Warped

Looking back at President Trump’s first term in office, there’s a lot he should be proud of: the Abraham Accords, a landmark agreement he led that normalized relations between Israel and several Arab nations; his leadership in passing criminal justice reform that gave former prison inmates a path to rejoining society; his drive to invest more than $35 billion in clean water infrastructure improvements; his $6 billion in federal funding to fight the opioid epidemic.   

That’s not a complete list, as he had many other accomplishments that transcend party politics, but when history is written in the decades ahead,and coolerminds examine his first term outside the glare of today’s partisan politics, his leadership on Operation Warp Speedwill most certainly be at the top of the list of accomplishments that will define his legacy. 

As a refresher, Warp Speed was the “all of government” effort that President Trump led to develop a COVID vaccine in record time. In January2021, the Trump administration posted a list of the administration’s accomplishments on the White House website and touted Operation Warp Speed as the historical achievement it was. 

To quote the Trump administration at the time, the administration “brought the full power of medicine and government to produce a safe and effective vaccine in record time.” 

It rightfully boasted: “Pfizer and Moderna developed two vaccines in just nine months, five times faster than the fastest prior vaccine development in American history. Signed an executive order to ensure that the United States government prioritizes getting the vaccine to Americans before sending it to other nations. Provided Pfizer up to $1.95 billion to support the mass-manufacturing and nationwide distribution of their vaccine candidate.  Awarded $200 million in funding to support vaccine preparedness and plans for the immediate distribution and administration of vaccines.” 

In short, it was vintage Trump: a take-charge, action-oriented approach that defied regulations and bent the rules of government and corporate institutions to deliver a win for the American people and the world.   

According to Fox News this week, at a White House summit in early 2020, President Trump said about Warp Speed: “We harnessed the full power of government, the genius of American scientists, and the might of American industry to save millions and millions of lives all over the world.” 

And now he is embarrassed to talk about it. 

The Wall Street Journal reported this past week that in August, President Trump met with top donors at his New Jersey golf club and told them he believed Operation Warp Speed was one of the biggest achievements of his presidency, but that he couldn’t trumpet the win because so much of his base has fallen in line with the warped views of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., his secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). 

Kennedy, with no medical degree or any real-world experience leading an organization close to the size of HHS, is gutting the Center for Disease Control and undermining the achievements of Warp Speed “by cancelling substantial federal research investments in mRNA – the technology that has already led to approved vaccines for COVID-19 and RSV, and holds tremendous potential for future treatments and cures for many diseases,” according to an analysis published on the Fox News website in late August. 

Kennedy tried to fire the CDC director President Trump appointed months ago after she refused to go along with his plan to restrict access to proven vaccines, and President Trump then stepped in to fire her, resulting in the resignation of other CDC leaders in protest. 

Kennedy is a quack, plain and simple, with no education, training, or experience that would qualify him to run HHS. But, as a former Democrat who endorsed President Trump in the last election, he has somehow earned a job that could negatively impact the lives of millions of people worldwide. 

The Economist published a story this week describing the chilling effect Kennedy’s efforts are having on the scientific community and the downstream effects they’ll have on both the cost and efficacy of future medical treatments, saying that Kennedy’s funding cuts “could increase per-patient manufacturing costs by 20-40% and extend production timelines by two to six weeks” for personalized cancer vaccines. 

I’m not a doctor, nor do I play one on TV, but I have a few friends who are. I reached out to an old friend this week who is an academic professor medical doctor in Georgia, and here’s what he told me:  

“We are witnessing a tragic transformation of America’s public health on a scale we have not seen until this administration. Senior CDC medical staff dismissed and run off by senseless political agendas. Vaccine recommendations downplayed by scare tactics, reinforced by bogus committees. Scientific data in general discarded, including well-examined data on vaccines jettisoned by non-scientists. A new measles outbreak leading to the death of two children, when there should be no deaths, no epidemic at all.Indeed, political ideology is superseding science. This is not a case of ‘there is nothing to be seen here, people.’ It is a case of too much ineptitude in the HHS directing current public health programs in ways that are creating dire consequences for the health of American people of all ages.” 

I haven’t made any predictions about President Trump’s current term in office in this column other than to say he will easily go down as one of the most consequential presidents in U.S. history. I hope our lives aren’t the consequence of a completely unqualified cabinet appointment, and my guess is Kennedy won’t last for the duration of the Trump presidency, if sanity finds a way to prevail among Republicans in Congress.   

As the new session gets underway, keep an eye on Senator Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician himself and chair of the Senate Health Committee.   Cassidy previously said RFK Jr.’s views were “wrong,” but reluctantly voted for his confirmation. After the CDC firings last week, Cassidy told the press he intends to have the health committee look intoKennedy’s actions.   

“We have to know what’s going on,” he said. “Secretary Kennedy said rightly President Trump is committed to transparency. We just need transparency, so the health committee, which I chair, will hear from those who were fired and will hear from Secretary Kennedy. We’ll find out what happened.”