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The Lead with Jake Tapper
CVS Holds Off On Offering COVID Vaccines In 16 States; FEMA Reforms Unravel 20 Years After Katrina; Man Tried To Reach For A Guardsman Firearm In The Metro Train In DC; Tariff Exemptions On Small Shipments Expire Under New Trump Administration Rules; Xi, Putin, Modi Meeting To Discuss Trump & U.S. Policy; Newsom Ramps Up Criticism Of Trump's Federal Takeover; Jake Reunites With Katrina Survivor Who Lost Home In Storm. Aired 5-6p ET
Aired August 29, 2025 - 17:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[17:00:00]
KASIE HUNT, CNN HOST: Jake Tapper is standing by now for The Lead. And Jake, I mean, I remember covering that horrible day. And of course, we are thinking of the city of New Orleans exactly 20 years to the day since that happened.
JAKE TAPPER, CNN HOST: Yes. Today I'm going to have a reunion with a guy I covered back then. 20 years ago, I traveled with an oyster fisherman from Hondale, Louisiana, back to his home that had been destroyed. Stacy Gerarci is his name. I haven't talked to him in 20 years. We're going to show a little bit of the footage from back then and I'm going to talk to him in a few minutes. So I want to --
HUNT: Really remarkable. We'll look forward to that.
TAPPER: Thanks Kasie. We'll see you back in the arena next week.
RFK Jr. is now making it impossible for many of you to get COVID vaccines. The Lead starts right now.
The nation's largest pharmacy chainsaw, CVS and Walgreens, are pulling back on who can get a COVID vaccine. How these decisions are a direct result of turmoil at the CDC.
Plus, disgust in Italy over doctored images of the country's prime minister popping up on a porn site. The response by the site's owners that have people quite worked up.
And Republican Senator Joni Ernst of Iowa not running for reelection, how her decision could set up a big race for Republicans who right now are barely holding on to the Senate majority.
Welcome to The Lead. I'm Jake Tapper and we start with our Health Lead. And new questions today about how your health could be impacted by the actions of Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. We just learned that in the weeks before Kennedy moved to ousted Dr. Susan Menarez is head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or CDC. Top HHS officials repeatedly pressed her to commit to signing off on
potential new vaccine restrictions. That's according to two people familiar with the matter.
Also today, it became more difficult for people in 16 states in these United States to get a COVID vaccination. CVS Pharmacy is not offering COVID vaccines in these states. We're showing you in this chart. Even if you meet eligibility requirements in all of those states except for Massachusetts, Nevada, New Mexico, you can get the vaccine if you have a doctor's prescription. Why this confusing change?
CBS cites the current regulatory environment saying that the chain follows state level regulations. And in some states, pharmacists cannot provide vaccines until they are recommended by the CDC's vaccine advisory panel, though that panel won't meet to make new recommendations until September 18th. And that meeting will take place without multiple high level CDC officials who just resigned in protest of RFK Jr's actions.
One of them, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, led the Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. And he told CNN, RFK Jr. has never received a briefing on measles or COVID-19 or flu from the experts at the CDC.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. DEMETRE DASKALAKIS, FORMER DIRECTOR, NATIONAL CENTER FOR IMMUNIZATION AND RESPIRATORY DISEASES: No one from my center has ever briefed him on any of those topics. Yes, he's getting information from somewhere, but that information is not coming from CDC experts who really are the world's experts in this area. He's not taking us up on several offers to brief him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: So RFK Jr., The HHA secretary who as you may remember has zero medical degrees and zero science degrees, has also never been briefed on the COVID-19 by the CDC. Despite long condemning COVID vaccines with all sorts of false accusations, making a number of false claims about their safety, he's now impacting the availability of you to get COVID vaccines wherever you are across the country.
Joining us now, former Health and Human Service Secretary Xavier Becerra under President Biden. He's also a Democratic candidate for governor in California. Mr. Secretary, what do you make of this current disruption to vaccine availability at CVS and Walgreens? How big of an impact will this have on people, especially those most vulnerable to bad cases of COVID 19?
XAVIER BECERRA, FORMER HHS SECRETARY: First, Jake, it's hard to understand what's going on, why you would go in reverse when it comes to disease prevention and control, why you would get rid of the health experts who've guided us over the years and certainly through COVID. It makes no sense.
