Speaker 1: An important thing about growing up and being a mature
Speaker 1: adult human being is understanding that what's important to you
Speaker 1: might not be important to your interlocutor, having a sense
Speaker 1: of self awareness, having a clue. As my dad might
Speaker 1: put it, this is the predicament that maybe the presdo
Speaker 1: Bee is in right now, as they breathlessly report. And
Speaker 1: a piece published today, why did Elon Musk spend nearly
Speaker 1: a million dollars to help elect David Valadalo? David Valadoe? Remember,
Speaker 1: the House of Representatives represents a good portion of King's
Speaker 1: County and Hilary County and some of the.
Speaker 2: South Valley.
Speaker 1: Apparently received some million ish dollars from Elon Musk's various
Speaker 1: political action committees that mister Musk funds.
Speaker 2: Here's the president, b Storre.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk's America Political Action Committee spent nearly a million
Speaker 1: dollars trying to get Representative David Valadeo re elected last year.
Speaker 1: Democrats say that has left the Hanford Republican eager to
Speaker 1: support the billionaire who's been instrumental in pushing for big
Speaker 1: government spending cuts. Republicans counted that such a claim is
Speaker 1: misleading and wrong. Californians will continue to stand with Congressman
Speaker 1: Valadeo and reject the dishonest tactics of a party that
Speaker 1: has lost its way, said Christian Martinez, National Republican Congressional
Speaker 1: Committee spokesperson. While Valadeo has praised President Donald Trump often
Speaker 1: and voted with Republicans on major budget issues this year,
Speaker 1: there is no evidence he's been dealing with Musk. He did, though,
Speaker 1: see value to the Department of Government efficiency, where Musk
Speaker 1: has been a driving force. They're trying a different path
Speaker 1: than what we've tried in the past, and other efforts
Speaker 1: we've made haven't been as effective, he told Bakersfield Bakersfield's
Speaker 1: twenty three ABC's Mike Hart last week. Democrats see a
Speaker 1: close connection between Musk's views and Valadeo's actions. No matter
Speaker 1: how much he tries to spin it or hide it,
Speaker 1: David Valadeo will always be beholden to his chief campaign financier,
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, said Viet Shelton, spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional
Speaker 1: Campaign Committee. These desperate attempts by out of touch Democrats
Speaker 1: to mislead Californians are not just sad the Republicans, Martinez said,
Speaker 1: they're embarrassing all right, So they look then into Musks
Speaker 1: spending through this America Pack. America Pack as a super
Speaker 1: pack founded and largely funded by Musk. It spent about
Speaker 1: one hundred and seventy three million dollars during the twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four election cycle on independent expenditures that means it
Speaker 1: could spend unlimited amounts to boost or oppose candidates. The
Speaker 1: group spent one hundred forty three point eight million to
Speaker 1: help elect Trump last year, according to data compiled by
Speaker 1: Open Secrets and non partisan research firm. Valadeo's campaign was
Speaker 1: not allowed to coordinate with Musk's pack. America Pack did
Speaker 1: not respond to a request for comment. FEC records show
Speaker 1: that it tried to help three California members of Congress,
Speaker 1: Valadeo and Representatives Ken Calvert, a Republican from Corona, and
Speaker 1: Michelle Steele, a Republican from Steeal Beach. Calvert won and
Speaker 1: Steel lost. The pack spent nine hundred eighty three thousand,
Speaker 1: four hundred eighty four dollars to help Valadeo win. He
Speaker 1: had been considered vulnerable since Democrat Joe Biden won his
Speaker 1: district in twenty twenty. And this is the crux of it.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: Musk in the last election cycle became a big time
Speaker 1: Republican funder. He was giving to Republican causes, so he
Speaker 1: was most enthused I think about Donald Trump. He gives
Speaker 1: Trump a bunch of money, and then clearly Republicans were
Speaker 1: talking with him and we're like, hey, listen, we have
Speaker 1: a couple of House seats that are really important and
Speaker 1: really in dispute, and we'd like, you know, for Trump
Speaker 1: to be able to govern, we need, you know, to
Speaker 1: make sure that we win a couple of these House seats.
Speaker 2: Particularly in California.
Speaker 1: Valdeo's seat was going to be very tightly contested. John
Speaker 1: Duarte versus Adam Gray was going to be very hotly contested.
Speaker 2: So they convinced Musk to.
Speaker 1: Use this Political Action Committee to give some money there.
Speaker 1: And I think that has to be kind of understood.
