Politics

California raw milk producer says RFK Jr. has encouraged him to apply for FDA position

Published

1 month ago

December 5, 2024

California raw milk producer says RFK Jr. has encouraged him to apply for FDA position

Mark McAfee, the California raw milk producer who has been at the center of several bird flu-related product recalls, says a transition team for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has encouraged him to apply for a position at the Food and Drug Administration.

McAfee, CEO of Fresno-based Raw Farm, LLC, told The Times that he has complied with the request and applied for the position of “FDA advisor on raw milk policy and standards development.”

The recent raw milk recalls were the result of positive tests for H5N1 bird flu among McAfee’s cows. His farms have since been quarantined, and the state has suspended all sales of raw milk and cream. Raw Farm has voluntarily issued recalls for all remaining milk and cream products in stores.

McAfee’s farm is also involved in at least 11 lawsuits stemming from a salmonella outbreak that sickened 171 people in California, and which occurred between October of last year and May of this year, according to Bill Marler, a Seattle-area food safety lawyer.

When asked about McAfee potentially being tapped for a federal food advisory role, Marler wrote in an email: “Clown Car.”

Last month, President-elect Donald Trump announced that he had chosen Kennedy to lead the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, which oversees the FDA, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health and other agencies.

Kennedy has been a vocal advocate for raw milk, and has criticized FDA policy forbidding interstate sales of the product. According to McAfee, Kennedy is also a consumer and customer of Raw Farm milk.

McAfee said he has not officially been selected for the advisory role. Indeed, Kennedy’s own nomination as HHS director still requires confirmation by the U.S. Senate.

The Times has reached out to the Trump transition team and Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again teams for comment, but has not yet received a response.

McAfee is the largest producer of raw milk in the nation and maintains 1,800 dairy cows on two farms — one in Fresno, the other outside Hanford.

His raw milk products include whole milk, cream, kefir and cheese — all of which can be sold in stores in California, but not over state lines..

However, FDA regulations do not apply to his pet food product line, which can be sold outside California — albeit with warning labels noting that the products are not intended for human consumption.

McAfee is also president of the Raw Milk Institute, a raw milk educational and advocacy organization designed to aid dairy farmers interested in adopting standards and methods for raw milk production.

In an interview with The Times two weeks ago, McAfee said that as excited as he is for Kennedy to change the FDA’s policy on raw milk, such a move needs to be carried out with deliberate care.

“I’m dedicated to making sure that whatever happens, it is not chaotic, crazy, or just a free for all, but rather very constructive with farmer training and testing and high standards,” he said. “I’m very interested in committing myself to helping raw milk emerge as a constructive, high standards, healthy, wonderful, germinating, delicious food.”

He noted that in 2021, Montana lawmakers passed a “food freedom” law that legalized the unregulated sale of raw milk and raw milk products. Soon after, people started to get sick.

McAfee said he flew out to meet with raw milk dairy producers and helped them establish standards that incorporated training, testing and quality control.

For instance, he noted one dairy farmer was cleaning his milk buckets with chlorine, which McAfee said does not address fats and biofilms.

“It was filthy,” he said.

Instead, he showed the farmers how to clean their equipment with hot water and soap.

“You have to have standards,” he said.

McAfee’s milk is highly regulated by the state of California, which performs frequent testing for food-illness pests such as campylobacter, cryptosporidium, E. coli, listeria, brucella, and salmonella and other bacterial illnesses in his milk.

He said unlike conventional dairies where the milk is pasteurized after it’s been collected, he is required to test the cows for pathogens, and said he only milks disease-free cows.

He has an on-farm laboratory where he tests for listeria, campylobacter, E. coli 0157H7 and salmonella in his bulk tanks and cows.

He said his cows are meticulously cleaned before they are milked. And the milk is immediately shunted into a rapid chiller that drops the milk’s temperature from 100 degrees Fahrenheit to 35 degrees Fahrenheit in about two minutes, he said.

Then the milk stays at that temperature until delivered to stores.

Even so, experts say bacteria can still contaminate milk — even when procured from a sparkling-clean udder. The FDA, CDC and other health agencies say the public should drink only pasteurized milk.

Since 2006, Raw Farm — formerly known as Organic Pastures Dairy Company — has been involved in 13 recalls, including the three bird flu related ones from last month.

The other recalls were the result of bacterial contamination, including E. coli, listeria, campylobacteria and salmonella. In some cases, people became severely ill with hemolytic uremic syndrome — or kidney failure.

There was also a recent outbreak of salmonella poisoning from Raw Farm raw milk, which involved at least 171 people “the majority of which were children,” noted a report on the outbreak by the state’s Center for Infectious Diseases.

McAfee said if he were selected for an advisory role at the FDA, he’d consider creating a certification program, such as those in place for organic farming that involve farmer education and training, for raw milk production.