You're either firing the health experts or you're hemorrhaging the rest. And that makes it impossible for you to be prepared for any future attack that might come from whatever disease it might be.
TAPPER: After this week's high level resignations at the CDC, Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, who worked as a physician before he entered politics.
[17:05:06]
He said the September meeting of this CDC vaccine advisory panel should be postponed until these vacancies are filled. And he said if it's not postponed, he called on the panel to reject any recommendations. Do you agree?
BECERRA: This should be driven by the science, not the politics. Politicians do very poorly when it comes to science. And if you don't have the scientists in place to guide the politicians who are heading these departments, how can you come out with something that's going to be good for the health of the American people?
And so I think it's time for the Senate to ask the right questions. And I understand that Secretary Kennedy will go before them. It's time for him to lay out the answers to why all this is happening at a time when America cannot be unprepared.
TAPPER: You say you work alongside the CDC leaders who just resigned. Some of them worked on infectious diseases. What kind of practical impact could their departures have on the public health of the American people?
BECERRA: Well, how do you prepare? How do you use the data and know where it's taking you if the experts who are the ones who've always examined it to then give you recommendations are gone? How do you continue the collaboration with the 50-state health authorities who really do health care in their states? CDC coordinates that. How do you do the coordination for all those states so that you make sure that in California or Texas or New York or Illinois, what we know in one place, the other places will know so we can coordinate the best actions that we need to take to protect all Americans.
And that's what CDC does. It is the glue that helps every state do this the right way. You can't do it the right way if you're not coordinating. You can't do it the right way if you're not using the data. And you can't do it the right way if you don't have the health experts working for you anymore.
TAPPER: What do you think the good scientists at the CDC should do right now? The ones that are still there, should they stay and fight? Should they also resign in protest? What's your message to them?
BECERRA: Jake, I think they're doing everything they can. Don't think that some of these folks who just resigned this week haven't been thinking about what they should and could do. It just got to the point where I think they just said enough is enough.
As you just heard in your report, they're not even being consulted by the chief of the department or the Trump administration on what best to do when it comes to these infectious diseases. And so I think many of them are holding on. I appreciate all they've
done. I know all of the ones who just resigned, they were so impactful when it came to pulling America out of this COVID crisis. In fact, Dr. Daskalakis, who you just saw -- he was the person who helped -- he was the guy that helped navigate the mpox, the monkeypox infections that we saw, and were able to stop it from becoming a pandemic.
How do you do this work if the people who saved you before are now gone? It's ridiculous.
TAPPER: One of the arguments RFK Jr. makes, Secretary Kennedy makes is that so many of the scientists and health officials were wrong during COVID because they closed down schools for too long. They shut down businesses for too long. In retrospect, there are a lot of Americans who hear that and say that's true. What do you say?
BECERRA: Jake, it's not true. CDC did not close any school. CDC doesn't have the authority. Only school officials have that authority. CDC provided information and guidance. We provided recommendations. We never ordered any school closed. We just provided the information that helps you decide how to do your business at home.
Remember, I just told you 50 states control their health care. 50 states control their schools. CDC doesn't control health care or schools in any state. We provide the data and the science to back up what you do. And so for the CDC to be blamed for what others did is not just wrong, it's wrong headed because CDC provided the right information that helped us survive the pandemic to pull out of it, not just with our health, but with our economy. And to now say CDC is to blame the professionals. Wow.
TAPPER: Former HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra. Thanks so much for your time, sir. Appreciate it.
BECERRA: Thank you.
TAPPER: Coming up, inside the drama at a different federal agency, FEMA, a staffer tried to sound the alarm by signing on to a public letter to Congress warning that FEMA was unprepared for the next natural disaster. And that staffer will join us next live after being put on leave.
Plus, world leaders from China, Russia and India all coming together for a major meeting. President Trump will not be there. What's so important to discuss? We have some insight ahead. Stay with us.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
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TAPPER: Somber remembrances today as New Orleans marked 20 years since the devastation of Hurricane Katrina and the failure of the levies. The work of FEMA then and now remains under scrutiny.
On Monday of this week, 180 current and former FEMA employees sent a letter to Congress, an open letter warning that the Trump administration sweeping overhaul of FEMA is gutting the agency's disaster relief capabilities, undoing two decades of progress since Katrina, they said.
