Reserve.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Says 'Shut Up About Eggs' as He Golfs on Saturday
Can you give us a sense of whether or not we are going to get clarity for the business community?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Holds Awful Presser on Friday
By the way, that's why I said earlier it would be Biden's recession. And I know the haters out there will slam me later. The other day I said something and they went nuts on me on Twitter, on X. I said, well...
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Holds Awful Presser on Friday
You know, I mean, Joel, Lindsey Group came out with a report a couple of weeks ago that I've mentioned a few times. Can Doge induce a recession? No, it can't. OK, you're not going to get a recession just from Doge. Now, there are other things that have happened in this economy with this slowdown.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Holds Awful Presser on Friday
We could see a recession, but it's not going to happen just because they're cutting waste and abuse out of this government, Joel.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Holds Awful Presser on Friday
Can you give us a sense of whether or not we are going to get clarity for the business community?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Top Advisor Hides From Press After Causing Crash
Does the president want a rising stock market because we do have stocks 6% off the highs and confidence is being shaken here a little bit around business. I know you guys wanted lower interest rates and you're getting that but kind of for the wrong reasons because now there's worries about growth and potentially recession because of a trade war.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Top Advisor Hides From Press After Causing Crash
Is that Robert Kennedy Jr. ? There is Robert Kennedy Jr., amazing, and it looks like Howard Lutnick is with him. They're going to join the president on the helicopter. Wow, what a great question it would have been for me today if I was actually going to get to ask President Trump if he was working out with Robert Kennedy Jr., because both of them look great.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Top Advisor Hides From Press After Causing Crash
I mean, President Trump looks healthier than ever before. And that's not just me saying that, because obviously I do support the president. It's me just as a health and fitness person noticing that he does look healthy and that's important obviously for a commander in chief to look healthy, to be healthy and to obviously be fit. It's very important.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Top Advisor Hides From Press After Causing Crash
This is the first time I've seen Robert Kennedy Jr.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Top Advisor Hides From Press After Causing Crash
It's always Elon Musk. Well, the first time I've seen him get onto the helicopter with President Trump and exit this way. I don't know if he's going down to Florida or Mar-a-Lago. Obviously, they're going in the same direction. So will he be spending the weekend on Mar-a-Lago? I don't know. Generally, like I said, it's always Elon Musk.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Top Advisor Hides From Press After Causing Crash
So this is the first time that Elon Musk is not in the helicopter entourage. Generally, it's him. But today, it's Robert Kennedy Jr. and others.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Has Meltdown on Plane as He Suffers Bad
Maria Martiromo asked you and you kind of hesitated.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Has Meltdown on Plane as He Suffers Bad
But we have seen a little bit of market upset. What is your perspective on the way forward?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Has Meltdown on Plane as He Suffers Bad
Yeah, because if they don't get the cut, it's going to be a tax hike for everybody who got it in the first place.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Has Meltdown on Plane as He Suffers Bad
Okay, understood, but you say he's not going to take his foot off the gas. Does that mean these are permanent tariffs? Mr. Secretary, can you provide clarity, yes or no?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Has Meltdown on Plane as He Suffers Bad
And I wanna ask you about Ukraine and the blow up the other day with Zelensky. Let me stay on the economy for a moment because there are rising worries about a slowdown. You've got the Atlanta Federal Reserve saying we're gonna have a contraction in the first quarter. Look, I know that you inherited a mess and
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Has Meltdown on Plane as He Suffers Bad
But are you expecting a recession this year.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 3/7/25
He would end the war in Ukraine in 24 hours. Yes, I do.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 3/7/25
group has been reporting and we just got the jobs numbers out, Congressman. The ADP number is crossing right now. Seventy seven thousand private sector jobs were added to the economy last month. This is the lowest number of jobs added to the economy last month since July. This is the February ADP report.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
MeidasTouch Full Podcast - 3/7/25
Now, obviously, this is not a result of President Trump's policies because this is a result of Joe Biden's economy that that Trump inherited. But how worried should we be that You've got the Atlanta Federal Reserve now expecting a contraction in the first quarter. And as you cut government spending, you're going to actually impact the jobs numbers. You've got the jobs numbers out.
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Holds Disaster Presser and Makes Everything Worse
Two very special proclamations, the first of which is a proclamation that proclaims March 2025 as Women's History Month in honor of all the wonderful women in your administration, all the wonderful women in America, and in honor of everything you've done for women and this administration has done for women in just, what, a month and a half?
The MeidasTouch Podcast
Trump Holds Disaster Presser and Makes Everything Worse
Thank you very much, Mr. President. And thanks for all that you're doing for women.
WSJ What’s News
Democrats Can’t Agree How to Fight Back
Look, I know that you inherited a mess, and you said that the other night.
WSJ What’s News
Democrats Can’t Agree How to Fight Back
But are you expecting a recession this year?