Why Should I Trust You?

Institutions Are Losing the Battle for Attention. Here’s How to Get Back in the Arena: A Conversation w Researcher Renée DiResta

Researcher and author Renée DiResta has spent years studying how influence works online, including the power dynamics that determine which voices get heard and which ones have influence. In a new report she co-authored, DiResta not only digs into the transformation from old media to new, but also examines how institutions need to rethink their approach to communication. Which brings us to a bigger question: What happens when institutional authority itself is no longer enough to earn people’s attention or trust? The old system, in which institutions such as universities, government agencies, think tanks, and nonprofits could rely on mainstream media gatekeepers to relay their insights and messages, has been upended. Today, as influence and attention have shifted toward individual creators, online communities, and influencers, those same institutions (along with their expertise) must find ways to enter these new arenas or risk becoming irrelevant. In this episode, DiResta wrestles with how institutions can make headway and rebuild trust in this new world while staying true to their core missions. Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off) Guest: Renée DiResta is an associate research professor at Georgetown University’s McCourt School of Public Policy, where she studies influence, propaganda, online information systems and institutional resilience. She previously served as research manager at the Stanford Internet Observatory and is the author of Invisible Rulers: The People Who Turn Lies into Reality. Her latest work, co-authored for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, examines how institutions must adapt to a radically changed media environment—and rethink how they earn attention, influence and legitimacy. Link to the report: https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2026/08/nonprofit-organizations-how-to-engage-social-media-new-media-strategy Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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Special Ep: Who Gets to Decide What Science Gets Funded? Inside the Fight Over NIH: A Conversation w Sudip Parikh & Michael Green

Today we ask: When it comes to spending taxpayer dollars on scientific research, how much should elected politicians decide what gets funded, and how much should be decided by scientists and those who lead our health agencies? Where should the line be between supporting the best scientific questions and the ones that our elected leaders think are best? Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett Dr. Mark Abdelmalek Guests: Sudip Parikh, CEO of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and Executive Publisher of the Science family of journals. 2001 to 2009, he served as science advisor to the Republican leadership on the Senate Appropriations Committee, where he was responsible for negotiating budgets for the NIH and several of the other health agencies. Michael Green, a population health researcher and a postdoctoral fellow at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. His work includes examining how people's experiences of unfair treatment in health care affect their health. Michael is one of the researchers who filed a class-action lawsuit this month alleging the NIH is using keyword searches to flag grants for things like DEI and gender, and to cut or force changes to those grants. Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

Measles Is Spreading: Beyond the Fighting, What's Helping People On the Ground? We Talk w a Midwife, a Doctor, a Public Health Leader & a Journalist

This year is shaping up to be the worst in three decades for measles cases. The biggest case count is in Pennsylvania, home to the country’s largest outbreak right now. At its center is Lancaster County and its large Amish community. As you're likely aware, the outbreak has also become a political fight, with Governor Josh Shapiro and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. publicly clashing, even over how many deaths to count. So what is that fight obscuring about what’s actually happening on the ground? And, widening out, what does this year’s rise in measles across the country portend? And finally, how can public health reach low-vaccination populations and help protect them during outbreaks like these? Today, we hear from Roberta Devers, a traditional midwife and Kennedy supporter caring for Amish families at the heart of the outbreak who now believes everyone who can should be vaccinated; The Atlantic’s Tom Bartlett, who has been reporting from the Amish community and spoke with a family whose infant died; immunologist Michael Mina, who has worked with vaccine-hesitant families; and Katherine Wells, the Lubbock public health director who led the response to last year’s Texas outbreak. What can we learn when we get past politics and listen to the people working on the front lines of these outbreaks? Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett Dr. Mark Abdelmalek Guests: Tom Bartlett, staff writer The Atlantic; has interviewed parents of children who have died from or with measles. Roberta Devers, home birth midwife, serves Lancaster County Amish families Katherine Wells, director Lubbock, Texas Health Department Dr. Michael Mina, physician, epidemiologist, immunologist, trains healthcare providers who work with vaccine hesitant populations, Chief Medical Officer, Invivyd. Reading: "The Measles-Stricken Mother Who Lost Her Newborn Son" by Tom Bartlett https://www.theatlantic.com/health/2026/08/pennsylvania-measles-infant-death-family/688469/?gift=_5-xEWgGoCTqSjqIeVMUqmJTBAkpC8ldBZ3MpQ9PSu4 Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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Experts Say AI Could Kill Us. Why Should We Trust Them? A Conversation w Jennifer Reich, Stephen Witt & Rachael Bedard