In response, the Trump administration put several of those FEMA employees on leave. That includes FEMA public assistance mitigation specialist Phoenix Gibson, who joins us now.
Phoenix, thanks so much for joining us. You're relatively early on in your career. You've been at FEMA for two years, FEMA core six years before that, or eight years, was it?
PHOENIX GIBSON, FORMER FEMA EMERGENCY MANAGEMENT SPECIALIST: Eight months.
TAPPER: Eight. OK. Eight months before that.
GIBSON. Yes.
TAPPER: Why did you decide to publicly sign on to this declaration? Did you think it might result in you being put on leave?
GIBSON: Yes, I definitely thought that it would result in or could result in me being put on leave, as did all of the public signers. But we all agreed that the risk to the people of this country is greater than that to ourselves. I mean, the possibility of people dying because of the changes that this administration has made to FEMA as an agency is extremely high if people haven't died already.
[17:15:10]
TAPPER: Give me an example of what you're talking about. What changes have they specifically made that you think will result or could result in death?
GIBSON: Yes, totally. So, I mean, if we think back to the Kerrville floods that happened just last month in Texas.
TAPPER: 4th of July in Texas. Yes.
GIBSON: Yes. Urban Search and Rescue was delayed. Aerial imaging of water flow was delayed. The deployment of these resources that could have potentially saved lives was delayed because of the $100,000 manual review of --
TAPPER: That's the requirement that Kristi Noem has to prove any expense over $100,000.
GIBSON: Yes. And the urban Search and Rescue director resigned, citing those delays as the cause.
TAPPER: You say you were put on administrative leave faster than support was sent to Kerrville.
GIBSON: Yes.
TAPPER: How did that disaster and the response specifically contribute to your desire to sign on to the Katrina declaration?
GIBSON: So I am originally from Texas. I grew up in Texas. And while I'm not a specific community member of Kerrville, it definitely pulled my heartstrings. And seeing the way that response was affected because of changes made by the administration definitely pulled weight in my decision to go public on this letter.
TAPPER: Have you and your colleagues received any different guidance in this administration, the Trump administration, than previously in terms of, like, how and when to respond to requests for assistance?
GIBSON: Yes. So definitely I have experienced not being able to obligate grant funds because of the $100,000 review, which definitely is something that is extremely difficult to work. I won't say work around because there's no working around it, but to work with.
TAPPER: Well, that's your job.
GIBSON: Right.
TAPPER: People make a request and to help rebuild something and to help mitigate for a future disaster --
GIBSON: Yes.
TAPPER: -- and you offer the grant --
GIBSON: Right.
TAPPER: -- and you can't do it --
GIBSON: Right.
TAPPER: -- Christina Mulcaza (ph).
GIBSON: Yes.
TAPPER: All right. Phoenix Gibson, thank you so much for coming here today. I really appreciate it.
GIBSON: Thank you.
TAPPER: Just in a situation so many fear with National Guard members walking around here in D.C. now armed with firearms, we're learning that a civilian tried to grab one of those guns from a National Guardsman. The details just coming in on this one. That's ahead.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:21:36]
TAPPER: We're back with the breaking news. I told you about a frightening incident involving a man on a D.C. metro train and a National Guardsman armed with a gun. Let's get right to CNN's Brian Todd. Brian, tell us what happened. BRIAN TODD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Right, Jake. We're here at Union
Station. This is not one of the Metro stations. This is not the Metro station where this incident occurred. This is one of the Metro stations where National Guardsmen deployed. But the incident we're talking about occurred at the Capitol south metro station not too far away from here.
This information reported by our colleague Haley Britzky and coming from the joint task force that's overseeing the National Guard's mission. According to the task force, this incident occurred at about noon today at the Capitol South Metro Station here in Washington where an individual attempted to grab a National Guard soldier's firearm during a disturbance there on a Metro train.
According to the task force, Mississippi National Guardsmen were summoned by travelers to a Metro train where a disturbance was occurring. The guardsmen entered the train. They separated three individuals who were engaged in the disturbance. According to the task force, those individuals included two males and one female.
Now, at that point, according to the task force, one of the males reached for the service weapon of a soldier. And here's a quote, the soldier, quote, assisted him to the ground where he was placed in hand restraints until a Metro Transit police officer arrived.
