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The Source with Kaitlan Collins
RFK Jr. Faces Especially Confrontational Senate Hearing; Tech And Business Leaders Praise Trump At WH Dinner; D.C. Sues Trump Admin Over National Guard Deployment. Aired 9-10p ET
Aired September 04, 2025 - 21:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[21:00:00]
ANDERSON COOPER, CNN HOST, ANDERSON COOPER 360: --more than six decades. He began as a window dresser at a Milan department store, in 1957. Nearly 27 -- 20 years later, 1975, he founded his brand that was named Giorgio Armani, and he changed women's and men's fashion forever.
His company statement went on to say, Today, with deep emotion, we feel the void left by the one who founded and nurtured this family with vision, passion, and dedication.
Giorgio Armani was 91-years-old.
That's it for us. The news continues. "THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS" starts now.
KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN CHIEF WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, CNN HOST, THE SOURCE WITH KAITLAN COLLINS: We just got President Trump's reaction to that combative hearing today with Health Secretary, RFK Jr.
As a senior CDC official, who resigned in protest, is accusing the Secretary of lying to Congress.
I'm Kaitlan Collins. And this is THE SOURCE.
Everyone, from a family doctor, to a pharmacist, looks to one government department, when it comes to how to keep themselves and their family healthy. Today, the Secretary who runs the U.S. Department for Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., went before Congress for what was one of the most combative hearings that we have seen in the second Trump administration.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. MARIA CANTWELL (D-WA): You're a charlatan. That's what you are.
ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR., HHS SECRETARY: You're just making stuff up.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You know, the--
KENNEDY JR.: You're talking gibberish.
SEN. BEN RAY LUJAN (D-NM): Mr. Secretary-- KENNEDY JR.: I don't know what you're talking about.
Is this a question, Senator Cassidy, or is this a speech that you don't want me to answer, because--
SEN. BILL CASSIDY (R-LA): No, and my ask is--
SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA): How can you be that ignorant?
CASSIDY: Senator Cantwell.
KENNEDY JR.: You're wrong.
SEN. RAPHAEL WARNOCK (D-GA): You are a hazard to the health of the American people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: For hours, on Capitol Hill today, the Health Secretary was confronted with his own words, and subsequent actions, by both Republicans and Democrats.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. TINA SMITH (D-MN): So, let me ask you, when were you lying, sir? When you told this committee that you were not anti-vax, or when you told Americans that there's no safe and effective vaccine?
KENNEDY JR.: Both things are true.
SEN. CATHERINE CORTEZ MASTO (D-NV): You said, and I quote, I stand with President Trump to say, no more middlemen, no more foreign freeloaders, no more skyrocketing drug prices. We're putting American patients first and taking on Big Pharma to make America healthy again.
Yet your record tells a different story.
SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): Then last week, you announced the COVID- 19 vaccine is no longer approved for healthy people under the age of 65. In announcing the change, you said the vaccine will be available for anyone who wants it. Now, obviously, both things cannot be true at the same moment.
Secretary Kennedy, you said you wouldn't, and now you did. So obviously--
KENNEDY JR.: I'm not taking them away. Everybody can get access to them.
WARREN: No, they can't walk into a pharmacy the way that they could last month and get access to a COVID vaccine.
KENNEDY JR.: It depends on the state -- it depends on the states.
SEN. MICHAEL BENNET (D-CO): Are you aware that he said that?
KENNEDY JR.: I wasn't aware he said it. But I think I agree with it.
BENNET: You agree with it? It's not true. It wasn't true when he said it. It is not true when you said it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: As he attempted to defend and at times deny saying what he had previously said, Secretary Kennedy also answered questions about what could be the subject of future congressional hearings, why he fired his own pick to run the CDC after just one month on the job?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENNEDY JR.: No, I told her that she had to resign because I asked her, Are you a trustworthy person? And she said, No.
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): Are you telling us that the former head of CDC went to you, you asked her, Are you a trustworthy person? And she said, No, I am not a trustworthy person?
KENNEDY JR.: She didn't say, No, I'm not a trustworthy person. She said, No.
WARNOCK: Did you demand that she accept the recommendations of your handpicked vaccine advisory panel without further review by career CDC scientists?
KENNEDY JR.: No, I did not.
WARNOCK: Did you tell her to accept the advisory panel's recommendations?
KENNEDY JR.: I told her I didn't want her to have a rule that she's not going to sign on to it.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: The Secretary's aggressive response might have been meant to impress the occupant of the Oval Office.
But tonight, when President Trump was asked for his thoughts on what we all watched today, he said that he had not watched.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, I didn't get to watch the hearings today. But he's a very good person. He's -- and he means very well, and he's got some little different ideas. I guarantee, a lot of the people at this table, like RFK Jr., and I do. But he's -- he's got a different take, and we want to listen to all of those takes. But I heard he did very well today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: When Secretary Kennedy was pressed on one of President Trump's crowning achievements of his first term, Operation Warp Speed, Secretary Kennedy repeatedly found himself trying to sidestep questions, again, from both Republicans and Democrats.
