A desperate Trump, a deadly disease mystery, and trouble for Republicans

David Pakman (0:00)

Donald Trump is panicking as Republicans face the possibility of disaster in the midterms, and his latest unhinged attacks on Democratic Senate candidates in Texas and Michigan are so desperate, they are just reeking of panic. Meanwhile, Trump continues to be asked about the mysterious death at a Russian lab that studies deadly pathogens. And his response so far is like, I don't know, Putin says everything's fine. That is terrifying.

Pneumonic plague has a 100 percent death rate when untreated. We also have authoritarian bragging about how Trump could have had Barack Obama arrested, Hillary Clinton arrested, Joe Biden arrested. And he also fell asleep at another public event. The White House is insisting that Trump's comments about Iran attacking LA and San Diego were taken out of context. But then Trump goes out and says the exact same thing all over again.

Plus, chaos in San Antonio as seven or eight hecklers interrupt Trump's speech. And we will also speak to Texas gubernatorial candidate Gina Hinojosa. Very much looking forward to that and much more on today's show.

Let's talk about plague. Donald Trump has now been asked about the possibility of a deadly plague outbreak in Russia. We have been covering this extensively. Trump's responses. You know, Putin says it's all under control. Now, what's incredible is that Trump himself recognizes we've heard this before. We were told Covid was under control and it turns out that it wasn't. So watch this exchange that Trump had with Fox News reporter Peter Ducey. See if this makes you more confident or less confident that this entire thing is completely under control.

Peter Doocy (1:57)

Is the plague in Russia a bio weapon?

Donald Trump (2:01)

Well, we don't think so. We're going to find out soon enough, but we don't think so.

And if you listen to them, it's under control. You know, people have said that before about other things. So we hope it is very sophisticated or smart. And they're saying it's very much under control. So we hope not, Peter.

Peter Doocy (2:21)

We've heard this before a couple of years ago during your first term.

Donald Trump (2:25)

Are you getting the same many times before and many different things?

Peter Doocy (2:28)

Are you getting the same vibe right now from Russia that you got from China at the start of COVID?

Donald Trump (2:32)

Well, China didn't say much and Russia's not saying much either, but they do say they have it very much under control.

David Pakman (2:38)

There you go. Now, remember Ronald Reagan's famous phrase about how to deal with the Soviet Union trust, but verify Trump's version for now is Putin said so different than trust, but verify. Now, I think it's very important to continue to be clear about something. And much like in the lead up to covid, I was trying to be realistic rather than hyperbolic, a doomer or whatever.

We do not know that there is a plague outbreak in Russia. We don't know that it was a biological weapons accident. If indeed that scientist died of plague, it may have simply been.

Maybe it was anti-plague research. We also don't really know what happened. And that is the problem. When we review what we know, you see that there are some important key points here that need to be filled in. Twenty eight year old woman, Daria Shepilova, worked at what they call an anti-plague research institute in Irkutsk, Siberia. She died on October 2nd after developing a very mysterious and extremely severe pneumonia pneumonia. Pneumonic plague causes severe pneumonia, but you can have severe pneumonia for other reasons as well. Now, the facility supposedly studies dangerous pathogens, including the bacteria that cause plague for defense purposes. The belief is that Russia and other countries lie about the purposes of some of these biolabs. And they are, in fact, studying, developing, considering developing biological weapons like a modified plague. Imagine mixing plague with measles, the severity of plague and the contagiousness of measles. This is the sort of stuff that we fear is going on. Now, after she died, Russian authorities put about 200 people who had contact with her under quarantine or under medical observation. There were reports she may have broken a test tube containing dangerous bacteria, not substantiated, denied by Russian authorities. Now, why are we so concerned? Pneumonic plague caused by Yersinia pestis is one of the most dangerous infectious diseases that we know of. It is on a list of this is the most dangerous stuff we have. And you can legally quarantine people in the United States if you suspect that they have it, quarantine them by force. There are three forms of plague bubonic, septicemic and pneumonic bubonic is the lymph nodes like under the armpits. They can swell and become necrotic. It's very, very nasty stuff, but lower death rate. Septicemic is it gets into the blood and pneumonic is in the lungs like pneumonia. It can spread between people through respiratory droplets. And without treatment, you basically see one hundred percent of the people who get it die. Compare that to point seven percent, roughly with covid. Now the critical distinction is unlike covid. This is not a virus. It is a bacteria. And if you start treatment early enough, we have antibiotics that are good with it. So we are not talking about a disease that kills everybody who gets it. We're talking about a disease that kills everybody who gets it if they don't get treatment. Now, the terroring, the terror rising or the horrifying, scary aspect of it, struggling for the right words, is that if there was an outbreak such that we just needed to put everybody on prophylactic antibiotics, we don't have enough antibiotics that would like it would take. We don't know how long to manufacture that. So this is why it's all very scary.