Now, these guardsmen have been carrying their firearms in the open since earlier this week. This was an order from Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth that they carry their firearms when they're deployed here in DC. The mayor of D.C. has said that she does not believe that the National Guardsmen should be engaging in police operations.
But we have to stress that this kind of incident could have occurred actually if a Metro police officer had come on board the train and tried to separate those people. That could have happened to a Metro police officer as well.
But it does illustrate, you know, what's in store, possibly for these National Guardsmen at least some of the dangers involved as they carry their weapons openly on the streets of D.C. Jake.
TAPPER: All right, Brian Todd at Union Station, thanks so much.
In our Money Lead, your super discount fashion orders from SHIEN and Temu may never arrive because today the Trump administration put an end to the loophole known as de minimis. This exemption had allowed shipments worth $800 or less to enter the United States duty free. Without this loophole, your price per package depends on the tariffs of the seller's country and how much the seller is willing to pass along to you.
Some orders might simply never arrive at postal providers in countries such as Japan, Australia and Mexico as they temporarily halt shipments of low value mail sent to the United States, which brings us to our Business Leaders series where we consistently hear from small business owners talking about the impact, or lack thereof, of Trump's tariffs on their small business. There is a company called It's Nola. I-T-S N-O-L-A. It's Nola is a
small black owned gourmet granola company launched after a group of college students encouraged their professor to sell homemade vegan granola bites brought to class. It's Nola founder Dr. Margaret Barrow joins us now.
Dr. Barrow, you sell a wide variety of granola products online. I-T-S N-O-L-A dot com, itsnola.com. I understand you source the ingredients such as the oats and the dates and the sunflower seeds domestically. So how are tariffs impacting your business, if at all?
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DR. MARGARET BARROW, FOUNDER, IT'S NOLA: So there are quite a few of our ingredients that come from outside the United States. We purchase our ingredients from a wholesaler and what they do is they source from all across the world and their prices have gone up and in some cases quite high.
We haven't seen because if we're sourcing domestically, we're not seeing the prices increase, perhaps with the oats, but we're seeing the increases with the dates. America does not have the agriculture to support all of the different types of ingredients that we have in our foods.
And so even recently were looking at purchasing our coconut oil and we noticed that the price had gone up dramatically. And so another business friend of mine, she also purchases coconut oil and we were commiserating about the cost. It's just so high.
TAPPER: How are you handling the cost? Have you had to raise prices?
BARROW: I just recently realized that I have to, I can't absorb the prices because from as I was speaking with my ingredient supplier, I did have a conversation about these constant, you know, roller coaster prices and they said they're trying to do the best that they can, but it's out of their hands.
And so, as a small business, I really haven't. I've really tried not to pass on the price, but if I don't, I may not have a business when all of this settles, if it settles.
TAPPER: All right, you can shop for It's Nola on their website at itsnola.com, I-T-S N-O-L-A. I'm looking at it right now. Looks like some really good stuff. Luscious cranberry coconut dark chocolate. You can expect an order from me any minute now. Dr. Margaret Barrow, thank you so much. Appreciate it.
BARROW: Thank you, Jake.
TAPPER: Sheer discussed in Italy after doctored images of the Prime Minister and her sister and other women ended up on a porn website. The details on this one I have.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[17:31:13]
TAPPER: Our World Lead today marks two weeks to the day since the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, when President Trump pledged severe consequences if Putin did not agree at that summit to an immediate ceasefire. But Putin did not agree to it, and Trump took it back.
And there remains still no concrete deal to end the war in Ukraine, or concrete arrangement to instill serious ramifications on Russia, despite a meeting in New York today between Ukrainian and American leaders.
Back on the battlefield, Ukraine is trying to hit back against Russia. Ukraine says it blew up two bridges inside Russia, using $600 drones to hit stashes of mines and ammunition hidden near Russian forces.
Meanwhile, Russian leader Vladimir Putin is working on strengthening his No Limits partnership with his ally China's Xi Jinping. CNN's Ivan Watson reports for us now from China, where these leaders are set to meet this weekend without President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
IVAN WATSON, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Three world leaders whose countries dominate the map of Asia are about to meet in China for a summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. But looming over this Eurasian gathering will be the elephant not in the room.
YUN SUN, CHINA PROGRAM DIRECTOR, STIMSON CENTER: For this particular summit, U.S. may not be at the table, but U.S. is always present.