Speaker 1: This is I mean, we have this breathless story in
Speaker 1: the Fresno b and that's what That's what I was
Speaker 1: leading off with about having a sense of what is
Speaker 1: actually important.
Speaker 2: I think the.
Speaker 1: Alleged hatred for Elon Musk by the American public more
Speaker 1: broadly is overstated. I don't think most Americans really dislike him.
Speaker 2: All that much.
Speaker 1: Maybe some Americans are a little annoyed at whatever role
Speaker 1: he seems to be playing within the current Trump administration,
Speaker 1: and it seems like Elon is taking a lot of
Speaker 1: the heat that could otherwise have.
Speaker 2: Gone to Trump. Maybe that's part of the point.
Speaker 1: I don't think most people despise him, though certainly not
Speaker 1: the way that democrats or the media do. I think
Speaker 1: democrats in the media want to build up enough of
Speaker 1: a body of negative stories on Musk to the point
Speaker 1: that his person, his character, is toxic, and thus any
Speaker 1: connection to him will itself be toxic. This is a
Speaker 1: common thing that the media and Democrats do is try
Speaker 1: to build up a kind of what I call the
Speaker 1: fog of news. We haven't actually established that someone is
Speaker 1: a really bad guy. We just report enough small negative
Speaker 1: pieces about this person to build up the perception in
Speaker 1: the minds of enough of the American public that this
Speaker 1: is an unacceptable kind of person. And that's what they're
Speaker 1: trying to do with Musk, and I guess that's I
Speaker 1: just find that to be a little silly, the idea
Speaker 1: that Valideo is just a whipping boy for whatever Musk
Speaker 1: wants to do. Look, if you've got Valideo voting on
Speaker 1: some kind of ridiculous spending measure that is going to
Speaker 1: directly benefit makers of electric car companies, including Elon Musk,
Speaker 1: and you can show some kind of direct nexus between
Speaker 1: Valadeo voting on something that's directly benefiting Musk's business interests
Speaker 1: and Musk super Pac gave him a million dollars. Okay,
Speaker 1: maybe we can make a story out of it, but
Speaker 1: that connection hasn't been made the whole idea of super
Speaker 1: Pac funding. So that's this is an important thing to understand.
Speaker 1: Most of the time, there are campaign contribution limits for
Speaker 1: someone for an individual to give money to.
Speaker 2: A politician.
Speaker 1: So if Elon Musk pulls out his checkbook and wants
Speaker 1: to write a check directly, he himself directly wants to
Speaker 1: write a check to support David Valadeo and meets with
Speaker 1: David Valdeo in his office and says, Hi, David Valadeo,
Speaker 1: my name is an Elon Musk. I would like to
Speaker 1: give you money to help support your campaign. Great, Elon,
Speaker 1: why don't you give me? Well, unfortunately, all you can
Speaker 1: do is give me whatever is the top max individual contribution,
Speaker 1: which I believe is like six thousand something dollars. I
Speaker 1: believe it's under ten thousand dollars. And that's all you
Speaker 1: can do, Elon Musk. That's the limit of your campaign contribution. However,
Speaker 1: if Elon Musk starts a super pack, a super political
Speaker 1: action committee, an organization that exists to provide funding or
Speaker 1: support to political campaigns, he can do that with no
Speaker 1: spending limit whatsoever. The only hitch is that this super
Speaker 1: pack of Elon Musk's it can't and any superpack. This
Speaker 1: is how all super packs work. This super pac cannot
Speaker 1: directly coordinate with the candidate in question, So it Elon
Speaker 1: can't call David Valadeo up and say, hey, David, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna spend a million dollars on your campaign. Oh thank you,
Speaker 1: mister Musk. Why don't you have the money be directed
Speaker 1: towards you know, this amount of mailers and this amount
Speaker 1: of television ads, and put television ads here and play
Speaker 1: some television ads during you know, during this NFL playoff,
Speaker 1: during during this NFL game, and blah blah blah blah
Speaker 1: bout you know, make sure you have some ads playing
Speaker 1: during the Notre Dame USC game and blah blah. No,
Speaker 1: Valideo can't coordinate that with Musk. That's the idea. With
Speaker 1: super PACs, it's a political action committee. It's a free
Speaker 1: standing thing. It can make contributions in favor of in
Speaker 1: support of one candidate or another, but it's not allowed
Speaker 1: to coordinate with the candidate or with the candidate's campaign.
Speaker 2: Okay, So.