He also said he’d look into changing food liability laws, “where you can’t go get a million dollars for somebody that gets diarrhea for a week.”

McAfee said the government should consider raw milk and other whole food insurance programs, like the USDA’s crop insurance program which provides for farmers whose fields and crops have been impacted by drought, flooding or fire — or the more recent milk insurance program which provides money for dairy farmers whose herds have been infected with bird flu.

“I would recommend strongly that all whole foods — including maybe greens, eggs, carrots, by God, poor carrots — have food liability insurance… so people can get that food, because right now, insurance or companies saying, ‘Oh, you’re on the naughty list so no more insurance for you.’” he said. “And so you’re going to have stores with less and less of these whole foods that are critical to actually getting people healthy again.”

Politics

Supreme Court turns down Trump plea to block New York sentencing for hush money conviction

Published

13 minutes ago

January 9, 2025

Press Room

Supreme Court turns down Trump plea to block New York sentencing for hush money conviction

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday turned down President-elect Donald Trump’s plea to block a New York judge from sentencing him Friday on his felony conviction in a hush-money case.

The vote was 5-4, with conservative Justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel A. Alito Jr., Neil M. Gorsuch and Brett M. Kavanaugh saying they would have granted Trump’s request.

The decision means Trump will be the first president to have a felony on his record when he takes the oath of office on Jan. 20.

The majority in an unsigned opinion said Trump is still free to appeal his conviction later and said the sentencing hearing will not pose much of a burden, since he need not attend.

Trump’s lawyers filed an emergency appeal on Wednesday that rested on a thin claim of immunity.

Last year, the justices ruled that a president or ex-president was immune from criminal charges for his “official acts” while in office.

This week, Trump’s lawyers argued the justices should extend the immunity rule to shield the president-elect from being held accountable now for a private criminal scheme that began before his election as president.

A New York jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records, a crime under New York law. He wrote checks to Michael Cohen, his former personal lawyer, to repay him for a $130,000 payment to an adult film star to buy her silence prior to the 2016 election. The payments were listed as legal expenses.

Jurors convicted him on 34 counts.

Trump’s trial lawyers urged Judge Juan Merchan to delay his sentencing until after the November election.

Once Trump won the election, they argued the incoming president had an immunity from all the pending criminal cases, including his felony conviction.

New York prosecutors had urged the court on Thursday to deny Trump’s “extraordinary immunity claim.”

“While he was a private citizen, defendant [Trump] was charged, tried, and convicted for conduct that he concedes is wholly unofficial,” they said. In his appeal, he “makes the unprecedented claim that the temporary presidential immunity he will possess in the future fully immunizes him now,” before he is sworn in as president again, they said.

On Tuesday, the day before his attorneys filed their emergency appeal in the high court, Trump arranged to speak with Alito about one of his former clerks. Alito confirmed the call to ABC News.

“William Levi, one of my former law clerks, asked me to take a call from President-elect Trump regarding [Levi’s] qualifications to serve in a government position,” Alito said. “I agreed to discuss this matter with President-elect Trump, and he called me yesterday afternoon.”

He said they did not discuss the “emergency application” regarding Trump’s New York sentencing, which had not been filed yet at the court.

“I was not even aware at the time of our conversation that such an application would be filed,” Alito said. “We also did not discuss any other matter that is pending or might in the future come before the Supreme Court or any past Supreme Court decisions involving the president-elect.”

Alito cast a vote in favor of Trump.

Politics

Inside Trump’s Search for a Health Threat to Justify His Immigration Crackdown

Published

7 hours ago

January 9, 2025

Press Room

Inside Trump’s Search for a Health Threat to Justify His Immigration Crackdown

President-elect Donald J. Trump is likely to justify his plans to seal off the border with Mexico by citing a public health emergency from immigrants bringing disease into the United States.

Now he just has to find one.

Mr. Trump last invoked public health restrictions, known as Title 42, in the early days of the pandemic in 2020, when the coronavirus was tearing across the globe. As he prepares to enter office again, Mr. Trump has no such public health disaster to point to.

Still, his advisers have spent recent months trying to find the right disease to build their case, according to four people familiar with the discussions. They have looked at tuberculosis and other respiratory diseases as options and have asked allies inside the Border Patrol for examples of illnesses that are being detected among migrants.

They also have considered trying to rationalize Title 42 by arguing broadly that migrants at the border come from various countries and may carry unfamiliar disease — an assertion that echoes a racist notion with a long history in the United States that minorities transmit infections. Mr. Trump’s team did not respond to a request for comment.

The plan to invoke the border restrictions based on sporadic cases of illness or even a vague fear of illness — rather than a major disease outbreak or pandemic — would amount to a radical use of the public health measure in pursuit of an immigration crackdown. Even when the coronavirus was spreading, the use of the health authority to turn away migrants prompted scrutiny from the courts and public health officials.