[21:05:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CASSIDY: What the President did in Operation Warp Speed, which is to create a platform by which to create vaccines. So this just seems inconsistent that you would agree with me, the President deserves tremendous amount of credit for this.
SEN. MAGGIE HASSAN (D-NH): Unfortunately, you are undermining one of the President's biggest achievements, which, as the President said, saved millions of American lives. You even went as far as to call President Trump, weak, for this lifesaving accomplishment.
That Operation Warp Speed was among, here's your quote again, the most devastating impact of President Trump's weakness.
So Mr. Secretary, was Operation Warp Speed a monumental national achievement, as President Trump said?
KENNEDY JR.: For the reason that I already said, and I assume you won't let me repeat, but I'm happy to, if you want. Yes, it was.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Now, today's hearing stood out from others in recent months, because it wasn't just the party that it's -- in the minority, using this moment to deliver a few brush backs to whoever is testifying.
Even under the threat of potential backlash from the White House, we saw several Republicans raising their concerns about what's happening at HHS, under Secretary Kennedy's leadership.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I've grown deeply concerned. The public has seen measles outbreaks. Leadership in the National Institute of Health, questioning the use of mRNA vaccines. The recently-confirmed Director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, fired.
SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): Some of your statements seem to contradict what you said in the prior hearing. You said you're going to empower the scientists at HHS to do their job.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: At a time when veteran medical experts have been leaving the department, and the Secretary is promising to fire even more when it comes to the CDC, it raised questions about who the person dictating the nation's health policy is listening to.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SANDERS: We've got the entire medical community on one side. You've got the AMA, representing hundreds of thousands of doctors, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Public Health Association, all of these organizations are telling us that COVID vaccine and vaccines in general are safe and effective. You are casting doubt on that. Who are your scientific -- who are the organizations that are agreeing with you, and casting aspersions on vaccines?
KENNEDY JR.: I mean, the primary advisers are Marty Makary, Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Oz.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: My lead source tonight sits on the Senate Finance Committee, and questioned Secretary Kennedy today. The Democrat from Minnesota, Senator Tina Smith, is here.
And Senator, it's great to have you, because you had one of the most contentious exchanges, I'll say, with Secretary Kennedy today. What do you believe you learned from his answers?
SMITH: Well, what I learned today, honestly, I already know, this individual is completely discredited. He is not trusted. The level of disrespect that he showed the committee today was really kind of shocking, even in this day and age, when people will say almost anything. And it was directed not only at Democrats, his attitude, but was directed at Republicans as well. I mean, he is discredited.
And his response to my -- you know, what I was asking him about, he -- he does what he always does. He only believes the folks that agree with him. He only accepts the evidence that support his positions. And when he's confronted, in some way, with information that he disagrees with, or he finds challenging, he just rejects it, and he says, That's a bunch of nonsense. I mean, he called me a liar. He called Senator Hassan, a liar.
I was asking him specifically about his constantly inconsistent statements around vaccines, and whether they're safe and effective, or whether they're a danger. And he, again, couldn't answer directly.
And personally, I've been so offended by the way that he has dangled out there, this fake link between antidepressants and school shootings, like, somehow, this is what is causing this terrible surge of -- scourge of violence in our -- in our country.
So, he doesn't like to be challenged. And he showed that really clearly, this afternoon.
COLLINS: Well, actually that moment, because you asked him -- obviously, there was a devastating shooting in your home state, just last week, and that was what you were referring to today. You asked him about those comments, and basically, he denied saying what he said.
I just want people to listen to your exchange today. And also to Secretary Kennedy, in his own words, last week.
[21:10:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SMITH: Just last week, in the days after the tragic shooting at Annunciation Catholic School, in my home state of Minnesota, you went on Fox News, blaming school shootings, on antidepressants.
KENNEDY JR.: No.
SMITH: You have no evidence of that, because you have no evidence of a connection. And you want to talk about--
KENNEDY JR.: I don't know -- you're just saying something. You're just making stuff up.
SMITH: You know, this is what you say, right? Secretary Kennedy?
KENNEDY JR.: No. No, no.
SMITH: When someone presents you with information that does not fit your worldview.
KENNEDY JR.: I did not blame that shooting on -- I have no idea whether -- I have no idea, and I would -- I never said that. You're making it up. You are twisting.
SMITH: I am not making this up--
KENNEDY JR.: Yes, you are.
SMITH: Secretary Kennedy--
KENNEDY JR.: You are being dishonest right now.
SMITH: --if you want to--
KENNEDY JR.: At NIH, we're launching studies on the potential contribution of some of the SSRI drugs and some of the other psychiatric drugs that might be contributing to violence. You know, many of them on there have black box warnings that warn of suicidal ideation and homicidal ideation. So, we need -- we can't exclude those as a culprit, and those are the kind of studies that we're doing.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: He uses the word, potential, there. But I wonder what you just see and what you hear there, and what he said to you today?
