The Rachel Maddow Show
'A six resignation kind of day' at DOJ following Trump's sketchy deal with NYC mayor Eric Adams
Fri, 14 Feb 2025
Donald Trump was caught by surprise when Department of Justice prosecutors were too dedicated to the rule of law to go along with a deal to drop federal charges against New York City Mayor Eric Adams. Rachel Maddow describes that drama that led to six protest resignations under new Trump attorney general, Pam Bondi.
Why is there a measles outbreak in Texas?
It is one of those days. We are watching so many different stories and there's so much to report on tonight. On the day that they swore in a new U.S. health secretary who has spent his whole adult life railing against vaccines, we now have word of a new outbreak of measles in the United States. In Texas, at least 22 children infected and two adults.
Measles, of course, is an illness that can be prevented by If you are vaccinated against it. But the Texas Department of State Health Services says none of the 24 people infected in Texas have been vaccinated. Now, nine of them have been hospitalized. And Texas is saying that they expect this outbreak to grow. Measles, of course, can kill you.
Measles was all but eradicated in our country by the year 2000. But now in this era of rampant conspiracy theories and lies about vaccines promoted by influential people, this county in Texas where this measles outbreak is occurring, Gaines County, Texas, it has one of the lowest childhood vaccination rates in that state.
The CDC also today belatedly published new data that shows human beings, specifically veterinarians, are getting bird flu now, apparently from contact not with birds, but with infected cattle. A multi-species outbreak now. This is data the CDC had and had ready to publish three weeks ago. It was supposed to be published then.
So among other things, people who work with cattle could start taking steps to protect themselves. But the Trump administration shut down scientific publications from the government, including the CDC. So we did not get this crucial and worrying news until today.
We did, though, today get the swearing in of new health secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who has said that who said, you know, as he was getting ready to take the helm of America's health system, he said publicly that we should take an eight year long break as a nation from any work at all on infectious diseases. Right. So there's that.
I should tell you tomorrow we're expecting a fairly large scale protest starting at 8 a.m. Eastern at the headquarters of the Health and Human Services Department in Washington as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. starts his first full day on the job. So keep an eye on that in tomorrow's headlines.
Today, there were disruptive protests at the confirmation hearing for Trump's education secretary nominee, Linda McMahon. She does not have much of a background in education. She did run a pro wrestling company.
Protesters at her confirmation hearing today used wrestling slogans to interrupt her testimony and shout about the Trump administration's evident plans to get rid of the whole Department of Education.
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