Supreme Court to hear arguments over TikTok ban on Jan. 10

(NEW YORK) — President Donald Trump said he wants Marty Makary, a Johns Hopkins surgeon and author who argued against pandemic lockdowns, to lead the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

“He will work under the leadership of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to, among other things, properly evaluate harmful chemicals poisoning our Nation’s food supply and drugs and biologics being given to our Nation’s youth, so that we can finally address the Childhood Chronic Disease Epidemic,” Trump said in his announcement.

If confirmed by the Senate, Makary’s job would be to oversee the FDA’s $7 billion budget and report to the health secretary. The agency oversees $3.6 trillion in food, tobacco and medical products, including some 20,000 prescription drugs on the market.

Here are three things to know about Makary:

Makary is a respected transplant surgeon who questioned his colleagues’ recommendations on COVID

Makary was known during the pandemic as an experienced medical expert willing to challenge his colleagues’ assumptions on COVID, although he was often criticized by his peers for cherry-picking data or omitting context.

He frequently appeared on Fox News and wrote opinion articles that questioned the value of lockdowns and masks for children. He supported the use of vaccines but opposed mandates and doubted the utility of boosters, at odds with full-throated recommendations on boosters from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Among his views was that the U.S. government was underestimating the number of people who were likely immune to the virus. In early 2021, he predicted much of the country would reach “herd immunity” by that April, reducing risk of the virus dramatically.

That assumption, however, did not happen.

As restrictions eased and a new variant surfaced, virus-related deaths soared from about 4,000 a week to about 15,000 a week by September, making 2021 a deadlier year than when the pandemic began.

Makary stood by his assertion that “natural immunity” was still being underestimated by the U.S. government.

“One reason public health officials may be afraid to acknowledge the effectiveness of natural immunity is that they fear it will lead some to choose getting the infection over vaccination. That’s a legitimate concern. But we can encourage all Americans to get vaccinated while still being honest about the data,” he wrote a separate opinion article in The Washington Post.

He sounds a lot like RFK Jr. when talking about the ‘poisoned’ food supply, pesticides and ultra-processed foods.

After the pandemic, Makary began turning back to his initial focus railing against an overpriced health care system. He’s long argued that the system is broken, overcharging patients and running unnecessary tests.

He also began speaking more critically about America’s food system, echoing a message embraced by Trump’s pick for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

“We’ve got a poisoned food supply. We’ve got pesticides. We’ve got ultra-processed foods and all sorts of things that have been in the blind spots in modern medicine,” Makary told Fox News this September.

Kennedy also would require Senate confirmation to get the job.

In a later interview, Makary praised Trump’s decision to pick Kennedy.

“He wants to address corruption in health care and corruption in our government health agencies,” he said.

He warns against ‘drugging our nation’s children.’

It’s not clear exactly what Makary would do if confirmed as FDA commissioner, as much of his work would likely be steered by Trump and the incoming health secretary, possibly Kennedy.

But Makary has previously suggested an overhaul of FDA’s “erratic” bureaucracy, which he says was too eager to approve opioids and too cautious when it came to other drugs like the COVID antiviral pill Molnupiravir.

“For too long, FDA leaders have acted like a crusty librarian who gets annoyed when someone wants to borrow a book. But then give preference to people they like,” Makary wrote in a 2021 opinion article in Fox News.

More recently, he’s called for a ban on cell phones on schools, and praised Kennedy for questioning the use of anti-anxiety and anti-obesity drugs in children.

“What he is really focused on is this concept that we can’t keep drugging our nation’s children,” Makary said of Kennedy.

When asked if Kennedy can accomplish what he wants to do in four years, Makary told Fox News he’ll try by bringing in more scientists and letting “them do good work.”

Kennedy “is really the quintessential environmental health attorney of our era, and that may be the quintessential issue of our era,” Makary said.

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(WASHINGTON) — Special counsel Jack Smith has moved to dismiss his federal election interference case and his classified documents case against President-elect Donald Trump due to a long-standing Justice Department policy that bars the prosecution of a sitting president, not because of the merits of the charges.

Nearly 16 months after a grand jury first indicted Trump over his alleged efforts to unlawfully overturn the results of the 2020 election, Smith has asked U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan to throw out the case ahead of Trump’s impending inauguration, according to a motion filed Monday.

“That prohibition is categorical and does not turn on the gravity of the crimes charged, the strength of the Government’s proof, or the merits of the prosecution, which the Government stands fully behind,” Smith said in his motion, in which he said, “the country have never faced the circumstance here, where a federal indictment against a private citizen has been returned by a grand jury and a criminal prosecution is already underway when the defendant is elected President.”

“Confronted with this unprecedented situation, the Special Counsel’s Office consulted with the Department’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), whose interpretation of constitutional questions such as those raised here is binding on Department prosecutors. After careful consideration, the Department has determined that OLC’s prior opinions concerning the Constitution’s prohibition on federal indictment and prosecution of a sitting President apply to this situation and that as a result this prosecution must be dismissed before the defendant is inaugurated,” said the motion.