SMITH: Well, what he does is he dangles out these false connections, these supposed correlations, suggesting that they're actually the reason why these terrible things happen. And he says, We need to find more information.
He only trusts the experts he -- that, as I said, that -- that support his worldview. And let's understand, his worldview is based on fringe ideas and fake science. And when the entire medical knowledge base of this country is lined up against them, what does he say? As he said to Senator Sanders, he said, Well, they're all corrupt, you can't trust them.
So, I mean, this is, of course, infuriating to anybody watching this hearing. But what is more important is how dangerous it is, to this country, to have somebody, leading this very important agency that is responsible for medical research, and it's responsible for administering Medicaid and Medicare. It's responsible, in many ways, for the health of this country.
And it is far from perfect. But to know that somebody who is so detached from the actual medical evidence about what works, what doesn't work, what we need to do is, of course, deeply dangerous.
COLLINS: Yes.
SMITH: And what I hope happened today is that people will, on the other side, will do something about it.
COLLINS: Well, on the other side. I mean, you mentioned the Republicans that he had contentious exchanges with too. I mean, he told Senator Bill Cassidy that he was wrong, at one point. And obviously, Senator Cassidy was instrumental in Secretary Kennedy actually getting that job, getting confirmed.
But after -- after the hearing, Senator Cassidy did not say if he had regrets voting to confirm him. Thom Tillis said, Not yet, to the same question.
I wonder what you make, and if Republicans' minds were changed after, or if that makes a difference, given they voted to confirm him to this job already?
SMITH: It's so hard for me to say, Kaitlan, what is -- you know, how they are grappling with this. I would note that even Senator Thune, the Majority Leader, said that Secretary Kennedy had work to do to restore trust in the Department of Health and Human Services. That's trust that he has destroyed.
So, I detect cracks in their armor. But I often think that my Republican colleagues, in the Senate, sort of have this attitude that they can just wait this out, that they don't have to take a tough stand, because somehow it will just take care of itself. And I don't think that's the case here. I think that we really need them to be tough. I mean, all of us, on the Democratic side, can see what's going on here, and are prepared to fight it in every way that we can. But we need them to do it as well.
And I did think it was interesting. I mean, I wonder what you think. The President's statement, earlier this evening, about not having watched the hearing, and then saying Bobby Kennedy is a -- Secretary Kennedy is a good person, is not exactly a resounding endorsement. I mean, that's what he has said about people who he's fired. COLLINS: Yes, I was actually surprised by the President's comments too, because it didn't sound exactly like a ringing endorsement. He seemed to talk about how he had other ideas. But obviously, we'll have to wait and see. We saw the White House certainly coming to his defense today, from officials.
Senator Tina Smith, thank you for your time tonight.
SMITH: Thank you very much.
COLLINS: And obviously, a key focus of today's hearing was the question of where Secretary Kennedy is getting his information from. It's a concern centered around a claim that you heard here, on THE SOURCE, last week, from the doctor who, until a few days ago, ran the CDC center that issues vaccine recommendations.
[21:15:00]
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DR. DEMETRE DASKALAKIS, FORMER DIR., NATL. CENTER FOR IMMUNIZATION & RESPIRATORY DISEASES AT CDC: An important thing to ask the Secretary is, has he been ever briefed by a CDC expert on anything, specifically measles, COVID-19, flu? I think that people should ask him that in that hearing. That's number one. So--
COLLINS: What would the answer to that be?
DASKALAKIS: The answer is no. So no one from my center has ever briefed him on any of those topics. So, I don't know where he's getting his--
COLLINS: Really?
DASKALAKIS: Really.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: And Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, who you heard from there, is back here on THE SOURCE with us tonight.
And thank you, sir for being here.
Because obviously, after you resigned, you came on the air and said that. It was brought up in today's hearing. And I want you to listen to what Secretary Kennedy had to say today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARNOCK: Have you ever been briefed by CDC's career immunization officials, to discuss their concerns--
KENNEDY JR.: I -- yes, I have.
WARNOCK: What was the answer?
KENNEDY JR.: Yes.
WARNOCK: You have been briefed by CDC officials--
KENNEDY JR.: Yes. Yes.
WARNOCK: --the career immunization officials--
(CROSSTALK)
KENNEDY JR.: Yes. The senior vaccine safety scientists, for example.
RAY LUJAN: I'm curious who you're listening to, since it's clear you're not listening to qualified experts, like Dr. Daskalakis. Can you give the committee the name of the person?
KENNEDY JR.: I don't consider Dr. Daskalakis--
RAY LUJAN: Mr. Secretary -- Mr. Secretary, the question that I have for you is, can you give the committee a name of who you're getting briefed by?
KENNEDY JR.: I'm getting briefed by, all the time, by CDC.
RAY LUJAN: Just a name.