AI’s story feels like it's gotten a lot scarier. Some people in the tech world building AI now say it poses a meaningful risk of catastrophic harm, or even human extinction. Others insist this kind of “doomerism” is wildly exaggerated—that the warnings amount to crying wolf, and that the real danger is slowing down and ceding our advantage to China. What we do know is that the claims are enormous, sometimes even hard to fully believe or trust, the stakes range from disruptive to potentially existential, and nobody knows what comes next. So rather than hearing from the people building the technology or the politicians reacting to the warnings, we gathered voices from the human sciences and professions. We’re joined by Stephen Witt, a journalist who has spent years covering AI; Jennifer Reich, a sociologist who studies how people navigate risk and uncertainty; and Rachael Bedard, a physician and New York Times contributor currently focused on deciphering this AI moment. In an era of collapsed trust, how do we process what we’re hearing from tech giants, naysayers, and politicians? How do we make decisions when the experts themselves disagree about the risks? How much uncertainty—and risk—are we willing to accept? And ultimately, will America’s mistrust of institutions and big business be our armor, or our undoing? Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett Dr. Mark Abdelmalek Guests: Stephen Witt, tech journalist, author of The Thinking Machine, recent opinion piece in the NYT titled "This is Really Bad": https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/11/opinion/ai-safety-threat-technology.htmlhttps://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/757558/the-thinking-machine-by-stephen-witt/ Jennifer Reich, sociologist, author, University of Colorado -- Denver. Author, Calling The Shots: Why Parents Reject Vaccines.: https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt1803zjf Rachael Bedard, physician, contributing opinion writer to The New York Times, and The New Yorker, The Atlantic and New York. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/12/14/facing-omicron-relapse/ Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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RFK Jr.’s Former Campaign Adviser Charles Eisenstein: On MAHA & The Kind of Candidates America Needs

Charles Eisenstein was a senior adviser and speechwriter to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his 2024 presidential campaign and an early architect of the ideas that would help shape MAHA. In a wide-ranging interview, Eisenstein talks about his heartbreak over how that campaign evolved and, in the wake of Kennedy’s speech at last week’s Republican midterm convention, how he views the possibility of a Kennedy presidential run in 2028. In that speech, the HHS Secretary said the foundational values of the Democratic Party he grew up in had “found a new home” in the Republican Party. Eisenstein discusses his original vision for Kennedy’s candidacy: leading a movement that would rise above party fights and political divisions. We talk about whether the growing concern over AI could become an issue that finally brings people together across the political divide. What types of candidates does he see succeeding in this moment? And ultimately, does Eisenstein still recognize the movement he helped imagine? Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (seeing patients) Guest: Charles Eisenstein, former speechwriter and senior adviser to Robert F. Kennedy Jr's 2024 Presidential campaign; author, philosopher, strategist. www.charleseisenstein.org Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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What Happens If Your AI Is the Better Doctor? A Conversation w Dr. Robert Wachter & Dr. Dhruv Khullar