But Mr. Trump’s immigration advisers, led by Stephen Miller, his pick to be deputy chief of staff, believe they are entering a political environment that will welcome more aggressive border enforcement, particularly after some Democrats embraced using restrictions like Title 42, according to people familiar with the planning. President Biden used it to turn away thousands of migrants before eventually deciding to lift it, well after his public health advisers said the restrictions were no longer useful for the purpose of stopping the spread of disease.

Title 42, which is part of the Public Service Act of 1944, grants power to health authorities to block people from entering the United States when it is necessary to avert a “serious danger” posed by the presence of a communicable disease in foreign countries.

Mr. Miller has long considered Title 42 a key tool for his goal of shuttering the border to migration. He has essentially been on a yearslong quest to find enough examples of diseases among migrants to justify the use of the law.

Even before the spread of the coronavirus, Mr. Miller asked aides to keep tabs on American communities that welcomed migrants to see if diseases broke out there. He seized on an outbreak of mumps in immigration detention facilities in 2019 to push for using the public health law to seal the border. He was talked down in most of the cases by cabinet secretaries and lawyers — until the advent of the coronavirus.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, not the White House, is responsible for assessing whether the public health rule is necessary at the border. And even when the pandemic spread throughout the United States, C.D.C. officials pushed back on the Trump White House’s position that turning away migrants was an effective way to prevent the spread of diseases.

Martin Cetron, the director of the agency’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine, told a House committee that the implementation of the border restrictions “came from outside the C.D.C. subject matter experts” and was “handed to us” by the White House.

When Mr. Biden came into office, he initially kept the public health rule in place at the border, even when C.D.C. officials told his top aides there was no clear public health rationale for keeping the border shut to asylum seekers. Both the Biden and Trump administrations argued the rule was needed to prevent the spread of diseases in detention facilities at the border. But Mr. Biden’s top White House aides were privately concerned that lifting the rule would lead to a surge in migration.

During his second stint in the White House, Mr. Trump’s team will focus on avoiding such pushback. He is intent on installing loyalists throughout his administration who are unlikely to try to stop his more aggressive proposals.

In an interview with The New York Times in 2023, Mr. Miller sounded confident that the public would be accepting of Mr. Trump’s invoking Title 42. He said the new administration intended to use the law, citing “severe strains of the flu, tuberculosis, scabies, other respiratory illnesses like R.S.V. and so on, or just a general issue of mass migration being a public health threat and conveying a variety of communicable diseases.”

Mr. Trump’s attempt to deter migration based on public health, even without a clear disease to justify its use, is just one expected piece of a flurry of Day 1 executive actions that his team is developing to crack down on immigration.

Mr. Trump’s advisers have also discussed declaring a national emergency to free up Department of Defense funds and move military personnel, aircraft and other resources to the border. They also want to revive a policy that forced migrants to wait in Mexico, rather than the United States, until their immigration court date — although they would need Mexico to agree to such a deal.

Mr. Trump’s immigration advisers received a briefing on such border restrictions — as well as the use of the public health emergency restrictions — during a recent meeting with homeland security officials as a part of the transition between administrations, according to a person familiar with the matter. After exiting a meeting with Senate Republicans on Wednesday evening, Mr. Trump said he would close the border on his first day in office.

Some immigration experts have questioned how effective the public health rule was in driving down border crossings.

From the time Title 42 was enacted in 2020 until it was lifted in 2023, border officials expelled people more than 2.5 million times. Biden administration officials have publicly argued that the use of Title 42 at the southern border drove an increase in migrants attempting to cross the border multiple times, a practice known as recidivism.

Blas Nuñez-Neto, a White House official, said that in that way, Title 42 “may have” actually led to an increase in border crossings that the administration struggled to handle.

The current state at the border has been particularly calm, especially when compared to the numbers seen a year ago. Border agents made more than 47,000 arrests in December, according to a senior U.S. Customs and Border Protection official, a major drop from the previous year when nearly 250,000 such arrests were made.

Biden officials put into place a measure banning asylum for those who crossed the southern border starting this summer. It can only be lifted if crossing numbers drop to a certain threshold for several weeks, something that still has yet to happen.

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan contributed reporting.

Politics

Did moderate Democrats get religion with embrace of Laken Riley Act?

Published

8 hours ago

January 9, 2025

Press Room

Did moderate Democrats get religion with embrace of Laken Riley Act?

Congressional Republicans campaigned on border security last year.

So it should be of little surprise that their initial legislative action of 2025 focused on illegal immigration and tightening up the border.

One can argue about whether Congressional Republicans appropriated the murder of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley for political gain. The 22-year-old Riley went for a run last February and never returned. Jose Antonio Ibarra murdered Riley. He entered the country illegally from Venezuela.