KENNEDY JR.: Dr. William Thompson is one name.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: He didn't finish his sentence there, what he was about to say. He says, I don't consider Doctor, referencing you, and then obviously, the Senator cut in.
What was your reaction to what you heard today?
DASKALAKIS: I think that my -- I feel like what he was going to say is, I don't consider Dr. Daskalakis an expert.
And I would just refer him to my record of ending multiple outbreaks, measles, Mpox, H5N1. I really don't know if he's ended any outbreaks. I can't, however, say that he's been responsible for some. So, that was my reaction. I was like, I don't have to prove my CV to him, because I think my -- my record speaks for itself.
COLLINS: Well, and you resigned after the CDC Director, Susan Monarez, was ousted. He talked about that today. And he claimed in one exchange that, when he asked her if she was trustworthy, he says that he told -- that she told him, quote, No. And he said that she is lying when she says she was asked to rubberstamp vaccine recommendations from his advisers.
Is that true, based on what you know?
DASKALAKIS: So, I mean, I can't speak for what happened in those closed rooms. But I can tell you about what happened a couple of days before that alleged interaction with the Secretary. So, I called Dr. Monarez, because I had some questions around an interaction with some of the workgroup members, just to make sure that I was doing my job, answering to her as the Director.
And when she picked up the phone, she said, Demetre, I'm not going to abandon you, but I just need you to know that I've been told that I no longer to participate in any vaccine policy, and that -- she referred me to the Chief of Staff at CDC, who she was informed is going to be the one who will be sort of navigating that.
So, I can't speak for what happened in the room, but it sure sounds very similar to what she told me, days before resignation, or when the -- when the Secretary said that she was fired. So, I believe Susan. I do not believe the Secretary.
COLLINS: Do you believe that when asked if she's trustworthy, that she would tell the Secretary, No?
DASKALAKIS: Well, I mean, I don't know how many people the Secretary has managed. I think he's run some large organizations. I feel like that interaction does not seem like one that I would expect to hear from anybody that I supervised. So, if you're like directly asked, Are you -- are you trustworthy? It would be very strange for someone to say, No.
COLLINS: Well, and especially, I mean, he is on the record, a month ago, saying that she had unimpeachable credentials for this role that he said he handpicked her for.
But he was asked about the firings at the CDC overall, and just basically the state of the CDC. And this is what he said, how he described it today.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENNEDY JR.: We are the sickest country in the world. That's why we have to fire people at the CDC. They did not do their job. This was their job, to keep us healthy.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, Mr.--
KENNEDY JR.: And I need to fire some of those people.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: As someone who resigned, I wonder what went through your mind when he said people at the CDC weren't doing their jobs.
DASKALAKIS: I mean, the first thing that went through my mind is no wonder someone came and shot CDC, when the leader of the health agency of the country is throwing that kind of disparaging language towards scientists, who really work 24/7 to make sure that the health of the American people is the work that they do. So, I really just heard that, thinking like, this is just consistent and part of the same narrative that we've heard from him for a long time.
[21:20:00]
Kaitlan, I wanted to just go back to something really quickly. You played a snippet about the people that he said that he has been briefed by.
I just want to be clear that he's not been briefed by anyone from the immunization center. The person that he mentioned does not work at the immunization center. It is not possible that that person briefed him on measles, or on flu, or on polio, or on vaccines, since that individual does not work anywhere in that environment.
So, again, I don't know where he's getting his information, but I just wanted to highlight that that was not true.
COLLINS: So, when he--
DASKALAKIS: He's never been briefed by us, by anyone in the immunization group.
COLLINS: The only person he named, besides, obviously, earlier, he talked about Marty Makary and others that he's getting information from, but he said, I'm being briefed all the time by Dr. William Thompson is one name.
And you're saying that person is not an expert in the exact areas that he was asked about in terms of immunizations?
DASKALAKIS: He is not in the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, and is in no way a spokesperson for the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases content area. So, if he's getting information from that individual, I'm not sure how that person could have briefed him on material that they actually have no handle on.
COLLINS: Have you heard from your former colleagues today, who were watching the incredibly combative hearing, what they have to say about it?
DASKALAKIS: I mean, yes, we definitely have been talking with each other. And I think, mainly, we were just stunned at the number of mistruths that we heard.
We heard that David Geier (ph) was not doing research. That's not true. He is, in fact, doing research. He is looking at the vaccine safety data link. You can talk to my colleague, Dr. Jernigan, who can go into great detail on that. We heard that we briefed him. That is also untrue.
We heard that he never told Susan that she shouldn't be involved in making any decisions for vaccine policy. That is also untrue.
We heard him evade the answer about how many people died of COVID. I think that he just doesn't want to answer the question, because he wants to minimize the impact of vaccine.
So, we were sitting, listening to this, going, we can't believe the state of our country, that the head of the health agency for the United States is actually standing before Congress, just continually making things up. He did not tell the truth.