A debate has broken out in medicine and tech over what the role of AI should be. Is it a useful tool for doctors to consult when making a diagnosis, or, given studies now showing how powerful AI can be in diagnostics and other areas, should the field actually begin preparing for a not-too-distant future when what’s best for a patient is AI taking the lead in care? To explore that question, we're joined by two leading voices in the debate: Dr. Robert Wachter, a leading voice on technology and medicine, who has called AI “the biggest experiment in the history of medicine,” and Dr. Dhruv Khullar, a physician and writer who has written extensively about AI and medicine for The New Yorker. So, what does it mean to be a doctor if AI is doing the heavy lifting? Is that the best scenario, or is a hybrid model, with a doctor consulting an AI, the better path? And how do doctors and patients learn to trust AI with life-and-death decisions in a world where AI agents have already shown they can go rogue? But beyond the provocative question of what AI will eventually mean for doctors, what about all the ways AI could make medicine better? Could it provide millions of Americans without access to affordable care with an alternative? Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett Dr. Mark Abdelmalek Guests: Dr. Dhruv Khullar, a physician and health policy professor at Weill Cornell, and a writer at The New Yorker covering medicine and health care. He directs The Physicians Foundation Center for the Study of Physician Practice and Leadership Dr. Robert Wachter, physician, professor and chair of the UCSF Department of Medicine. Bob coined the term 'hospitalist' which redefined what it meant to be a doctor. He's the author of 300 articles and six books, including his latest, A Giant Leap: How AI is Transforming Healthcare and What That Means for Our Future. Disclosure: Dr. Wachter has consulted with or spoken to a number of AI companies, including Google, Curai, Commure, and Qualified Health. He's received a commitment of support for an upcoming documentary on AI & healthcare from OpenEvidence. Sources: On Strawmen and Doormen: Robert Wachter https://substack.com/@robertwachter/note/p-212925424?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=5vii9h If AI Can Diagnose Patients, What Are Doctors For?: Dhruv Khullar https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2025/09/29/if-ai-can-diagnose-patients-what-are-doctors-for Will Autonomous AI Exceed AI-Aided Physicians As the Best Medical Care? (if you have trouble accessing this article, please email us at the address below and we can send you a pdf) https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/article-abstract/2852952 Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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What Is MAHA Right Now -- Is It Working? A Conversation About the Future of MAHA w A Group of Its Supporters

It’s been two years since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed Donald Trump and forged an unlikely alliance between the Make America Healthy Again movement and MAGA. Now, as we head toward the midterms, with Kennedy campaigning for Republican candidates, we’re asking: What is MAHA now? Is it working? Is it a political force, a social force, or has it lost its way? To hear from supporters about where they see the movement heading, we’re joined by Zen Honeycutt, Aaron Everitt, Elizabeth Frost, Jeff Hutt and Mark Harris. Each has been deeply involved in or closely aligned with MAHA, including several who worked on Kennedy’s presidential campaign. They represent very different priorities and hold different views of where the movement has gone. Some remain committed; others have grown disillusioned or walked away. We’re also joined by former Congressman Tim Ryan, a longtime Democrat, who held MAHA-congruent positions on food and agriculture years before MAHA was a slogan on a hat. Where does he see the movement going from here? And then there’s the bigger question: If roughly four in ten Americans support many of the aspirations behind MAHA, what does that foreshadow for the future of our politics? Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off) Guests: Zen Honeycutt, Moms Across America Jeff Hutt, former National Field Director, Kennedy Campaign Aaron Everitt, former Kennedy Campaign volunteer Elizabeth Frost, MAHA Ohio Mark Harris, former Kennedy campaign supporter former Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH) Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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What Lindsay Clancy's Story Does & Doesn't Tell Us About How We Care For Patients: A Conversation w Drs. Julia Riddle, Anne Zink & Bryan Shapiro

Has the Lindsay Clancy trial quickly become a proxy for something larger? — arguments about psychiatry and medication, motherhood and mental illness, personal responsibility, and whether our medical system is fundamentally failing the people who depend on it? And in choosing sides, are we at risk of turning one horrific case into evidence for conclusions that go far beyond what this particular tragedy can actually tell us? We’re joined by two psychiatrists and an ER physician today to talk about all this. Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett Dr. Mark Abdelmalek Guests: Dr. Julia Riddle, a reproductive psychiatrist and researcher focused on reproductive mental health. She is an Assistant Professor at the UNC Center for Women's Mood Disorders, where she runs a clinic for patients. Dr. Anne Zink, emergency medicine physician and public health leader who served as Chief Medical Officer for the State of Alaska before and during the pandemic. Senior Fellow at the Yale School of Public Health Dr. Bryan Shapiro, a psychiatrist at UC Irvine Medical Center, treating outpatients and training primary care physicians & nurse practitioners on prescribing psychiatric medications. He is the Medical Director at Outro, a company in which he has a financial stake, and which works to safely taper patients off antidepressants. Resources: National Maternal Mental Health Hotline: 1-833-TLC-MAMA National Suicide Prevention Hotline: 1-800-273-8255 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline . Call or text 988, or chat at 988lifeline.org For training MDs/DO/NPs/PAs: https://ncrptraining.org/ NCMatter Access Line Toolkits: https://www.med.unc.edu/ncmatters/provider-tools/toolkits/ OB Tool kits: https://www.mcpapformoms.org/Toolkits/Toolkit.aspx?AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1 PSI international: https://postpartum.net Postpartum Support International 1-833-943-5746 Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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"It's Time For a New Public Health Led By Radical Engagement": A Conversation w Dr. Sandro Galea, Dean of WashU Bursky School of Public Health