Speaker 1: This is not something as a result that Valadeo was
Speaker 1: necessarily directing or coordinating at all, which I think is
Speaker 1: a relevant part of the story. Now, some people, I
Speaker 1: think roll their eyes at that requirement. Is there some
Speaker 1: coordination that's going on between super PACs and candidates? Maybe
Speaker 1: maybe there is, but that theoretically has to be maintained,
Speaker 1: and if it's not, there could be penalties. So if
Speaker 1: that's been maintained, it weakens the argument that Valadeo is
Speaker 1: Elon Musk's whipping boy who just does whatever Elon Musk
Speaker 1: tells him to do. Secondly, most of the things that
Speaker 1: are being mentioned in this article is about stuff Elon
Speaker 1: wants to cut.
Speaker 2: And what.
Speaker 1: Commitment David Valadeo is going to have towards cutting those things.
Speaker 1: So a big part of the story is about medicaid.
Speaker 1: Musk told Fox Business host Larry Kudlow on March tenth.
Speaker 1: On March tenth, broadcast that waste and fraud and entitlement
Speaker 1: programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are the
Speaker 1: big one to eliminate. One month since President Trump took office,
Speaker 1: Californians are holding David Valadeo and Ken Calverts to the
Speaker 1: feet for standing idly by where while they're extreme party
Speaker 1: bosses consider taking a hatchet to critical programs like Medicaid
Speaker 1: that families in the Valley and Riverside County rely. On
Speaker 1: set of February twentieth Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee statement. So
Speaker 1: this is this is why Democrats are pointing all this out.
Speaker 2: And it's funny that.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, the present note B is just
Speaker 1: basically acting here as the Democratic parties you know, campaigning
Speaker 1: spokespersons that basically they're trying to make this the big
Speaker 1: argument they want to make. The one way in which
Speaker 1: David Valadeo at one point lost his House seat was
Speaker 1: back in twenty seventeen, David Valadeo voted with the other
Speaker 1: Republicans to appeal Obamacare, which would have resulted in a
Speaker 1: shrinking of the pool of people eligible for Medicaid. That's
Speaker 1: why he lost in twenty eighteen. Valadeo lost his House
Speaker 1: seat in twenty eighteen to TJ.
Speaker 2: Cox.
Speaker 1: He managed to regain it in twenty twenty, but he
Speaker 1: lost that House seat because of this, because of how
Speaker 1: he voted on Medicaid. And so Democrats want to make
Speaker 1: a direct line of Elon Musk wants to cut Medicaid.
Speaker 1: Elon Musk gave David Valadeo a million dollars. David Valadeo's
Speaker 1: an evil guy. Now, it is also important to realize
Speaker 1: this with Valadeo, He's not exactly some doctrinaire Republican. Nobody
Speaker 1: has gotten less credit from the Fresno Bee than David Validat,
Speaker 1: you know, the Fresno Bee, which tries to position itself, as.
Speaker 2: You know, above the Fray.
Speaker 1: They can't just come out and say, yeah, our editorial
Speaker 1: board is liberal Democrats, and we believe in the political
Speaker 1: priorities of the modern day Democratic Party.
Speaker 2: We are liberals. That's who we are and what we
Speaker 2: believe in.
Speaker 1: And so as a result of our editorial board, we
Speaker 1: tend to support Democrats unless there's something so.
Speaker 2: Absurd that, you know, maybe we'll support a Republican. But
Speaker 2: that's who we are.
Speaker 1: That the Fresno BEE never does that. They should do
Speaker 1: that because basically, when they endorse candidates or oppost candidates anytime,
Speaker 1: anytime it's like really important or just all things being equal,
Speaker 1: they endorse the Democrat like nine times out of ten,
Speaker 1: unless maybe it's it's a race where it's so out
Speaker 1: of reach for the Democrat, maybe they're just like, yeah, right,
Speaker 1: But here's David val Here's David Belladale going through puberty
Speaker 1: on the radio. Here's David Valadaloe, who voted to impeach
Speaker 1: Donald Trump after January sixth, genuinely did that. He actually
Speaker 1: voted to impeach Trump on January sixth. I think he
Speaker 1: might be the only member of the Republican member of
Speaker 1: the House left who voted to impeach Donald Trump. The
Speaker 1: Fresno b has given him exactly zero credit for that.
Speaker 1: It bought him seemingly like they were, David Valadeo voted
Speaker 1: to impeach President Trump. We respect that decision of his.