COLLINS: So, you're saying he lied to Congress?
DASKALAKIS: He lied to Congress.
COLLINS: Wow.
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, thank you for joining us tonight.
DASKALAKIS: Thank you.
COLLINS: A remarkable statement there, from a former senior CDC official. He is not the only one, though, accusing the Health Secretary of spreading misinformation on Capitol Hill today. Up next, we'll fact-check some of those false and misleading claims that were made before Congress.
[21:25:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: As he was being grilled on Capitol Hill today, the HHS Secretary, RFK Jr., repeatedly said and claimed that he did not know how many people died because of COVID-19 or how many lives were saved by the COVID-19 vaccine that's production was overseen by his boss, President Trump.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WARNER: Do you think the vaccine did anything to prevent additional deaths?
KENNEDY JR.: Again, I would like to see the data and talk about the data. I'm not fully--
WARNER: You've had this job for eight months and you don't know the data about whether the vaccine saved lives?
KENNEDY JR.: No, and that's the problem is that they didn't have the data. The data by the Biden administration, absolutely dismal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Secretary Kennedy dismissed available data as, quote, just modeling studies, today. The reality is those modeling studies are exactly how scientists estimate the number of lives that are saved.
And the claims that the data doesn't exist just disregards a number of studies, including this one from the Commonwealth Fund. It found that between December 2020, and November 2022, the COVID vaccine actually prevented 18.5 million additional hospitalizations and prevented an estimated 3.2 million additional deaths.
I want to bring in Dr. Megan Ranney, who is here. She is a practicing emergency physician, and also the Dean at the Yale School of Public Health.
And so Doctor, can you just, tell me what was going through your mind with your expertise as you were listening to the -- to the HHS Secretary today, saying he didn't know how many people were killed from COVID or how many lives were saved by that vaccine?
DR. MEGAN RANNEY, EMERGENCY PHYSICIAN, DEAN, YALE SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH: We can quibble about details in the numbers, but there have certainly been well more than a million people, in the United States alone, who died of COVID. I unfortunately stood at the bedside of many of those, in the early days of the COVID pandemic.
And there is lots and lots and lots of data, showing how effective the COVID vaccines are, particularly in that early stage of the COVID pandemic, when none of us had immunity at preventing hospitalizations, preventing severe disease and preventing death. I did a quick PubMed search, and there are literally thousands of studies, many of which are clinical trials, many of which are observational, some of which are modeling.
I'll say, even authors of The Great Barrington Declaration, including John Ioannidis, have studied the effectiveness of the vaccine, and have estimated that well over 2 million lives have been saved, globally, thanks to the rollout of the COVID vaccines.
[21:30:00]
Always open to new data as a scientist. Certainly, the course of the COVID pandemic has changed, but there is no question about the efficacy and safety of the vaccines that have been used.
COLLINS: There was another moment today that I wanted to ask you about. Secretary Kennedy was basically resurfacing this decade-old controversy. It's that young black kids, specifically boys, who get the MMR vaccine, are at a higher risk for autism.
I want you to just listen to what he said today, in this hearing, and then provide us a fact-check with what you hear from him.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENNEDY JR.: In 2002, CDC did an internal study of Atlanta -- Fulton County, Georgia, children, and looked at children who got the MMR vaccine on time, and compared those to kids who got them later. The data from that study showed that black boys who got the vaccine on time had a 260 percent greater chance of getting an autism diagnosis than children who waited.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: Is that accurate?
RANNEY: Listen, as a parent, I want to know that vaccines are both safe and effective for my kids. We should be asking questions. The nice thing is, as scientists, we have ways to answer those questions. And the question that he asked has been answered over and over and over again. There is no correlation between the MMR vaccine and autism, for black boys, for white boys, for black girls, for white girls. There have been dozens of studies showing that those two things do not go together any more than Netflix consumption and autism go together.
The study that he quoted was retracted. And should it have been true, which it has been shown to not be, it would have been reproduced. Again, we have dozens of studies showing there is no connection between the MMR vaccine and autism.
COLLINS: Dr. Megan Ranney, thank you for joining us tonight with the facts.
RANNEY: Thank you.
COLLINS: My political sources are also here tonight, given the potential blowback of today's hearing. Former senior adviser to President Obama, David Axelrod, and Republican strategist, Brad Todd, are here.
And Brad, obviously, there are many Republicans -- there were a few Republicans, I'll say, coming out of today's hearing, who seemed a bit skeptical of what they heard from Secretary Kennedy today, which is not something you see on Capitol Hill, every day.
Normally, there is a pretty robust defense from the party, who is aligned with the administration, whose candidate or whose Secretary is up there, and it's the other minority party who is castigating them. We didn't exactly see that play out today.
BRAD TODD, GOP MEDIA CONSULTANT & STRATEGIST, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: No, you saw oversight, which is the job of the Congress when it comes to the executive branch.