That’s the challenge facing Dr. Sandro Galea, dean of the brand-new Bursky School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. It is the first major school of public health to open in the United States after the pandemic. In the wake of COVID, with trust in public health fractured and many Americans viewing the field as partisan, Galea is advocating that his field engage rather than draw lines. He believes public health will be stronger if it listens to all sides and embraces disagreement while still advocating for its values. He argues that the strategy is to widen the tent rather than shrink it, without compromising science or principles, or engaging with bad-faith actors. The approach raises a critical question: as public health endures crippling funding cuts, vaccine policy is in turmoil, Medicaid faces major spending reductions, and trust in scientific expertise is low, is this the time for public health to reach across the divide, or resist and fight? Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off this wk) Guest: Dr. Sandro Galea, Dean of the Bursky School of Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis. Substack: https://sandrogalea.substack.com/ Author of Why Health? What We Need to Think About When We Think About Health Purple Public Health: https://healthierfutureslab.org/research/purple-public-health Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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Public Health, Docs, MAHA Mom React to Trump's Vaccine EO: We Speak w Drs. Deb Houry, Craig Spencer, Joel Warsh + Nancy Fuller

Dr. Debra Houry, the former CDC chief medical officer; emergency physician Dr. Craig Spencer; pediatrician and author Dr. Joel “Gator” Warsh; and MAHA supporter Nancy Fuller join us as we dig into President Trump’s brand-new executive order revamping the recommended schedule for vaccinating America’s children. The order reduces the number of vaccines recommended universally for children from 17 to 11, calls for the MMR vaccine to be broken up into three separate shots, and directs the administration to explore spacing childhood vaccines out across separate visits. It also directs the Department of Justice to examine whether parents’ rights are being protected in states that do not offer religious exemptions from school vaccination requirements. So…what exactly happened yesterday? Does it actually change anything? How are frontline doctors and MAHA supporters processing the President’s controversial comments at the signing ceremony? Is this latest effort to overhaul the schedule heading straight back to the courts? And how might this high-profile move affect the nation’s growing health polarization and eroding trust in public health? Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (on call) Guests: Dr. Debra Houry, former Chief Medical Officer, CDC; emergency physician Dr. Joel "Gator" Warsh, pediatrician, Integrative Pediatrics; substack author Between a Shot and a Hard Place Dr. Craig Spencer, ER physician, professor Brown School of Public Health Nancy Fuller, MAHA supporter, mother to a son with autism and epilepsy Sources: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/07/public-health-maha-rfk/688014/?gift=jf1JNTlPW3HiCUoNqhv9pL4QDDQrO5E0bwhsoINyCrk https://drgator.substack.com/p/breaking-trump-just-tried-to-rewrite Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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The Heat Is Killing Us. So Why Are We Beefing About Air Conditioning? We Chat w Noah Smith, Thomas Chatterton Williams & David Wallace-Wells

What if one of the biggest public health debates of the next decade isn't about vaccines, Ozempic, or chronic disease? What if it's about air conditioning? The world’s temperatures are getting dangerously warmer. Europe is the world's fastest-warming continent with estimates that this summer the heat contributed to 10,000–14,000 deaths over just a few weeks. The United States suffers deadly heat waves too. But Europe experiences much higher heat-wave related death tolls. One major difference people are pointing to? Air conditioning. Americans have a LOT more of it than Europeans do. Defenders of Europe's lower use of air conditioning argue that simply installing more AC isn't the answer. Critics say: this has gone too far. Too many people are dying. Just get air conditioning already. But beneath this debate are some very big questions: What do we owe one another in a warming world? What does adaptation look like? And who bears the costs when our solutions create new problems? Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson (off) Maggie Bartlett Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off) Guests: Noah Smith, economist, publisher of Noahopinion substack. Thomas Chatterton Williams, staff writer The Atlantic,, author of Summer of Our Discontent and Self Portrait in Black and White. David Wallace Wells, writer/columnist, The New York Times. Author The Uninhabitable Earth: Life After Warming. Related articles by our guests: Europe's Resistance to Air Conditioning is Driving It Insane: Noah Smith https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/europes-resistance-to-ac-is-driving The Overlooked Reason Why Europe Doesn't Have AC: Thomas Chatterton Williams https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/2026/06/europe-heat-wave-air-conditioning/687729/ We Need to Retrofit the Planet. The Heat Wave Proves It: David Wallace Wells https://www.nytimes.com/2026/07/01/opinion/heat-wave-europe-america.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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A Conversation w Katelyn Jetelina & David Wallace-Wells: On Anthony Fauci & the National Covid Reckoning That Never Happened