Speaker 1: They've never supported him. Here they are running this story,
Speaker 1: which is just a bunch of Democrat campaign talking points
Speaker 1: about why are we focused so much on Valadale Because
Speaker 1: let me, let me guarantee this a story about a
Speaker 1: million dollars from Elon Musk going to support David Valadeo
Speaker 1: and will he do what David Valadeo wants. There are
Speaker 1: plenty of big time, big money Democrat financiers who give
Speaker 1: big money to Democrat congressional candidates, and you can make
Speaker 1: some shadowy story about.
Speaker 2: Is this Democrat doing whatever George Soros wants?
Speaker 1: The Fresno Bee would never run a story like that, ever,
Speaker 1: George Soros gave a million dollars to this member of Congress.
Speaker 1: Is he just going to be George Soros's whipping boy?
Speaker 1: And it might have been in Soros's case it Soros
Speaker 1: was giving a gazillion dollars to Democrats nationwide, and this
Speaker 1: was a tight race, so we wound up given this
Speaker 1: race more money. It's not as though there's a nefarious
Speaker 1: plot on Elon Musk's part.
Speaker 3: Ahha, David Valadeo is my instrument to inflict my will
Speaker 3: upon Congress.
Speaker 1: No, David Valadeo is in a tight race. Musk wanted
Speaker 1: a Republican majority. He needs to give more money in
Speaker 1: that case to Republicans who were in tight races. But
Speaker 1: of course you would never in a million years see
Speaker 1: the president be.
Speaker 2: Oh the well to George Soros specifically.
Speaker 1: Want big time political financiers do this kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: They do it at the local level, they do it
Speaker 1: at the national level, they do it at the statewide level.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole story about George Soros flooded district
Speaker 1: attorney races in big cities which were relatively small dollar races,
Speaker 1: flooded the zone with way more money for one specific
Speaker 1: candidate than anyone had ever seen before to get ultra
Speaker 1: left wing district attorneys elected who would single handedly completely
Speaker 1: reshape criminal law for that big city. That strategy that
Speaker 1: he employed in all kinds of cities all across the country,
Speaker 1: the chase of budin alex gascon types. That was like
Speaker 1: a real, open, genuine nationwide strategy that Soros was like
Speaker 1: openly bragging about. And the Fresno and newspapers across the
Speaker 1: country acted like Republicans were engaged in anti submit genuinely
Speaker 1: accused Republicans of engaging in anti Semitic conspiracy theories for
Speaker 1: pointing it out because Soros happens to be Jewish. No,
Speaker 1: this is not a conspiracy theory. This is his open,
Speaker 1: obvious strategy. He wanted to fundamentally reshape American criminal law,
Speaker 1: and he did it through specific investments of political funding
Speaker 1: into races that wouldn't ordinarily have that much money spent.
Speaker 1: So anyway, the idea that we're going to make a
Speaker 1: big time nationwide Republican financier gave a local Republican.
Speaker 2: A bunch of money, Is he just going to do
Speaker 2: whatever he wants?
Speaker 1: Well, yes, Republicans get in Republicans and Democrats get influenced
Speaker 1: to do the things that their donors want. Elon Musk
Speaker 1: is hardly the one thing that is going to lead
Speaker 1: David Valadeo to want to support whatever unpopular thing that
Speaker 1: the Presno B is angry at him about. We'll talk
Speaker 1: about Medicaid and waste and fraud and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: After the break. This is John Girardi on the John
Speaker 2: Girardi Show. Here on Power Talk Fresno.
Speaker 3: B breathlessly reports that David Valadeo is aligned with Elon Musk.
Speaker 3: Elon Musk gave him a million dollars, So David Valadeo
Speaker 3: is going to do whatever he wants.
Speaker 2: And it's like, well, is he really was he already
Speaker 2: going to do?
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole Republican Party is fairly well aligned
Speaker 1: on a lot of their policy priority now the big thing,
Speaker 1: and you know, look, Elon Musk was giving money to
Speaker 1: Republicans nationwide. Of course, he gave more money to local races.
Speaker 1: It's not like David Valadeo is his particular creature. Valadeo
Speaker 1: was just a Republican and a tight race, so as
Speaker 1: a result, he got more money. Now, and this is
Speaker 1: I think a very lazy article that to be published
Speaker 1: about this where they sort of just lay out every
Speaker 1: Democrat talking point is Elon Musk's you know, support for
Speaker 1: cutting medicaid is, does David Valadeo want to cut Medicaid
Speaker 1: for his constituents? For cutting the Department of Education? Does
Speaker 1: David Valadeo want to cut education? Cutting the Department of
Speaker 1: Education being you know, not something at all different from
Speaker 1: cutting education in and of itself. This is all stuff
Speaker 1: that Republicans wanted to do. Anyway, Elon Musk's presence isn't
Speaker 1: actually changing the fact that Medicaid is a massive entitlement.