Part of the -- part of the issue here is that RFK is neither fish nor fowl. He's not a lifelong Republican. He's really not a Republican. And he's no longer a Democrat, even though he was a lifelong Democrat. And so, Republicans accepted him as a matter of political coalition. He -- they share some objectives with him. They disagree with him on a lot of things.
And so, a lot of these senators who have had many private conversations with him, they know that they're on opposite sides of many issues with him. And so, I think you saw that they've given him kind of a short rope. And I think he has to be mindful of that.
DAVID AXELROD, FORMER SENIOR ADVISER TO PRESIDENT OBAMA, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes, listen, I welcome this new adherence to the idea of oversight. I applaud it. I think we should see more of it.
And look, I think there were people there, Chairman Cassidy in particular, who went out on a limb, knowing that Secretary Kennedy has, for the last 20 years, been espousing sort of crackpot conspiracy theories about vaccines, and made the point of saying that he got an assurance that he wouldn't do what he was going to -- what he has done on vaccine policies.
So, I think there are people, who wanted to clean up their own record a little bit here. The question is, what are they going to do now? What happens now? So, they've spoken at a hearing, they've expressed their dismay, and they've exposed obvious contradictions in what he said. What are they going to do next? Are they going to demand the President ask him to resign? Or as this, this--
TODD: Well--
AXELROD: --is this where oversight ends?
TODD: They're going to -- Senator Cassidy said what they're going to do. He says he wants more oversight into the personnel changes that have happened, and he's -- wants to look into it. He's asked the vaccine board to hold off on holding its next meeting until he can take time to do that.
COLLINS: But that doesn't mean that they will. And so, I think the question there, that I also had about the way President Trump responded to it today was -- was not a ringing endorsement tonight. And maybe that will change, because certainly White House officials were pretty steadfast in defending RFK Jr.
[21:35:00]
JD Vance, the Vice President posted after that today, and said, When I see all these senators trying to lecture and gotcha Bobby Kennedy today all I can think is: You all support off-label, untested, and irreversible hormonal therapies for children, mutilating our kids and enriching Big Pharma. You're full of shit and everyone knows it.
TODD: Well, I mean, certainly they're going to stick with Secretary Kennedy, right now. But we should all be mindful that the most highest political value he can perform, for this administration, happened already in the election. And so he has to--
AXELROD: Well--
TODD: --he has to adhere to the administration's priorities. He doesn't get to make the President's -- his priorities, the President's priorities. It's the other way around. It's Donald Trump's priorities--
AXELROD: Right.
TODD: --that he has to carry out.
AXELROD: The interesting thing about that is, I would argue that Operation Warp Speed was Donald Trump's greatest public policy triumph. It's something that he should be honored for. It's something that saved -- saved many, many lives, whether it's 1 million or 2 million. A lot of people are alive today because of it.
And what Kennedy is doing is essentially undermining the President's greatest achievement. Yes, he made a Faustian bargain with Kennedy, in order to get his endorsement. And his endorsement, I think, was helpful. Now he has to calculate what is the damage of this, especially when people in many states are going to have a hard time getting COVID vaccine, this year, because of this policy--
TODD: Because the state laws were a result of that (ph).
AXELROD: Yes.
COLLINS: But that was a fascinating part of the hearing, because Senator Cassidy started with that, and you saw other Democrats pick up on it. But he said, Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. Which the President is fascinated with getting. He said he deserves it for Operation Warp Speed. And then he was basically asked Mr. Kennedy to affirm it.
AXELROD: I thought it was clever.
TODD: Right.
COLLINS: And Secretary Kennedy struggles with that question.
AXELROD: He did struggle with it. And despite what the President said, I suspect he knows that Kennedy's struggled with that question. So, it was a trap that Kennedy walked into.
Look, here's the reality. All this talk about oversight notwithstanding, they're not going to push a guy out if the President doesn't want to push him out. I think they're trying to push the President to want to push the guy out.
TODD: I think -- I think Secretary Kennedy has to stick to some things that he can -- that he can do. That people want him to make America healthy again and help with our food supply, and they want to get CDC's credibility back. Those are the things he has to stick to.
AXELROD: Playing havoc with vaccines is not going to make America healthy again.
COLLINS: David Axelrod. Brad Todd. Great to have you both here.
And of course, when we look at the White House, and we heard President Trump commenting on Secretary Kennedy tonight, that was during a dinner at the White House that was being hosted from -- by the President, with a bunch of tech billionaires sitting at his side. Elon Musk was invited, but why he was not actually there.
[21:40:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Tonight, at the White House, President Trump is hosting dozens of high-profile tech and business leaders for dinner in the State Dining Room.
It's many of the same faces that you saw at the President's inauguration, back in January. With Meta CEO, Mark Zuckerberg, sitting right next to the President. Microsoft co-founder, Bill Gates, over by the first lady, Melania Trump. Apple CEO, Tim Cook. And also, OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, at that table that you see here as well.
