Why Should I Trust You?

A blue wave, a political earthquake—and a crossroads for MAHA and American public health.

Did health play a role in the midterm elections? Did the results expose the limits of MAHA's alliance with MAGA? And could the movement find an unlikely new political home with Democrats?

With Democrats taking control of Congress, we ask whether the next two years will be defined by reform or retribution. Will lawmakers focus on investigating RFK Jr. and the Trump administration, or is there an opportunity to rethink public health, rebuild trust, and find common ground on pesticides, environmental health, and corporate accountability?

We bring together five guests with different perspectives to unpack what the election means for MAHA, public health, and the future of America's health agenda.

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek (seeing patients today)

Guests:

• Katelyn Jetelina, PhD, MPH — Epidemiologist and founder of Your Local Epidemiologist, a widely read newsletter translating public health research and policy for the public.
• Liz Hamel — Vice President and Director of Public Opinion and Survey Research at KFF, where she leads polling on Americans' attitudes toward health care, health policy, and public health.
• Jeff Hutt — Former National Field Director for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s presidential campaign, sits on the board of the National Republican Liberty Caucus.
• Tiffany Cianci — Longtime MAHA advocate and Kennedy supporter who created the MAHA Scorecard, an assessment arguing that the Trump administration has failed to deliver on many of the movement's central promises. https://www.mahascorecard.com/

read:

How MAHA is Making Democrats Democrats Again

https://whyshoulditrustyou.substack.com/p/how-maha-is-making-democrats-democrats?r=5vii9h&utm_medium=ios

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Could America handle another pandemic? And what would we do differently this time?

For our first-ever live taping of Why Should I Trust You?, recorded at Washington University's Bursky School of Public Health in St. Louis, we tried something different.

We invented a hypothetical pandemic set in 2030 and invited four people with very different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives to help America figure out how to respond.

Here's the premise: A mysterious new virus is emerging. The economy is fragile, political divisions run deep, and public trust in institutions remains low.

Our four guests have been called to Washington to advise the president. It's Friday afternoon, and by Monday morning, America needs a plan.

As the conversation unfolds, we introduce new developments and complications—not just about the virus, but about the economic, political, cultural, and social realities of the country confronting it.

Our panelists must weigh competing risks, draw on lessons from COVID, challenge one another's assumptions, and decide what they would recommend. Meanwhile, our live audience plays the role of the American public, responding to the panelists' ideas and raising questions of its own.

While this is on its face a conversation about the next pandemic, it's really a conversation about our values, our competing priorities, and who we are as a country.

What do we owe one another? How much risk are we willing to accept? Who gets to decide? And can we find a way forward when we don't all agree?

We don't know where our guests will agree or disagree. That's part of the point.

This is an experiment in what happens when people with different perspectives try to work through a national crisis together.

MEET OUR PANELISTS

Dr. Nahid Bhadelia is an infectious disease physician and founding director of Boston University's Center on Emerging Infectious Diseases. She served as a senior policy adviser to the Biden White House on the global COVID-19 response and has worked on the front lines of Ebola outbreaks in Africa.

David Zweig is an investigative journalist and author of An Abundance of Caution, which critically examines the evidence behind pandemic-era school closures and other COVID restrictions.

Katherine Wells has served as public health director for Lubbock, Texas, since 2015. She led the city's response to COVID-19 and played a central role in responding to the 2025 West Texas measles outbreak. Before moving to Lubbock, she spent 14 years working at the Texas state health department.

Jeff Hutt is a political organizer and former national field director for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s 2024 presidential campaign and sits on the board of the National Republican Liberty Caucus. His work focuses on civil liberties and grassroots political engagement.

SPECIAL GUEST

Dr. Sandro Galea is the inaugural dean of Washington University's Andrew M. and Jane M. Bursky School of Public Health. A physician, epidemiologist, and author, he previously served as dean of Boston University's School of Public Health for a decade. His work focuses on the social forces that shape health and on reimagining the role of public health in society.


**Recorded live at the WashU Bursky School of Public Health, St. Louis, Missouri, October 27, 2026.

See it on YT: https://youtu.be/ZCWQ-qJT5pQ?si=DrU0aanBGbOO_Mit

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Americans are mad as hell about healthcare costs. Premiums, deductibles, copays, prescription drugs, medical debt—the bills keep piling up, and voters are demanding relief. Politicians are offering big promises, from Medicare for All to restoring Medicaid and ACA subsidies to cracking down on fraud and waste. But how much of that would actually lower what Americans pay for healthcare—and how soon? Do we need sweeping political reforms, or are there practical ways to bring down patients' bills right now? And could the way we keep debating healthcare actually be protecting the status quo? We're joined by Cornell University's Jamila Michener, Rice University's Vivian Ho, and KFF's Liz Hamel to unpack what makes healthcare so expensive, who bears the burden, and what it would actually take to make it more affordable.