WATSON (voice-over): India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi will make his first trip to China in seven years --
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We did it with India.
WATSON (voice-over): -- days after Trump slammed a 50 percent tariff on Indian exports to the U.S.
China and India's relationship cratered after a series of deadly clashes first erupted along their disputed border in 2020.
JOE BIDEN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Mr. Prime Minister, we have a big agenda.
WATSON (voice-over): For decades, Washington has been grooming India as a democratic counterbalance to China. But that suddenly changed in July, when Trump called India a dead economy and announced his punishing tariffs, insisting it was a penalty for buying Russian oil.
SUSHANT SINGH, LECTURER IN SOUTH ASIAN STUDIES, YALE UNIVERSITY: India needs the support of the United States, and with that support no longer assured or in fact almost gone, Mr. Modi had no option but to go and cut a deal with President Xi.
WATSON (voice-over): Meanwhile, Russia's president will stand with his old friend Xi Jinping again, shortly after Trump rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin in Alaska.
TRUMP: Thank you very much, Vladimir.
I'm very disappointed with the conversation I had today with President Putin.
SUN: For Washington, the traditional term that has been used is, how do we break the Russia-China collusion? Well, it's desire to break their collusion is the reason that they collude in the first place.
WATSON (voice-over): In 2022, just days before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Putin and Xi called for the creation of a new world order. The U.S.'s biggest global competitor is now capitalizing on Trump's chaotic diplomacy.
SUN: The message here that we have seen China emphasize is, is China represents credibility, it represents stability, it represents policy predictability.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
WATSON: Jake, arguably the Eurasian summit that will be held here in the city of Tianjin this weekend could be described as a warm-up event for what is expected to be a much bigger demonstration of Chinese military might.
China will be holding a huge military parade in Beijing next week to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the surrender of Japan in World War II. The Russian President Vladimir Putin will be attending, as will -- as will North Korea's leader Kim Jong-un. So imagine this.
We may see the leaders of Russia, China, and North Korea together viewing thousands of marching Chinese soldiers. Jake?
[17:35:01]
TAPPER: Our thanks.
But also in our World Lead, outrage over a porn site that allegedly showed doctored graphic images of Italy's prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, as well as her sister and other high-profile women in Italy. The site's owners took it down, blaming users for violating the rules of the site.
CNN's Barbie Nadeau is in Rome. And, Barbie, Italy already has revenge porn laws in place. Would that include this type of content?
BARBIE LATZA NADEAU, CNN REPORTER: Jake, this is the big question. Whether the laws are to stick violent situations and stalking situations. And this is quite different, because many of the images that depicted female Italian leaders, including Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and her sister, along with the female head of the opposition party and many female actors and influencers, are actually altered images of them taken at political rallies or in press reports.
Now, Meloni says she was disgusted by the site and called for strong punishment for those involved, either in posting or in commenting on the post. And this comes after a Facebook page called Mi Amoglia, or my wife, which had 32,000 members, was removed by Meta last week. That came after police found that mostly men were posting intimate photos of their wives, girlfriends, and even sisters without their consent.
And activists now say there are even more of these sites online and on social media. Police say they have collected information on many of the members, of both anyone to come forward if they know of other sites. They are determining what laws, if any, have been broken, and just who should face justice. But it seems this is just the tip of the iceberg, Jake.
TAPPER: Barbara Nadeau in Italy, thank you so much.
Republican Senator Joni Ernst said she is not running for re-election to Associates. What might this mean for the Senate makeup?
And California Governor Newsom, is he making America mad again? Some brilliant minds are here to weigh in.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[17:41:32]
GOV. GAVIN NEWSOM (D-CA): You have the largest private police force in the world. When they're done with this, all that funding and that big, beautiful portrayal allows more resources for this private police force that increasingly is showing a tendency not to swear an oath to the Constitution, but to the President of the United States. And he'll be sending them to voting booths and polling places all across this country.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: In our Politics Lead, that's just an excerpt from California Governor Gavin Newsom at a Politico event this week in Sacramento. My panel's here. Brian, your reaction? I mean some very stark words from Governor Newsom.
BRYAN LANZA, SR. ADVISER, TRUMP 2024 CAMPAIGN: I think that's just shtick, right? He has to find ways to scare people. He has to find ways to be engaged. And he also has to find ways to take attention from his record as governor.