And as the cameras were in the room, earlier this evening, several of those tech titans heaped praise on the President.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TIM COOK, CEO OF APPLE: I want to thank you for setting the tone such that we could make a major investment in the United States.
I think that says a lot about your focus and your leadership and your focus on innovation.
SAM ALTMAN, CEO, OPENAI: Thank you so much for getting us all together, and thank you for being such a pro-business, pro-innovation, President. It's a very refreshing change.
SATYA NADELLA, CEO, MICROSOFT: Mr. President, thank you so much, obviously, for bringing us all together and the policies that you have put in place for the United States to lead.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: My source tonight is CNN Media Analyst, and Senior Media Reporter for Axios, Sara Fischer.
And I wonder what you made of that, what you heard from those officials, not just saying, Thanks for having us over, but really praising Trump?
SARA FISCHER, CNN MEDIA ANALYST, SENIOR MEDIA REPORTER, AXIOS: They know that they need to do that to survive, Kaitlan.
Because what's changed, between the last administration and this administration, is Donald Trump is not afraid to try to get government involved in their companies. You're seeing what he's done with Intel, and NVIDIA, those deals. He's not afraid to change the course of regulatory action to punish a CEO or a company he doesn't like.
And so, there is so much pressure on these guys, especially when they're facing so much competition from tech giants in China, to curry favor with him and to keep things very, very peaceful with the White House, so they don't find themselves in a pickle.
COLLINS: I believe it was Sam Altman, at one point, when he was speaking, and he said it was a welcome change from, basically, from the Biden administration. Is it a better environment for some of these, these tech billionaires who are in there?
FISCHER: For most of them. It depends on who you're asking and when. Like, I'm sure the Intel folks would say, It's not. Right? They don't love the fact that their CEO was called out, had to come to the White House, meet with Donald Trump, and basically beg for a deal to keep his job. But on the pro-business side, I do think a lot of them are welcoming a more regulatory-friendly environment to AI, in particular. Earlier this year, the Trump administration fired the head of the Copyright Office, after a report basically said that AI companies were stealing content, right? People thought that was very friendly to AI.
[21:45:00]
Donald Trump has said, I want to bring in policies that are going to invest in U.S. AI jobs and energy. So if you're an AI company, it's great. If you're any other tech company, it might not be that great. Remember, Google just got off very nicely from a judge's order.
COLLINS: Yes.
FISCHER: But the Justice Department still sued them. The Meta folks, they are still facing an FTC lawsuit.
COLLINS: Well, and speaking of that FTC lawsuit, which is a big question. Mark Zuckerberg was there. There was a bit of a hot mic moment after a reporter tried to ask him a question. I want everyone to listen to that.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: And Mr. Zuckerberg, if I don't mind -- you don't mind answering. How concerning is that to you, the lack of freedom of speech online in the U.K.?
TRUMP: You didn't think you'd get that question, did you?
(LAUGHTER)
MARK ZUCKERBERG, CEO, META: Well--
TRUMP: He's looked at--
ZUCKERBERG: --I think that was coming--
TRUMP: He's looking at me, saying how the hell--
(LAUGHTER)
TRUMP: He's saying, how did I get that question?
ZUCKERBERG: Yes.
TRUMP: If you'd like to answer. Free speech.
(LAUGHTER)
ZUCKERBERG: Sorry, actually, I wasn't paying attention but.
I'm sorry I wasn't ready to do our (inaudible).
TRUMP: He said I wasn't ready-- ZUCKERBERG: I wasn't sure what number you wanted to go with.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: I thought that was quite a moment.
FISCHER: Quite a moment. These guys all thought that the free speech and censorship issue, that was such a big deal in the first administration, was behind them. And so, I do think Mark Zuckerberg was really caught off guard there.
But their hoping is that it can continue to be behind them, Kaitlan. As long as they can focus on AI and innovation, they don't ever have to worry about all that Republican heat against them for what was so- called censorship.
COLLINS: Yes, and Laura Loomer, tonight, is criticizing the White House for hosting people like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates there.
Sara Fischer, always great to have you. Thanks for that.
We'll continue to monitor headlines out of that dinner.
Up next, though, here in Washington. D.C. has just sued over the National Guard deployment, as the administration is threatening more troops in other major cities in the United States. We're going to talk to our legal sources about the standing of this lawsuit, next.
[21:50:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Breaking news, this hour, as the Army has extended the deployment of the D.C. National Guard, here in Washington, until the end of November, with a source telling CNN that orders are also expected to be extended for the troops here that are from other states, to help with President Trump's crackdown on crime, in the nation's capital.
Today, D.C. officials sued the Trump administration over the deployment of those thousands of troops, with the Attorney General in Washington, Brian Schwalb, accusing the President of violating the Constitution and federal law, saying, quote, "No American jurisdiction should be involuntarily subjected to military occupation."
My legal sources tonight are:
Former federal prosecutor, and CNN Legal Analyst, Elliot Williams.