Speaker 1: It's grown to be this massive entitlement program with really
Speaker 1: runaway spending, like it's a genuine problem just from a
Speaker 1: fiscal perspective, so how are you going to do that?
Speaker 1: Will you either do it with you know, crushing tax
Speaker 1: increases or with cutting something And there's stuff to be
Speaker 1: cut with Medicaid, especially when it comes to like fraud
Speaker 1: or waste. Like you know, I've for the most part,
Speaker 1: I've been pretty skeptical of Trump's slash Elon's claims that
Speaker 1: we can cut out fraud and abuse and that that's
Speaker 1: gonna result in massive savings, you know.
Speaker 2: I will note though, with Medicaid, which is, you.
Speaker 1: Know, a huge, huge entitlement that I think is approaching
Speaker 1: a trillion dollars in annual spending, there is some argument
Speaker 1: that as much as five percent, so it's a bit
Speaker 1: less than a trillion dollars. There's an argument that about
Speaker 1: five percent of Medicaid's expenditures, which is insurance reimbursements, reimbursements
Speaker 1: to cover the cost of someone receiving healthcare reimbursement to
Speaker 1: the doctor, that like five percent of their reimbursements are
Speaker 1: wrongly given out, which in real world dollars is about
Speaker 1: thirty billion dollars. Like that that is not nothing, that's
Speaker 1: a chunk. Now, is it going to make a dent?
Speaker 1: As far as the big picture. I don't know, but
Speaker 1: it's not like there's no fraud or waste in the
Speaker 1: system to cut. And if someone wanted to vote for
Speaker 1: something to make Medicaid sleeker and more streamlined. And also
Speaker 1: I mean, there should be maybe some assessment of focusing
Speaker 1: Medicaid on the stuff that it was intended to help
Speaker 1: with when it was originally founded, people with disabilities, pregnant women, like,
Speaker 1: there were certain groups so called legacy enroll lees in
Speaker 1: Medicaid that the program was designed to help with. And
Speaker 1: the problem is it just got expanded, expanded, expanded, expanded
Speaker 1: to just be health insurance for lower income people with
Speaker 1: no sort of like work requirements or assessment of how
Speaker 1: able bodied you are, like able bodied adults without kids.
Speaker 1: Maybe maybe that's someone where we can sort of say, hey,
Speaker 1: you need to go help yourself. Like the idea that
Speaker 1: Medicaid is sacra saying that there's no way to cut
Speaker 1: it is pure politics, but it's a very effective talking point.
Speaker 1: That's the problem is that people here that you want
Speaker 1: to cut medicaid, people here that you want to cut medical,
Speaker 1: they have insurance.
Speaker 2: They have medical. That really drives votes.
Speaker 1: That's why David Valadeo lost in twenty eighteen, and Democrats want.
Speaker 2: To repeat that again.
Speaker 1: When we returned some major abortion related news, A massive
Speaker 1: news study about the abortion pill and why it's important.
Speaker 1: That's next on the John Girardi Show. The Ethics and
Speaker 1: Public Policy Center in DC's this DC think tank, sort
Speaker 1: of aligned with various pro life and social conservative policies.
Speaker 2: Released a paper.
Speaker 1: That is just released it today by Jamie Brian Hall
Speaker 1: and Ryan T.
Speaker 2: Anderson.
Speaker 1: This is the largest study of its kind looking into
Speaker 1: the adverse impacts of the abortion pill. And this couldn't
Speaker 1: be more timely with the start of the Trump administration.
Speaker 1: Now with the head of the FDA in place, with
Speaker 1: RFK Junior in place, let's talk about it, and let
Speaker 1: me first explain why this is important. So, for just
Speaker 1: a primer, what is quote the abortion pill? What heck
Speaker 1: am I talking about when I say the word? And
Speaker 1: I'm going to talk about this on for this upcoming
Speaker 1: Saturday's Right to Life Radio. But this is important enough
Speaker 1: that I think I got to talk about it today
Speaker 1: as well.
Speaker 2: So this.