I mean the only -- the only worse governor than Gavin Newsom was Arnold Schwarzenegger, and that's a very low bar. And so --
TAPPER: You're a Californian, right?
LANZA: A proud Californian. I still think it's -- it's the best state we have, but it's actually shamed away that the governance has taken place. You have businesses leaving all the time. But I think this, you know, this engagement that you see from Governor Newsom, it's all politics. Even this rig -- even this special election for redistricting, that's a $200 million campaign for Gavin Newsom's presidential launch. That's all it is. I mean it's -- he has made it abundantly clear that power politics is the way that he can get to the presidential nomination, and he doesn't care that he's spending $200 million of taxpayers' money to do it.
TAPPER: Xochitl, I think I saw Chuck Todd, our friend Chuck Todd, say that he thinks Gavin Newsom is essentially the de facto leader of the Democratic Party right now. Do you think that's true?
XOCHITL HINOJOSA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I think that he is one of a few that are stepping up, especially to challenge Trump's policies. I think what you saw in Texas with redistricting is a perfect example where the -- the party didn't really have tools in order to fight that back.
They -- you know, we saw in Texas, they're in the minority there. The national party does -- can't do anything about it. We don't have the House. We don't have the Senate. So you have to look towards governors to really fight back, and that's why you're seeing governors sort of step up. That's what you saw there.
And you're also seeing Trump go after these governors, right? So it gives them an opportunity to really bring the Democratic Party a message where there isn't one otherwise.
TAPPER: Speaking of which, breaking this afternoon, just this afternoon, Missouri's Republican governor is now calling for a special session on redistricting. This follows Texas and the retaliation -- retaliation vote in California. Are we going to see -- I -- I think they're talking about maybe trying to put together one additional Republican seat in Missouri. They're talking about maybe doing it in Indiana, too. Is this just going to be what's going on until?
LANZA: Yes, I mean, this goes -- this goes to show you that -- that Newsom's plan to sort of retaliate against Republicans in Texas has backfired. Because in the end, what he's done is he's motivated other Republican legislatures who also have governorships to do something. And we've done the math. By the time this exchange is done, we probably pick about seven of the nine seats, including what we lose in California. That's just another example of how Gavin Newsom, everything he touches, ultimately leads in failure.
HINOJOSA: I have to disagree. Donald Trump is -- is going to try to gain as many Republican seats as possible, regardless of what Democrats were going to do. He was already having these conversations before Gavin Newsom. He believes that we're going to -- they're going to lose the midterm elections because of his policies. He's worried about it.
He also doesn't want the oversight that comes with losing the House of Representatives. And so I think this was going to happen regardless. And Democrats just couldn't sit back and just watch Republicans steal seats and walk all over them. TAPPER: Let's turn -- let's turn to the midterms, because two sources tell CNN that Republican two-term Senator Joni Ernst, a veteran, has decided she's not going to run for a third term. Does Iowa become a potential pickup for Democrats in the Senate or in the House? Because Ashley Hinson, the congresswoman who is pretty strong in her competitive district, she might run for Senate, at least opening up a House opportunity, if not a Senate one for Democrats.
[17:45:20]
LANZA: I think the House is going to be more in play than the Senate. I mean, Iowa has clearly become a Republican state over the years. It's gone a long way since we voted for Barack Obama. But listen, the House is up for play.
HINOJOSA: Yes.
LANZA: History has shown us that a bad amount of seats, whether he -- whether he gains more seats through a district or not, it was always going to be a tough race for us. And at the end of the day, you know, the economic message that matters is whatever resonates in July of next year. It's not right now.
TAPPER: You agree?
HINOJOSA: Well, I actually agree with that. The Senate map is really hard for Democrats already as it is, but it doesn't -- it doesn't -- Republicans don't want to lose a seat that they now have to defend and spend millions of dollars on.
TAPPER: Yes.
HINOJOSA: And so I think that's the dynamics you have for the Republican Party.
TAPPER: Thanks to both of you. Really appreciate it.
Back to our Health Lead, what are some of the potential consequences when public health officials base policy on dubious, if not downright false, scientific research? It's worth disgusting because -- discussing because Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has no medical or scientific degrees and has long traffic in fringe conspiracy theories about vaccines, is upending leadership at the CDC, accused by former top CDC officials of ignoring real science.