Few figures in America are as polarizing as Dr. Anthony Fauci. To some, he is the veteran scientist who helped steer the nation through the COVID-19 pandemic. To others, he is the face of government overreach who suppressed the lab leak theory to avoid accountability for research funding decisions they believe contributed to the pandemic. This week, those worlds collided in a Senate hearing room as the retired former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases was subpoenaed to testify before an inquiry led by his longtime critic, Republican Senator Rand Paul. Fauci accused the senator of having an "unhinged obsession" with him and seeing him sent to jail before invoking his Fifth Amendment right and declining to answer questions. Senator Paul, in turn, accused Fauci of deception and of refusing to accept responsibility. In today's episode, we ask: Why, six years after the pandemic began, are we still talking about Anthony Fauci? Was this hearing a legitimate effort to uncover new facts about COVID-19's origins, assign accountability and learn from the past, or was it driven by political point scoring and vengeance? Joining us are Dr. Katelyn Jetelina of Your Local Epidemiologist and David Wallace-Wells of The New York Times to unpack what remains one of the most consequential and bitter public health debates of our time. Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett Dr. Mark Abdelmalek Guests: Katelyn Jetelina, founder and CEO of Your Local Epidemiologist David Wallace-Wells, columnist and opinion writer, The New York Times Jetelina on Fauci: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/its-time-to-leave-the-man-alone Wallace-Wells on Fauci: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/04/24/magazine/dr-fauci-pandemic.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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"I Used to Trust Vaccines. In the Next Pandemic, I Wouldn't." Five Americans Explain What Changed

If a new pandemic struck tomorrow and scientists developed a vaccine in record time, would you take it? In this episode, we hear from a group of friends of the show and newcomers who describe themselves as vaccine-hesitant. Once broadly supportive of vaccines, they explain how their experiences during the pandemic changed their views. From concerns about mRNA technology and the speed of development to public health messaging and mandates, we explore how and why their perspectives changed, and trust was lost. While a large body of scientific research holds that the COVID vaccines were safe and significantly reduced severe illness and death, we examine why that evidence remains unpersuasive to them today, just as it was during the pandemic. Finally, we tackle what that means for their trust in the broader medical and public health community today. Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett Dr. Mark Abdelmalek Guests: Aaron Everitt, Ft. Collins, Colorado Jeff Hutt, Corpus Christi, Texas Lori O'Connell, Darlington, Pennsylvania Daniel DeLuca, Athens, Ohio Theresa Dixon, Frederick, Maryland Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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A Conversation w Dr Robert Malone and Dr Craig Spencer: On Ebola, On ACIP, On Malone's Break w MAHA and On Kennedy

Dr. Robert Malone and Dr. Craig Spencer are two influential voices on health in America today, reaching very different audiences. And it's no secret that on many critical issues, they fundamentally disagree. Yet as a deadly Ebola outbreak unfolds in Central Africa, they find themselves agreeing on more than you (or they) might expect. In this episode, the two physicians discuss what allowed the outbreak to spiral, the geopolitical priorities that shape the world's response to outbreaks (too often reacting to crises rather than investing in preparedness), whether the dismantling of parts of America's global health infrastructure played a role, and what America's role should be in supporting global public health going forward. Dr. Malone also opens up about his break with the MAHA movement and its leadership, and where he disagrees with the administration's approach to global public health. Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Dr. Mark Abdelmalek Maggie Bartlett (producer) Guests: Dr. Robert Malone, physician, vaccine researcher. Dr. Craig Spencer, physician, public health professor Brown School of Public Health. Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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What Happened w USAID? Rhetoric, Reality & Real World Impact w Former USAID Leaders Andrew Natsios & Jeremy Konyndyk