Earlier this month, Judge Chutkan cancelled the remaining deadlines in the case after Smith requested time to “assess this unprecedented circumstance and determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy” following Trump’s election.

Trump last year pleaded not guilty to federal charges of undertaking a “criminal scheme” to overturn the results of the 2020 election by enlisting a slate of so-called “fake electors,” using the Justice Department to conduct “sham election crime investigations,” trying to enlist the vice president to “alter the election results,” and promoting false claims of a stolen election during the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, all in an effort to subvert democracy and remain in power.

Smith subsequently charged Trump in a superseding indictment that was adjusted to respect the Supreme Court’s July ruling that Trump is entitled to immunity from criminal prosecution for official acts undertaken as president.

Judge Chutkan had been in the process of considering how the case should proceed in light of the Supreme Court’s immunity ruling.

Smith had faced filing deadlines of Dec. 2 for both the election interference case and the classified documents case against Trump, after Smith’s team requested more time to determine how to face the unprecedented situation of pending federal cases against someone who had just been elected to the presidency.

Trump pleaded not guilty last year to 40 criminal counts related to his handling of classified materials after leaving the White House, before U.S. District Judge Aileen Cannon dismissed the case in July over her finding that Smith was improperly appointed to his role. Smith appealed that ruling to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that legal precedent and history confirm the attorney general’s ability to appoint special counsels, but after Trump’s reelection he asked the court to pause the appeal until Dec.2, in the same manner as the election interference case.

Getting Monday’s filing in a week ahead of schedule now raises the question of whether Smith will be able to beat the clock to officially close his office down and submit his final report to Attorney General Merrick Garland — as is required of him per the DOJ’s special counsel regulations — before Inauguration Day.

The final report will have to go through a classification review by the intelligence community, a process that can sometimes take weeks before it is approved for any kind of public release.

Attorney General Garland has made clear in appearances before Congress and public statements that he is committed to making public the final reports of all Special Counsels during his tenure, which included reports by Special Counsel Robert Hur and Special Counsel John Durham.

Special Counsel David Weiss is still continuing his investigation and is set to take his case against an FBI informant charged with lying about President Biden and his son Hunter to trial in California next week. It’s unclear whether he will formally close his investigation down and submit a final report prior to Trump taking office.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

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(NEW YORK) — Former President Donald Trump used his appearance on “The Joe Rogan Experience” to push false claims about the 2020 election, bash his opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, and attack his former White House staff.

The episode, which went live Friday night, likely reached one of the biggest podcast audiences in the country, with over 15.7 million followers on Spotify. Trump’s interview caused a three-hour delay at a planned rally in Michigan Friday night.

With just over a week to go until November’s election, Trump continued to spread doubts about the election results, slammed secure voting practices, such as mail-in voting and voting machines, and doubled down on his false beliefs that he won the 2020 presidential election.

“You had old-fashioned ballot screwing,” Trump told Joe Rogan, making unfounded claims about unsigned ballots and “phony votes.”

Rogan compared the label of election denialist to the labeling of anti-vaxxer, with Trump railing against mail-in voting despite telling his supporters to go out and vote however they want.

When Rogan asked Trump why he didn’t publish comprehensive evidence of alleged voter fraud in 2020, the former president got combative, falsely claiming he did and argued he lost the election because judges “didn’t have what it took.”

When Rogan brought up Democrats and Harris labeling him a fascist, Trump shot back.

“Kamala is a very low IQ person. She’s a very low IQ,” the former president said.

Trump, who has come under fire after former Chief of Staff John Kelly said in interviews that Trump praised Nazi generals, told Rogan he had an affinity for Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. “He took a war that should have been over in a few days, and it was, you know, years of hell of vicious war,” Trump said.

The unedited episode was more of a conversation than an interview as Rogan asked Trump to reminisce on his political arch and let him ramble about various topics from the environment to the economy to health care.

However, in the freeform format, even Rogan got lost at times.

“Your weave is getting wide. I wanna get back to tariffs,” Rogan said at one point.

Trump referenced his style of talking at a rally in August, calling it “the weave.”

“I’ll talk about like, nine different things and they all come back brilliantly together,” he said at the time.

On the Rogan podcast, Trump defended his own age and cognitive acuity while attacking President Joe Biden’s cognitive ability.

“Biden gives people a bad name because that’s not an old – that’s not an age. I think they say it because I’m three or four years younger, you know? I think that’s why they say it. They say his age. It’s not his age. He’s got a problem,” Trump said.

While talking about the first presidential debate between Trump and Biden, Rogan floated a disproven conspiracy theory that Democrats wanted the debate to happen earlier than usual to get Biden out of the race.

Trump acknowledged it but disagreed, saying, “I don’t think anybody thought he was going to get out,” referring to Biden.

Toward the end of the podcast, Rogan asked Trump about extraterrestrial life and if Trump believed in aliens to which the former president went on to say there may be life on Mars.

“Mars, we’ve had probes there and rovers, and I don’t think there’s any life there,” Rogan pushed back.

“Maybe it’s life that we don’t know about,” Trump retorted.

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