Speaker 1: Topic of the abortion pill, I think is largely not
Speaker 1: understood by most of the American public. When I say
Speaker 1: the word abortion, I think most of you listening probably
Speaker 1: still think of surgery. You think of a surgical intervention
Speaker 1: performed by a doctor. Now, first I'll tell you that
Speaker 1: in California, it doesn't have to be performed by a doctor.
Speaker 2: It can be About ten or.
Speaker 1: Fifteen years ago, the state legislature changed the law to say, oh,
Speaker 1: a nurse, a practitioner can do it. And then about
Speaker 1: two years ago the state legislature changed the law and said, oh,
Speaker 1: physicians' assistants.
Speaker 2: Can do it.
Speaker 1: Before long, California will loose an abortion laws so much
Speaker 1: or will be able to perform surgical abortions. However, over
Speaker 1: sixty percent of abortions are no longer performed surgically, and
Speaker 1: that's a number that's changed significantly over the last eight years.
Speaker 1: Eight years ago, about thirty nine percent of abortions were
Speaker 1: performed by taking a drug. Today it is over sixty percent.
Speaker 1: Somewhere around sixty three percent of abortions are performed by
Speaker 1: taking a drug. By taking a pill, this is the
Speaker 1: abortion pill, otherwise known as by its actual name is mifepristone.
Speaker 2: That's the name of the drug.
Speaker 1: So basically how the process works is and by the way,
Speaker 1: this is different from the morning after pill. The morning
Speaker 1: after pill is a different drug called levone or gestrel.
Speaker 1: Lavone or gestral is taken within you know, the morning
Speaker 1: after of a sexual encounter, and its chief mechanism is
Speaker 1: to try to prevent the woman from releasing an egg.
Speaker 2: Ovulating, so.
Speaker 1: Most of the time it is genuinely contraceptive. However, it
Speaker 1: does have this backup mechanism to make the inner lining
Speaker 1: of the uterus hostile to receiving a newly formed embryo,
Speaker 1: so it might be a moortifacient. Its primary mechanism, though,
Speaker 1: is to try to prevent ovulating. That's the morning after pill.
Speaker 1: I'm not talking about that here. I'm talking about the
Speaker 1: abortion pill. Miph A pristone mif A pristone is a
Speaker 1: drug that can be taken up to ten weeks into
Speaker 1: a pregnancy, and what it does is it inhibits this
Speaker 1: hormone called progesterone. Progesterone is very important for ongoing health
Speaker 1: of the pregnancy. It alters the inner lining of a
Speaker 1: woman's uterus, which results in the baby detaching from the
Speaker 1: uterine wall. The baby is then cut off from oxygen nutrients.
Speaker 1: The baby dies again. This is within the first ten
Speaker 1: weeks of pregnancy. So at this is the first six
Speaker 1: weeks of pregnancy, we call the baby an embryo. After
Speaker 1: that we call the baby a fetus. So the embryo
Speaker 1: or fetus dies. The woman then takes a second drug
Speaker 1: called misaprostol. Some of you may have heard of that drug.
Speaker 1: It's a legitimate drug. It helps induce labor. This results
Speaker 1: in the baby being expelled from the woman's body. Now,
Speaker 1: one of the cagy things about I believe when you
Speaker 1: really look at the issue and really examine it with
Speaker 1: a critical eye, is how safe is the abortion pill process. Well,
Speaker 1: it seemed to have a certain level of safety back
Speaker 1: prior to the end of the Obama administration, when it
Speaker 1: could only be prescribed with three in clinic patient visits.
Speaker 1: You had to have a preliminary visit, a visit where
Speaker 1: you actually received and ingested the drug in front of
Speaker 1: a physician, and then you needed a follow up visit,
Speaker 1: and it could only be prescribed in the first seven weeks.
Speaker 1: Think of it like a miscarriage, a miscarriage that happens.
Speaker 1: The later on in a pregnancy that a miscarriage happens,
Speaker 1: the more medical complications there are.
Speaker 2: Likely to be for the woman. Okay.
Speaker 1: So when the abortion pill was first approved, it was
Speaker 1: only approved for the first seven weeks with three clinic visits,
Speaker 1: and President Obama said, well, it's safe for seven weeks
Speaker 1: and three clinic visits, so let's make it ten weeks
Speaker 1: and one clinic visit which didn't follow. If it was
Speaker 1: safe this way, what made you think it would continue
Speaker 1: to be safe with fewer safety restrictions. Maybe it was
Speaker 1: more safe before because you had the safety recive restrictions.