Nick Catoggio of The Dispatch draws a bleak parallel between RFK Jr. writing, quote, America at last has its own Trofim Lysenko. Trofim Lysenko, a crank whose screwy ideas about science gained influence over policy because their contrarianism reflected the prejudices of a feral populist revolutionary movement.
Trofim Lysenko, for those who don't know, gained the support of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin because his ideas, mostly crackpot ideas, aligned well with Soviet communist concepts. As "The Atlantic" once wrote about Lysenko in 2017, quote, Lysenko believed wholeheartedly in the promise of the communist revolution. So when the doctrines of science and the doctrines of communism clashed, he always chose the latter, confident that biology would conform to ideology in the end. It never did.
In particular, we should note, Lysenko denied the existence of genes. He believed the environment alone could magically change or reshape plants and animals. The logic sounded great to Stalin. So in the late 1920s and early 1930s, he used it to start an agriculture scheme that led to widespread crop failure, resulting in famine, as "The Atlantic" notes was detailed by the book "Hungry Ghost."
To get work -- it gets worse because to fix the famine, using his new scientific ideas, and almost every crop died or rotted. So in this case, the consequence of a government trying to make science fit into the prevailing politics were millions of famine deaths. Now it gets worse again, believe it or not, because then-communist China adopted Lysenko's methods, contributing to horrible famines there.
And despite this complete and utter disaster, Lysenko still had power while Stalin was around. His loyalty, his ideology, his contrarianism against the scientific experts continued strong, even as he mounted a body count. So any Soviet scientists who refused to renounce genetics found themselves in prisons or psychiatric hospitals or sentenced to death.
All of this set back that country's biological sciences back by about half a century. By some accounts, in the last several months, many scientists and scholars have been comparing RFK Jr. to the notorious Lysenko. Now, that's not entirely fair. Lysenko, after all, was kind of a scientist. We're in no way saying that RFK Jr. wants to throw dissenting scientists in the gulag. He's just firing them.
And obviously, starvation isn't the issue here. Vaccines and disease are. But the results of Lysenko and Stalin's failures should be a cautionary tale. When politics infect medicine, people can die.
[17:48:38]
Coming up, my reunion 20 years later with a man who evacuated his home during Hurricane Katrina, only returned and find that home gone. How's he doing today? An oyster fisherman named Stacy Geraci. I'm psyched to reunite with him, coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
TAPPER: August 29th is today, but August 29th, 2005, was 20 years ago today. Hurricane Katrina made landfall that day as a Category 3 storm. It's a story I covered at the time on the ground for "ABC News." I did a wide range of stories while in that region, from relief efforts by local church -- churches to a shady local congressman who had the National Guard help him save his own personal property while locals were drowning, to previously ignored warnings about how waterways might channel the storm into New Orleans.
But of all the stories I covered in Louisiana, the one that I remember the best had to do with a local oysterman named Stacy Geraci. Stacy Geraci was from Hopedale, Louisiana. It's about 30 miles southeast of New Orleans. He evacuated his own home when Katrina hit, and then three weeks after the storm, Geraci went back, and he let me and my cameraman go with him as he saw what was left of his property for the very first time since the storm hit.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
STACY GERACI, HURRICANE KATRINA SURVIVOR: Oh, man, here we go. This is the -- this used to be my greenhouse. Here's my house. Oh, damn. Goddamn.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: It was tough to experience with Stacy watching him realize that he lost the home he grew up in. Almost 20 years after the moment, it's my honor to welcome Stacy Geraci to The Lead. Stacy, it's so good to see you. You look fantastic. The years have been good to you. Hopedale, Louisiana, heavy fishing community. Oysters were big business. Where are you now? What are you up to now? How did Katrina change your life?
GERACI: Well, I'm 10 miles up from Hopedale. I got a new house, new babies, four grandkids, two good boys that grew up to be very, very, very good gentlemen. Working for, actually, we are restoring the marsh, marsh restoration. So I keep busy.
[17:55:18]
But things have gone really good for us. But, man, hearing what I just heard just now --
TAPPER: Yes.
GERACI: -- that's hard.
TAPPER: People might not --
GERACI: That's hard.
TAPPER: People might now know this, the younger people watching, but 2005, the technology was not there for you to have that video on your phone so you could see it. This is probably the first time you've seen it in 20 years. When we went back to your house that day, you found this family chest in the debris.