And also, former DOJ Special Counsel, Brendan Ballou.
And it's great to have both of you here.
Because Elliot, this lawsuit--
ELLIOT WILLIAMS, FORMER FEDERAL PROSECUTOR, CNN LEGAL ANALYST, FORMER DEPUTY ASST. ATTORNEY GENERAL: Yes.
COLLINS: --may be surprising, given what we've been hearing from the Mayor.
WILLIAMS: Yes.
COLLINS: But it claims that these troops have been deputized by the U.S. Marshals Office. They are out of patrolling neighborhoods, making arrests and conducting searches. The question is, does this lawsuit have standing, in your view?
WILLIAMS: It does, and it's tricky, and there's a complicated question here. Because under federal law, longstanding military officials, agents, officers, cannot engage in basic acts of law enforcement, traffic enforcement, or arresting people or whatever else.
The problem is that Washington, D.C., the status of Washington, D.C., what is it? Is it a state? Is the National Guard here, inherently federal? Is it a state militia, or whatever else? And that will affect how the National Guard can be regarded here. So, there really are open questions, specific to D.C.'s unique nature that need to be sorted out.
COLLINS: Well, and that's -- we hear from other state officials who say, Not in my state, or city officials who say, Not in my city. It is different, though, when it comes to Washington, and what we're seeing, the President threatening.
BRENDAN BALLOU, FORMER SPECIAL COUNSEL, DOJ ANTITRUST DIVISION: As you said, D.C. is different. What I think makes this case plausible is a couple of things. One, as you suggested, what -- the National Guard here wasn't doing military work. It was doing law enforcement work.
WILLIAMS: Right.
BALLOU: There is a long standing law, Posse Comitatus Act, prohibiting the military from doing that sort of thing. We don't generally want a federal police force.
The other thing that's important here is it wasn't just the D.C. National Guard. It was the National Guard from a whole bunch of other states, which is perhaps unprecedented, and that potentially violates D.C.'s Home Rule Act.
COLLINS: Yes, and the White House responded to this, Elliot. They said that the President was well within his lawful authority to deploy the National Guard here to protect federal assets and to assist law enforcement with those specific tasks. They say, it's nothing more than another attempt at the detriment of D.C. residents and visitors to undermine Trump's highly successful operations to stop violent crime in D.C.
But I wonder how this aligns with what we've heard from Bowser, who has faced some criticism from Democrats, who said she was capitulating to Trump. Others said, she was just trying to be smart and walk a fine line here. WILLIAMS: Yes, it's just being smart and walking a fine line, but also somewhat at odds with her Attorney General, it appears.
The Attorney General's lawsuit, that we were just talking about a moment ago, it's not clear that the Mayor actually supports it. She's sort of directed all questions about it back to the Attorney General, which was interesting, almost a divide between two--
COLLINS: Would he file something like that without her--
WILLIAMS: I don't--
COLLINS: --sign-off, you think?
WILLIAMS: I don't -- well, maybe not without her sign-off. But it's just odd that the Mayor wouldn't wrap her arms around immediately and say, Yes, I oppose this. She has a political line to toe here, as someone as the chief executive of the city.
COLLINS: So what happens next year?
BALLOU: Well, we're going to see what happens in D.C., and how it matches up with the California lawsuit. On very similar grounds. I expect both will quickly go to the Supreme Court.
COLLINS: Yes.
Brendan. Elliot. Great to have both of your legal expertise with us tonight.
Up next, tomorrow, President Trump is going to sign an executive order, this time, rebranding the Department of Defense. What's behind his new name, an old name for the Pentagon.
[21:55:00]
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
COLLINS: Starting tomorrow, the Pentagon is going to go by its old name again. That's because President Trump is expected to sign an executive order that changes the name of the Department of Defense, back to the Department of War. It has been called that, since right after World War II.
But this is something the President has been bringing up a lot lately, if you've been paying attention, and he's made clear that he thinks it's time for a rebrand.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You know, we know it's the name when we were -- we won World War I, we won World War II, we won everything. And, just to me, seems like just a much more appropriate.
The other is Defense is too defensive. And we want to be defensive, but we want to be offensive too, if we have to be. So, it just sounded to me better.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COLLINS: What's unclear tonight is if Congress ought to recognize the name change to make it official. Lawmakers had previously renamed the department through legislation. Trump has said though before, including in that appearance there in the Oval Office, that he does expect Capitol Hill to go along with his latest move.
[22:00:00]
And finally, before we go tonight, if you think you can remember everything that you've learned, watching THE SOURCE, and CNN, this week, you can actually play along with "Have I Got News for You" when the comedy quiz show is going to return for its new season, this weekend, here on CNN. You can watch that, Saturday night, 09:00 p.m. Eastern. This week's guests are Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett, and the comedian, Dave Foley.
Thanks so much for joining us, here tonight.
"CNN NEWSNIGHT WITH ABBY PHILLIP" starts now.