Speaker 1: Those safety restrictions are really only an argument for themselves,
Speaker 1: they're not an argument for less safety. So in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 1: Barack Obama changes a lot of the rules around the
Speaker 1: abortion pill his FDA. In twenty sixteen, only one in
Speaker 1: person clinic visit required, no follow up required, which is critical,
Speaker 1: and it can be prescribed through the first ten weeks
Speaker 1: of pregnancy. And we change the reporting requirements now, instead
Speaker 1: of reporting any adverse incident, you only have to report
Speaker 1: an adverse incident that results in the patient's death. So
Speaker 1: since twenty sixteen, the Centers for Disease Control the federal
Speaker 1: government has not been collecting mandatorially adverse health outcome consequences
Speaker 1: from the abortion pill. As the abortion pill has vaulted
Speaker 1: to being the most dominant method of abortion provision. Where
Speaker 1: today you're there are about six hundred thousand women every
Speaker 1: year having abortions via the abortion pill, and it's.
Speaker 2: Clear that thousands and thousands.
Speaker 1: Of them are having some kind of adverse health outcome,
Speaker 1: but it's not being reported. There were plenty of instances
Speaker 1: of adverse health outcomes when it was required to be reported,
Speaker 1: and you just made the safety standards looser, not stricter. Well,
Speaker 1: President Biden ramped this up further. He said that the
Speaker 1: abortion pill. His FDA in twenty twenty one allowed the
Speaker 1: abortion pill to be prescribed with no in person visit,
Speaker 1: just with a telemedicine visit, maybe not even with a doctor,
Speaker 1: with a nurse practitioner or a physician assistant, and the
Speaker 1: abortion pill to be shipped to you through the mail. Now,
Speaker 1: this line that the pro abortion advocates have used is
Speaker 1: that the abortion pill it's as safe as taking a toilet,
Speaker 1: all as safe as taking a tilool, which.
Speaker 2: Was always deceptive.
Speaker 1: Basically, they tried to compare the adverse outcome rates from
Speaker 1: taking the abortion pill and compared it to overdosing on tilanol.
Speaker 2: Overdosing on tailand.
Speaker 1: All, yeah, was about as safe as taking an abortion
Speaker 1: pill as far as the number of adverse outcomes.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 1: But when they frame it as the abortion pills as
Speaker 1: safe as a tile in all, you think, oh, okay,
Speaker 1: So it has basically no adverse health outcomes like taking
Speaker 1: a tilol.
Speaker 2: No, they were deceptively.
Speaker 1: Manipulating their words and manipulating the data. Now Alexandra Dusanctus,
Speaker 1: who writes for National Review and is a fellow of
Speaker 1: the Ethics and Public Policy Center, has the write up.
Speaker 1: For decades, the pro life movement has maintained that every
Speaker 1: abortion has at least two victims, the unborn child and
Speaker 1: the pregnant mother. From a new report reaffirm that far
Speaker 1: from being a healthcare solution, chemical abortion poses significant physical
Speaker 1: risks to women. This morning, the Ethics and Public Policy
Speaker 1: Center where I am a fellow where she is a fellow,
Speaker 1: released a paper that is the largest known study of
Speaker 1: the abortion pills after effects for women. The research shows
Speaker 1: that chemical abortion is considerably more dangerous to pregnant women
Speaker 1: than the Food and Drug Administration presently admits. Chemical abortion
Speaker 1: uses two drugs, mifopristone, which blocks progesterone from sustaining the
Speaker 1: unborn child, and misupprostyl, which causes contractions that expel the
Speaker 1: unborn child. According to this new research, nearly eleven percent
Speaker 1: of women experience sepsis, infection, hemorrhaging, or another serious adverse
Speaker 1: event within forty five days following a mifipristone abortion. Eleven
Speaker 1: percent of women who go through the abortion pill process
Speaker 1: have some seal cious adverse event.
Speaker 2: That's a huge rate.
Speaker 1: The drug label from mifepristone, by contrast, claims that less
Speaker 1: than point five percent of women experienced a serious adverse
Speaker 1: event based on results of clinical trials. In other words,
Speaker 1: the rate of serious adverse events following chemical abortions appears
Speaker 1: to be at least twenty two times as high as
Speaker 1: the summary figure that the FDA discloses. The new research
Speaker 1: is based on an analysis of data from an all
Speaker 1: payer insurance claims database, including more than eight hundred and
Speaker 1: sixty five thousand prescribed chemical abortions between twenty seventeen and
Speaker 1: twenty twenty three. The point five percent rate presented by
Speaker 1: abortion pill manufacturer dan Co Laboratory, so the FDA is
Speaker 1: running with this rate given by the company that makes
Speaker 1: the abortion pill.
