OF NOTE: It's Tuesday, meaning it's time for a new episode of the Sphere Podcast!

This week, we speak with Patrick T. Brown, Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, about all things family policy. Here are the links: YouTube, Spotify, Apple Podcasts.

You should also subscribe to the Sphere Podcast: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube.

President-elect Donald Trump gave his first press conference since the election, and like all Trump press conferences it was a doozy. Here are the elements that stood out to us.

MAHA. The President-elect reiterated his trust in RFK, Jr. and the MAHA agenda (as it is taking shape), while seeking to reassure doubters, emphasizing his belief that RFK, Jr. would, first and foremost, keep an open mind. Music to our ears: if MAHA is to be anything, it starts with an open mind, that is to say, an actually open mind, one equally skeptical of a rightfully discredited establishment and of too-online cranks. The President-elect stressed that the polio vaccine would remain available. When describing RFK, Jr.'s remit concerning vaccines, he said he expects him to study the issue and produce a report, which is DC-speak for burying it. There was also a bit of discussion about vaccines and autism, and on this point we wish to make a point that concerns media coverage of this issue. There is no proven link between vaccines and autism—in fact, all other evidence we have says very strongly that vaccines do not cause autism. That being said, it is also the case that there has been an alarming rise in the number of cases of autism, including what's known as severe autism, where patients are mostly or completely non-verbal and have an IQ measured at 50. So, yes, part of the increase in reported autism is due to expansion of the definition—and only part. The issue is not just misdiagnosing shy boys who are really into trains. We are also seeing a rise in children who are so impaired that they will need lifelong round-the-clock assistance. You would not know this from the legacy media accounts of the press conference we have read. It is also true that this rise, which is, as we have said, real and alarming, is also a medical mystery. You would also not know this from legacy media accounts of this issue. This is a serious issue of science and public health! We cannot stop marveling at the incredibly self-destructive, and public trust-destructive, but apparently unstoppable, urge of legacy media to lie or mislead in whatever is the most opposite extreme direction of whatever issue their adversaries are misstating. That was a car-crash of a sentence, but it is a strange phenomenon to describe. Is there someone they don't like who made a questionable claim? They can't just correct the claim, they have to make the exact opposite lie. Are there MAGA/MAHA-affiliated cranks who believe in a link between vaccines and autism? They can't just say there's no evidence for that, or that scientists believe that's not true. No, they also have to say that there is no problem with autism whatsoever, citizen! Again, what's so bizarre about this is that it's totally gratuitous, and it only serves to hurt them and their credibility and, by rebound, society as a whole, since it would be better if we had trusted and trustworthy media institutions. It's flabbergasting. Anyway…

PBMs. "Something" has to be done about healthcare, but what? Go after PBMs, seems to be the growing consensus. Pharmaceutical benefit managers are middlemen who sit between pharma companies, insurers, and retail pharmacies. It's unclear what value they add to the healthcare system, and the industry has been consolidating of late. Which seems as good an argument as any for, at least, viewing them with suspicion. And so, the President-elect discussed a recent dinner meeting with pharmaceutical executives, Kennedy, and Dr. Mehmet Oz. He identified PBMs as "horrible middlemen" driving up drug costs. While praising pharmaceutical companies themselves, he specifically highlighted the role of intermediaries in price increases, declaring "I don't know who these middlemen are, but they are rich as hell." Going after healthcare middlemen is certainly smart populism, and undoubtedly could produce benefits at the margins, but the true pigs at the trough are the providers…

Administrative State Reform. The President-elect reiterated his support for DOGE. More specifically, he announced plans to end remote work for federal employees. He criticized a recent agreement between the Social Security Administration and its union allowing telework through 2029. He stated that federal workers who don't return to in-person work would face dismissal, and indicated his administration would challenge the telework agreement in court.

TikTok ban. In flagrant contrast to his usual platform of opposition to China and to foreign trade, the President-elect has been a consistent opponent of the TikTok divestment bill, which has nonetheless gone into action and survived its court challenge. And yet, still, the President-elect suggested he might intervene in the planned ban of the social media platform, which is currently required to separate from its Chinese parent company by mid-January.

There were other things, about foreign policy, appointments, and the drone sightings (the drones!), but you can read that anywhere else.

Policy News You Need To Know

#Immigration — Very good piece from the Washington Examiner's Conn Carroll, on Florida as a case study for the immigration moves contemplated by Trump 2.0. Florida's Ron DeSantis stepped up immigration enforcement in his state in a major way after the passage of a new law in May 2023, including mandatory E-Verify, and suspending business licenses for companies found employing illegal immigrants. At the time, opponents forecast economic disaster. Did it happen? The short answer is no.

SEE ALSO: We interviewed Carroll on his new book, Sex and the Citizen, for the Sphere Podcast. Watch the podcast (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube) and subscribe (Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube).

#Immigration — Speaking of immigration policy, Politico has an item on the Transition's DHS landing team, and the immigration restrictionists we know are very happy with the names.

#Institutions — Speaking of the media's unstoppable urges to throw acid on institutions and social trust, the New York Times now reports "Confidence in U.S. Courts Plummets to Rate Far Below Peer Nations." Could this have anything to do, we wonder, with the political left's years long, media-amplified campaign to delegitimize the Court because it stopped producing opinions they liked?

#CR — Speaking of PBMs, here are some of the budgetary offsets in the current draft of the CR, according to DC Reporter: private insurance requirements for PBMs, Medicare Part D transparency requirements for PBMs, prohibitions on PBM "spread pricing" in Medicaid…

#Debt #Growth — Important reminder from AEI's Jim Pethokoukis: one way for America to get out of its debt problem is much faster growth…

SEE ALSO: James Pethokoukis, AEI: “We’re Not Just Victims of Fate and Macroeconomic Circumstances” →

#Tax — The Tax Foundation's Erica York looks at new numbers from 2022 and confirms: the US federal income tax is still progressive.

#Tax — Speaking of, also from the good folks at the Tax Foundation: "A new Treasury study provides data showing that the rich not only pay more than the middle class, they pay more than one-third of their annual income in federal taxes and more than 45 percent when state and local taxes are included."

#LGBT — "Washington Post admits science behind puberty blockers and hormones for minors not clear," reads this headline on Fox News. Good! But, as IWF President Carrie Lukas comments, rightly, "The Washington Post still manages to avoid the real question. It's not just about efficacy of treatment in terms of mental health, but how they create irreversible lasting harms—like sterilization and loss of sexual function—that no child can consent too."

#Ag #SmallBusiness — At Reason, R Street's C. Jarrett Dieterle brings our attention to a little-noticed proposed new rule from USDA to reduce salmonella in poultry. "That's a laudable goal, but the actual regulation—as is often the case—is being shaped in a way that hurts small farmers and meat processors while helping large agricultural conglomerates," he writes. Indeed.

#Family — Interesting new NBER paper: "A new study of German and Swedish data finds that men’s earnings increase following a couple’s move to a new commuting zone, while women’s earnings stay the same or decline at the outset. Couples are also more likely to relocate when a man is laid off than after a woman is." In other words, "these findings suggest that couples’ relocation decisions are driven by traditional gender norms rather than efforts to maximize household income." Yes, reality can be stubborn that way.