One year ago, the Trump administration dismantled USAID, America's largest foreign aid agency. The administration argued the agency had become wasteful, ideological, and ineffective. Critics warned the consequences would be measured in lives lost. A year later, what actually happened? We speak with two individuals who know the agency and aid landscape, inside and out: Andrew Natsios, who served as USAID administrator under President George W. Bush, and Jeremy Konyndyk, a senior USAID official under the Obama and Biden administrations. Did the warnings about the human cost of cutting aid come true? What reforms did USAID need but never receive? How much authority should a president have to reshape America's foreign aid? And what does the dismantling of USAID mean for America's role in the world? This is a conversation about the future of U.S. foreign aid, one year after one of the most consequential changes to American foreign policy in generations. Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett (producer) Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off) Guests: Andrew Natsios, former head of USAID under George W. Bush 2001-2006; author of Guns Are Not Enough: Foreign Aid in the National Interest; teaches at the Bush School of Government at Texas A and M University Jeremy Konyndyk, president of Refugees International and a former senior USAID official who served in both the Obama and Biden administrations, leading its response to everything from Ebola to Covid-19. Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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Two Farmers Walk Into The Oval Office. What Happens Next Surprises Them. A Conversation On the Future of Farming w Jonathan Lundgren and Will Harris

On the very day the Supreme Court handed a major legal victory to Bayer Monsanto, a ruling backed by the Trump administration but viewed by many in the MAHA movement as a betrayal, two regenerative farmers were invited to the Oval Office. They expected to witness President Trump sign an executive order promoting the kind of farming they've spent decades championing: bringing the natural ecosystem back to the farm, and thus restoring soil health and reducing reliance on pesticides. Instead, they found themselves in the middle of a last-minute policy debate involving President Trump, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins, and Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall. What did that moment reveal about the competing pressures on the administration? More broadly, can regenerative agriculture move beyond a niche movement? And how do its advocates respond to critics who argue that today's farming methods work, are proven safe, and that transitioning away from them is impractical? This week, we're joined by regenerative farming pioneers Will Harris and Dr. Jonathan Lundgren to discuss what they witnessed in the Oval Office and whether we are moving closer to a regenerative farming future. Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off) Guests: Will Harris, fourth-generation cattleman and the owner of White Oak Pastures in Bluffton, Georgia, He has served as President of the Board of Georgia Organics and as Beef Director for the American Grassfed Association. Dr. Jonathan Lundgren, agro-ecologist and the founder of the Ecdysis Foundation and Blue Dasher Farm in Estelline, South Dakota. Spent more than a decade as a scientist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. An essay by Jon Jon Lundgren on the meeting: https://www.ecdysis.bio/post/five-minutes Politico: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/07/01/trump-oval-maha-policy-live-debate-00983992 Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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Can Understanding Libertarianism Help Explain Our Health Politics? A Conversation w Katherine Mangu-Ward, Editor in Chief of Reason Magazine

It’s almost Independence Day, and we’re exploring one of the most influential political philosophies in America: libertarianism. In the age of medical freedom and MAHA, libertarian ideas are helping shape debates over vaccines, public health, food regulation, and the role of government. But what exactly is libertarianism? Why has it become so persuasive to so many Americans? And where does today's movement depart from its roots? Our guest is Katherine Mangu-Ward, Editor-in-Chief of Reason magazine, the country's leading libertarian publication. We trace the history of modern libertarianism and its influence on today's politics from marijuana legalization and same-sex marriage to debates over tariffs, war, immigration enforcement, and executive power. We also examine where libertarian principles intersect with, and sometimes clash with, MAHA, asking whether a philosophy centered on individual liberty can support vaccine requirements, pesticide bans, or greater government regulation of the food industry. Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett (off) Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off) Guest: Katherine Mangu-Ward, editor-in-chief, Reason magazine, widely considered the nation's most famous publication dedicated to libertarian ideas. Frequent guest author in the New York Times and other publications. Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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"We Will Fight Back": Leading MAHA & Dem Voices React To SCOTUS Ruling On Monsanto. Sen. Booker, Rep. Pingree, Zen Honeycutt, Rep. Tim Ryan & Kelly Ryerson Join Us

