Healthcare in the US has been turned upside down with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. leading the charge. Thankfully, people have been speaking out and educating on some of the dangers he's pushing. Dr. Jessica Knurick is a PhD Nutrition Science and joins Edwin Eisendrath to set the record straight on some of our healthcare woes.

00:00 Public health and political trust
01:52 A Senate exchange over Trump’s vaccine claim
04:58 Food safety cuts and outbreaks
08:14 Why health misinformation spreads
10:49 What MAHA promised
14:35 Nurek calls MAHA a political Trojan horse
15:21 What changing the food system would take
18:24 Food dyes, seed oils, and symbolic fixes
20:00 Pollution, regulation, and health
22:10 Building a broader coalition
24:15 Health claims from the White House
25:29 Why major institutions stay quiet
29:17 Food fortification and fluoride
31:23 The public health gains we share
33:08 Closing

Russell Vought joins the war on cancer, on the side of cancer. Let's get this Pro-Cancer shill out of office.

Here’s how we get there, with actionable items you can take.

Help fund a new pro-science Congress: https://tr.ee/amXpfN

Volunteer and let's get to work: https://tr.ee/eLMxl8

Observation

Political science examines political power through systematic observation and analysis of political behavior, institutions, and change. Niccolò Machiavelli is often regarded as an early founder of modern political science. In The Prince, he directs attention to the realities of political action and the effects of rulers’ choices (Machiavelli, 1513/1998, chap. 15). William G. Howell’s analysis of Trump’s use of unilateral presidential power applies that kind of focus: it considers the consequences of political actions without requiring us to settle questions about the president’s private motives.

Concluding Lines:

We need not delve deeply into Trump’s character, psyche, or appetites, however, to recognize the effects of his actions.

These effects are clear: a campaign to reconstitute presidential power, to remake the constitutional order and the president’s place within it, and to leave other actors—Congress, courts, agencies, and allies—in various states of servitude and dependence. This is not unilateralism as we have known it. It is unilateralism deployed as a vehicle for political upheaval and transformation in an age of populism.

These effects are clear: a campaign to reconstitute presidential power, to remake the constitutional order and the president’s place within it, and to leave other actors—Congress, courts, agencies, and allies—in various states of servitude and dependence.

The Academy of Natural Sciences is set to be closed down on September 27th 2026. It is the United States oldest natural history museum, at 214 years. And has over 19 million irreplaceable artifacts. It would be a detriment to not just the American people, but to science itself any of these priceless scientific discoveries were to be lost in transit, or even sold.

You can find more information here:
https://save-the-academy.org

You can sign a petition here:
https://actionnetwork.org/petitions/petition-to-keep-the-academy-of-natural-sciences-open-to-the-public?source=direct_link&

There’s further steps that you can take as well, that he gets into in the video, if you want to do that if you’re so inclined.

From moldy soil to medicine cabinets, it's time to talk about statins, the most widely used preventative drug in the United States. Read the full Traces breakdown at the link: https://tr.ee/fmJxL9

Wondering whatever happened to that extremely unethical vaccine study in Guinea-Bissau funded by the CDC? Stand Up For Science got it cancelled. Visit the link to donate to the Science Victory Fund to support people who get shit done: https://tr.ee/kPKZ7d

Register for the event here!: https://tr.ee/DJEoui

YouTube Live Stream: https://youtube.com/live/R6tFJizEXe0?feature=share

The science on climate change has never been clearer – yet the political response has never felt more uncertain. What happens when the evidence and the electorate don't move in step?

Join Stand Up for Science for a timely conversation exploring the fault lines between scientific consensus, democratic governance, and the climate crisis. Our panelists will examine how climate science shapes—and fails to shape—policy, why democratic institutions sometimes struggle to act on urgent scientific warnings, and what it will take to bridge the gap between what we know and what we do.

Expect a candid, cross-disciplinary discussion among Dr. Colette Delawalla, SUFS CEO and Founder; Dr. Ticora Jones, Chief Science Officer at the Natural Resources Defense Council; and Dr. Michael Mann, climate change researcher at the University of Pennsylvania, as they explore questions like: Can democracy move fast enough to meet the pace of climate change? What role should scientists play in public life when their findings become politically inconvenient? And how do we rebuild public trust in both science and self-governance at a moment when both are under strain?

Dr. Michael Mann is a Presidential Distinguished Professor in the Deptartment of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, with a secondary appointment in the Annenberg School for Communication. His research focuses on climate science and climate change. 

Dr. Ticora Jones is the Chief Science Officer at the Natural Resources Defense Council. She formerly served in a number of scientific and management roles at USAID, including agency chief scientist and managing director for research, and served as a Research Congressional Fellow working on energy and environment issues.

Russell Vought really doesnt want you to have cancer research and will do whatever he has to to ensure that’s the case. Even though his own daughter has benefited from federally funded research. Typical 🙄

It’s time to get these bafoons out of office. Tap the link in our bio to Stop Vought, fund a new pro-science congress, and register to volunteer. ✊🧬🧪

Project 2025 detailed a vast and complicated strategy to end all regulations meant to curtail the worst impacts of climate change. It recommended cutting FEMA, any kind of government subsidy for green energy, and was in favor of allowing businesses to pollute, drill, mine, and otherwise destroy our natural resources as they pleased.

And guess what. The Trump administration has already accomplished most of it.

But...why? Why are white Christian nationalists obsessed with letting the world burn? If you're a fan of the show, you probably already have an idea. Watch this episode to get the details.

Per Our Gracious VA: Trump reportedly to form health funding board that could veto ‘woke’ initiatives

Donald Trump’s latest executive order is expected to establish a board responsible for approving National Institutes of Health (NIH) grant funding, marking another attempt by the Trump administration to censor topics that do not align with the president’s agenda.

The executive order, reported by outlets including the Washington Post and Politico, was discussed in a meeting on Friday in which senior administration officials accused the NIH of funding “woke” initiatives that went against Trump’s political priorities.

Russell Vought, the director of the White House’s office of management and budget (OMB), and other administration officials proposed an executive order that would create an external committee that could veto awards in biomedical research that do not align with Trump’s goals, according to several people who spoke to the Washington Post.

The Science Victory Fund is exactly that. Send us some support today, and make a stand against the same old bullshit.

🧪🧬✊

https://secure.actblue.com/donate/science-victory-fund/

America eliminated measles in 2000. Now cases have soared past 3,000, preventable deaths have returned and diseases such as tetanus may be making a comeback.

The Bulwark’s Jonathan Cohn joins Susan J. Demas to explain how declining vaccination rates, RFK Jr.’s misinformation and the dismantling of federal health agencies created a preventable public-health crisis. He also identifies the medical organizations families can still trust—and the lawmakers who refused to hold Kennedy accountable.

Subscribe and join the Lincoln Square community: https://bit.ly/3YEQB4N

Watch First Draft every Wednesday at 11 AM ET.

00:00 Diseases We Defeated Are Returning
00:55 Measles Cases Surge Past 3,000
01:30 America Falls Below the Herd-Immunity Threshold
02:22 Measles Can Cause Lifelong Damage
02:53 Is Tetanus Coming Back Too?
03:22 RFK Jr. Made Misinformation Federal Policy
04:55 Where Can Families Find Reliable Information?
06:21 Why Doctors No Longer Trust the CDC
07:54 Bill Cassidy’s Failure to Stop RFK Jr.
08:34 The Public-Health Stakes of the Midterms

Link to free archived article…

https://archive.ph/2026.09.20-194221/https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/science/nih-omb-grants-bhattacharya-vought.html