Speaker 2: The FDA says, oh, well, the company that makes.
Speaker 1: The abortion pill says point five percent of all people
Speaker 1: taking it have a serious adverse.
Speaker 2: Event, So we'll run with that.
Speaker 1: The point five percent rate presented by abortion pill manufactured
Speaker 1: dan CO laboratories, and the FDA relies on information from
Speaker 1: ten clinical trials with just shy of thirty one thousand participants.
Speaker 1: The new data set covers twenty eight times as many
Speaker 1: chemical abortions as were included in all the FDA cided
Speaker 1: clinical trials combined. This data is also more current and
Speaker 1: more representative of the American population than the data that
Speaker 1: the FDA relies on for its figures.
Speaker 2: Okay, so.
Speaker 1: The abortion pill is way more dangerous than we thought.
Speaker 1: When we return what that could mean as far as
Speaker 1: public policy. That is next on the John Gerardi Show.
Speaker 1: New study comes out showing that the abortion pill the
Speaker 1: most common way that abortion happens. Over sixty percent of
Speaker 1: American abortions happen this way is way more dangerous than
Speaker 1: the FDA has ever admitted. Based on a survey looking
Speaker 1: at eight hundred thousand abortions, it shows that eleven percent
Speaker 1: of women experienced some serious adverse event sepsis, hemorrhage, infection.
Speaker 1: So what does this mean public policy wise? Okay, let
Speaker 1: me make this point. The abortion pill is the biggest
Speaker 1: driver of abortion in America today, period, end of sentence,
Speaker 1: full stop. When President Biden changed the FDA's regulations around
Speaker 1: the abortion pill to allow it to be prescribed with
Speaker 1: a telemedicine visit i e. Not in person, and shipped
Speaker 1: to patients directly through the mail, shipped to pregnant women
Speaker 1: directly through the mail, or allowed it to be picked
Speaker 1: up at major pharmacies, it resulted in the total number
Speaker 1: of American abortions jumping by about one hundred thousand extra
Speaker 1: abortions every year, from nine hundred thousand abortions a year
Speaker 1: to a million abortions per year.
Speaker 2: That's an enormous jump.
Speaker 1: It's the biggest driver of abortion today, and it makes
Speaker 1: a mockery of individual states having laws banning abortion why.
Speaker 2: Because they're pills, they're portable, they're shippable.
Speaker 1: The postal Service is not doing a darn thing to
Speaker 1: stop them being shipped through the mail. So it's leading.
Speaker 1: There's some people who are arguing there are more abortions
Speaker 1: happening in Texas now than there were prior to Texas
Speaker 1: outlawing abortion after the Dobs decision. Why because people are
Speaker 1: shipping in the abortion pill, we need to aggressively regulate
Speaker 1: the abortion pill. Now, the Trump administration, you know, Trump
Speaker 1: during the campaign was kind of cagy about, Oh, not
Speaker 1: sure if I want to completely cut off access to
Speaker 1: the abortion pill. But what could the Trump administration do?
Speaker 1: They said, aref K. Junior said during his congressional testimony
Speaker 1: he was going to assess the issue carefully and he
Speaker 1: was going to decide what he and Trump want to
Speaker 1: do as far.
Speaker 2: As regulating the abortion pill.
Speaker 1: Well, this is relevant new data. It is way more
Speaker 1: dangerous than was ever claimed. So this gives yet more
Speaker 1: ammo to the idea.
Speaker 2: That stricter.
Speaker 1: Regulation, tighter regulation on the abortion pill to make it
Speaker 1: less lucy goosey flying around all over the place is
Speaker 1: necessary and important. And again it's the only thing. Look,
Speaker 1: you can have Dobs on the books, you can have
Speaker 1: individual states limiting abortion. Abortion is still a federal issue,
Speaker 1: and it's a federal issue because of the abortion pill.
Speaker 1: As much as Republicans want to say it's a states situe,
Speaker 1: it's a station issue. The abortion pill is regulated by
Speaker 1: the federal government. Its approval is from the federal government,
Speaker 1: from the federal FDA. It has to be decided by
Speaker 1: President Trump, and this gives amo for him to.
Speaker 2: Really aggressively regulate it. That'll do it. John Girardi Show,
Speaker 2: seey'all next time on Power Talk.