Democratic Senator Cory Booker, Representative Chellie Pingree of Maine, MAHA leaders Zen Honeycutt and Kelly Ryerson, and former Congressman Tim Ryan join us to react to one of the Supreme Court's big decisions of the year as the High Court sides with Monsanto regarding glyphosate liability. Our panel today represents a powerful, impassioned, and yes, unusual alliance, given MAHA's union with the Republican Party and President Trump. Today, we hear their reactions to this major ruling. With the Court ruling 7–2 that federal law gives the EPA the final say over pesticide warning labels, thousands of pending lawsuits against Bayer-Monsanto will be impacted, marking a win for the company and the Trump administration, which took its side, as well as a significant moment in the ongoing debate over glyphosate. What does the decision mean for this bipartisan coalition united in support of the legal fight against glyphosate and for a future in which American farms transition away from its use? With MAHA and the Trump administration finding themselves on opposite sides in this case, where does the ruling leave that partnership? And finally, we hear about the formation of a new game plan for the movement opposing this ruling. Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett (producer) Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (off) Guests: Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) Zen Honeycutt, MAHA activist, Moms Across America Rep. Chellie Pingree (D-ME) Kelly Ryerson, MAHA Activist, Glyphosate Girl former Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH) Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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Don't Just Fact-Check Misinformation. First, Understand The Value It Holds. A Conversation w Researchers Michael Simeone & Kristy Roschke

Fighting misinformation is seen as one of the defining challenges of our time. The term itself can be polarizing. And what if we're thinking about it all wrong? In this episode, we speak with researchers Michael Simeone and Kristy Roschke, who recently published a peer-reviewed article in a journal in the Nature portfolio, proposing a new framework for understanding why misinformation spreads. Their central argument is a surprising one: misinformation doesn't spread simply because people are uninformed, uneducated, or unable to distinguish fact from fiction. It spreads because it provides value--a coherent explanation amidst uncertainty and conflicting facts, reinforces identities, strengthens communities, and satisfies emotional and social needs. They also factor in the value misinformation might have for a broader community, a commercial platform, or AI. Rather than asking, "How did people fall for this?", they encourage us to ask a different question: "What is this information doing for them?" The conversation challenges common assumptions about health literacy, fact-checking, and who is susceptible to misinformation (answer: all of us). In an era of algorithms, AI, and increasingly personalized realities, Simeone and Roschke argue that understanding misinformation requires us to look beyond individual biases to examine the broader social and technological systems we all help create. Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Maggie Bartlett Dr. Mark Abdelmalek Guests: Michael Simeone, co-lead of the Information Competition Lab at Arizona State University’s School for Complex Adaptive Systems and serves on the senior leadership team for the Global Futures Laboratory’s Decision Theater Kristy Roschke, Associate Research Professor of Communication of Science and Technology; Executive Director of the McGee Applied Research Center for Narrative Studies Vanderbilt University Source: Value and Vulnerability: A Framework for Understanding the Complexity of Misinformation Use https://www.nature.com/articles/s44260-026-00079-x Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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A Conversation with Dr. Mehmet Oz: On the Erosion of Trust in Experts, Rethinking Safety Nets & Fraud

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, is our guest today. He oversees the government programs that provide health coverage to nearly half of all Americans and account for roughly a quarter of federal spending. At this moment of enormous change, what does Dr. Oz see as his mission? Alongside Vice President JD Vance, he has been tasked with rooting out fraud. He argues this effort, along with changes to Medicaid in the One Big Beautiful Act, will strengthen thesafety net and preserve it for the Americans it was intended to serve. However, an official nonpartisan government estimate finds that compared with the previous law, the new law will result in hundreds of billions fewer federal dollars going to Medicaid over the next decade and millions more Americans becoming uninsured. Dr. Oz insists America will spend more on Medicaid, not less. We ask him about that. We'll also dig into a larger question at the heart of this debate: Was the ACA's expansion of Medicaid—which has covered roughly 20 million additional Americans—ultimately a good thing? And finally, we ask Dr. Oz, a renowned heart surgeon whose career was built on medical expertise, what he makes of this moment in America, where trust in experts is falling. Is growing skepticism a healthy correction, or is it taking us somewhere more troubling? Hosts: Brinda Adhikari Tom Johnson Dr. Mark Abdelmalek Maggie Bartlett (producer) Khushi Patel (research) Isabella Didie (research) **Recorded at Switch & Board Studios in Washington, DC. Guest: Dr. Mehmet Oz, Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Thanks for listening! If you like us, please leave a review, rate us, and please subscribe! Got questions? Comments? We'd love to hear from you! Email us at questions@whyshoulditrustyou.net

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