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:

Jamila Michener is a professor of Government and Public Policy at Cornell University and director of its Center for Racial Justice and Equitable Futures. Her research examines poverty, racial inequality, healthcare policy, and political power. She is the author of Fragmented Democracy: Medicaid, Federalism, and Unequal Politics.

Vivian Ho is a health economist and the James A. Baker III Institute Chair in Health Economics at Rice University, where she is also a professor of economics. Her research focuses on healthcare costs, hospital pricing, market competition, and how economic incentives shape the quality and affordability of care. She is a member of the National Academy of Medicine.

Liz Hamel is senior vice president and director of Public Opinion and Survey Research at KFF, where she oversees the organization's national polling on healthcare. With 25 years of experience in public opinion research, she studies Americans' experiences with the healthcare system, their concerns about affordability, and their views on healthcare policy.

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As the midterms approach, a distinctive issue is animating races up and down the ballot in Iowa: rising cancer rates and growing concerns about the safety of the state’s drinking water.

Iowa has one of the highest cancer rates in the nation, and voters are asking hard questions about the state’s water, soil, and agricultural practices. With Election Day almost here, water has emerged as one of the top issues Iowa voters cite in polling.

This week, we’re joined by retired water scientist and Democratic candidate for Iowa agriculture secretary Chris Jones, and Iowa mom and MAHA supporter Courtney Hunt.

We explore whether voters are ready to demand change, and what that could mean for Iowa’s farmers, who are already facing mounting economic pressures.

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Guests:

Chris Jones, Democratic candidate for Secretary of Agriculture in Iowa, retired water scientist

Courtney Hunt: social worker; Iowa resident; former Kennedy campaign volunteer; MAHA supporter

Information about our live taping at WashU Bursky School of Public Health, Oct 27th, 5pET.

Live stream link: 

More about the event: https://publichealth.washu.edu/event/live-podcast-taping-of-why-should-i-trust-you/

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With the midterms just three weeks away, communities across the country are pushing back against the construction of new AI data centers. In a deeply divided America, opposition to these massive facilities is emerging across party lines: seven in ten Americans say they oppose an AI data center being built near them.

Today, we bring together Midwestern residents on the front lines of this fight, along with researchers examining the electricity demands and potential health impacts of these facilities. AI data centers promise jobs and investment, but they also raise very real questions about who bears the costs, who reaps the benefits, and who gets to decide what's best for a community. 

We often hear that resistance to the centers is really about worry over AI. In our discussion, we discuss how much of that is true and how much of this is about anger over elected officials seen as siding with corporations over people. 

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guests:

Stuart Day is a community organizer with Ohio Valley Allies and host of the Exposure podcast, covering environmental and industrial issues in the Ohio Valley.

Drew Kassel is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Texas at Austin studying energy systems and the electricity demands of data centers.

Montre Moore is a Milwaukee community advocate involved in local debates over data center development and its effects on residents.

Vina Colley is a longtime environmental activist in Piketon, Ohio, where a massive AI data center campus is proposed near the former Portsmouth uranium enrichment plant.

Natalie Armstrong, is a PhD candidate in environmental health and engineering at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, looking at the environmental & public health impacts of data centers.

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Our guest is Abdul El-Sayed, a Democratic candidate for the Senate in Michigan, one of the key races in the battle for control of the Senate.

A physician and former public health director, El-Sayed is making health a centerpiece of his campaign. Along with advocating for Medicare for All, he’s unveiled a new agenda targeting pesticides, polluters, and microplastics, while expanding access to healthier food, issues that overlap with goals of the MAHA movement.

So can a progressive Democrat find common ground and build trust with MAHA voters? And how does he address concerns among some Democrats and traditional public health advocates who view the movement, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and the Trump administration as undermining trust in vaccines, scientific research, and public health itself?

At a time when trust in politicians and institutions is deeply strained, how can El-Sayed convince voters that his agenda can make health care more affordable and help build a healthier country?

Hosts:

Brinda Adhikari

Tom Johnson

Maggie Bartlett

Dr. Mark Abdelmalek

Guest:

Abdul El-Sayed, Democratic candidate running for Senate in Michigan

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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

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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. 

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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

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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/

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