GERACI: Yes.
TAPPER: It was one of the most poignant moments. Let -- let me play that for our viewers.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GERACI: That's it. Look at this. Hey, Nicky (ph), I found a coin collection. Look.
(END VIDEO CLIP) TAPPER: Katrina destroyed almost everything you owned. What has rebuilding your life looked like? Did it take years and years?
GERACI: Well, it took about three good solid years to get us back to where we could just say relax because, I mean, obviously we had to rebuild everything that we -- we had bought anyway because all the houses in the parish were completely damaged. So we kind of picked one that was in really good shape outside and redone it from top to bottom. And after about three years, I would say, we really started feeling not normal but pretty close to it.
Nothing's normal anymore, not even now. I mean, you got days, you know, that -- that are really good and you got days that are really bad. I could sit down and think about it and still come to tears. It's just, it never leaves you. Twenty years later, and it never, ever leaves.
TAPPER: I remember you -- you quoted a saying back then. You said, God only gives you what you can take, but he can push you to the edge.
GERACI: Right.
TAPPER: After Katrina, you got into recovery work. You helped other people with cleanup. That had to be gratifying, helping others also find a way out of such a dark time in their lives.
GERACI: It was. That little guy that was with me the day I took you through there, that's Nicky Mona (ph). Him and I got together and he had equipment and I had a big boat. And he said, we don't have a choice. Let's go to work. And we did. And I've been with him 20 years now and I'm still with him. We bought another barge and a big machine and we went to work. And now we're redoing some of the marsh. And let me tell you, that's satisfying because that's where I made my living.
TAPPER: So you were -- you were an oysterman at the time. So you just --
GERACI: Yes.
TAPPER: -- you just stopped doing that after the storm?
GERACI: Yes. Right after the storm, I got in and I tried it again. I didn't know I went back, but my heart just wasn't into it. And I found out I like big equipment.
TAPPER: Yes.
GERACI: So I'm in a -- I'm in a big piece of equipment every day.
TAPPER: Nietzsche once said, that which does not kill us makes us stronger. Has that been your experience? Did -- did this horrible ordeal?
GERACI: You better believe it.
TAPPER: Yes. It made you stronger, you think? GERACI: Yes. You know, Jake, if you -- if you don't get strength from this, you lose. You lose. You got to have -- you got to have heart and you got to have strength. And I've seen people unbelievably come back. And everything now, I mean, you go down there now, it's still messed up. There's no locals down there, nothing. But every time I go through there, I get that same feeling, you know.
I miss it. And I would probably, if it wouldn't have took the house, I would probably be down there. But that way, you've seen it yourself. There wasn't nothing to come back to. So --
TAPPER: One thing I remember that was amazing was a lot of the people, a lot of your neighbors, would park their -- their cars or their trucks on top of a stack of oyster shells because the water would just go --
GERACI: Yes.
TAPPER: -- through the oyster shells and spare the hill. The hill would survive it and the truck or the car would survive.
GERACI: Right.
TAPPER: It was one of the most amazing things.
GERACI: Yes, you better believe it. Let me tell you, they never moved. They know. You knew that. Remember I was telling you we was coming through, they did not move. Them things stood together.
TAPPER: Yes.
GERACI: And it's a -- it's a heck of a barrier.
TAPPER: Stacy Geraci, God bless you. It's so good to see you again. Thank you. And continued success in your life, my friend.
GERACI: Thank you, my friend. Same here. Oh, and you know what? Congratulations on -- on the marriage, because your cameraman ran me down a couple of years later.
TAPPER: Yes.
GERACI: He said you want to send Jake a message? I would -- I would you say, could have sent you a message.
TAPPER: That's right. We got --
GERACI: Congratulations.
TAPPER: -- I got married --
GERACI: Twenty years late.
TAPPER: I got married one year later. That's right. That's right. Almost --
GERACI: Nice.
TAPPER: --almost to the day. All right, Stacy, God bless. Good to see you, my friend.
GERACI: Take care, my friend.
TAPPER: Welcome to the Lead. I'm Jake Tapper. This hour, the legal showdown inside a Washington D.C. courtroom as a judge is trying to decide whether President Trump can actually fire a Federal Reserve governor for an allegation. What the judge is asking from both sides on a -- on a tight deadline.
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