“He bashed her head in with a rock. This is one of the most heinous crimes imaginable. People need to know what this animal did to her,” said Rep. Mike Collins, R-Ga., the main sponsor of the immigration bill.

SENATE DEMS TO JOIN REPUBLICANS TO ADVANCE ANTI-ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION BILL NAMED AFTER LAKEN RILEY

Jose Ibarra was found guilty on 10 counts in the death of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley. (Hyosub Shin/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP, Pool)

Republicans seized on the episode. To the right, the Laken Riley case symbolized everything which was wrong about the border and the Biden Administration. Days after Riley’s death last year, the House approved the Laken Riley Act. The bill requires federal detention for anyone in the country illegally who is arrested for shoplifting or theft. Republicans argued that Riley would be with us today had such a policy been in place to pick up Ibarra.

It will take months for Congressional Republicans to get on the same page when it comes to President-elect Donald Trump’s demand for a combined “big, beautiful bill” on tax policy, federal spending and immigration. House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., says the aim is to pass that reconciliation package in early April.

Approving a border security package by itself would be challenging enough – and that’s to say nothing of the cost. So Congressional Republicans are targeting low-hanging fruit. Hence, the GOP turned to an old standby as their primary legislative effort for the new year: The Laken Riley Act.

Progressive Democrats pounced, accusing Republicans of race-baiting.

“It is simply an attempt to score cheap political points off of a tragic death,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., during the floor debate. “This is the Republican playbook over and over again. Scare people about immigrants.”

A USER’S MANUAL TO CERTIFYING THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Washington Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a Democrat

Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., accused Republicans of trying to “score cheap political points” by naming their illegal immigrant crime bill after Laken Riley. (Al Drago/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

“Their bill today is an empty and opportunistic measure,” said Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. “Pick a crime. Paste into it a template immigration law covering convicted criminals and then require detention or deportation of certain persons merely accused of committing the crime or arrested for committing the crime.”

“It’s very clear that House Republicans are going to push an anti-immigrant agenda,” said House Democratic Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar, D-Calif. “I personally voted against it because this would open a path for individuals with DACA, to be deported, even if they are just around someone who committed a crime.”

Republicans clapped back.

“To my Democratic colleagues, I ask you how many more laws with names attached to them do we need to pass before you take this crisis seriously?” asked Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., during a debate on the House floor.

The majority of Democratic criticisms emanated from the left-wing of the party and progressives.

But there’s an evolution underway in the Democratic Party. A practicality when it comes to border security, immigration and how the party mostly ignored the issue in the last election. And likely paid the price.

LAKEN RILEY ACT PASSES HOUSE WITH 48 DEMS, ALL REPUBLICANS

Thirty-seven House Democrats voted in favor of the Laken Riley Act when the House approved the initial version of the bill last year. That figure ballooned to 48 Democratic yeas this week when the House approved the 2025 Laken Riley Act in its first legislative vote of 2025.

An examination of the vote matrix demonstrates how dozens of moderate Democrats or those representing swing districts voted yes. Six Democrats who voted nay last year flipped their vote to yea this time.

That includes Reps. Brendan Boyle, D-Penn., Val Hoyle, D-Ore., Lucy McBath, D-Ga., Joe Morelle, D-N.Y., Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y., and Terri Sewell, D-Ala.

“I’m concerned about what happened to Miss Riley.” said Morelle, the top Democrat on the House Administration Committee. “I want to make sure it doesn’t happen to other people.”

Other yeas came from longtime conservative Democrats like Rep. Henry Cueller, D-Tex. He represents a border district. When asked why he voted aye, Cueller responded, “That’s an easy one. We won’t welcome people that break the law.”

Other moderates representing swing districts who voted yes included Reps. Angie Craig, D-Minn., Don Davis, D-N.C., Jared Golden, D-Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash.

HOUSE, SENATE REPUBLICANS REVIVE TRUMP-BACKED PUSH TO CRACK DOWN ON NONCITIZEN VOTING

Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, speaks during a news conference on rising suicide rates at the U.S. Border Patrol on Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2022, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. (AP Photo/Mariam Zuhaib)

So were Democrats getting religion after the election?

“There was criticism that Democrats didn’t take immigration seriously,” yours truly asked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y. “Was there regret and that’s why some of these votes changed?”

Jeffries attributed it to new members joining the Democratic Caucus.

“It’s my understanding that there were approximately eight to ten additional Democratic votes this year as compared to last year. There are 30 new members of the House Democratic Caucus,” said Jeffries.

But even though the bill passed the House, there’s always the Senate. And the Senate never considered the Laken Riley Act last year.

“The Senate,” lamented Collins. “[The bill] got bogged down and never showed up anywhere. It fell into the black hole of the Senate. Like much of our legislation that we sent over there.”

LEARNING CURVE: THE NEW PLAYERS IN CONGRESS

Fetterman speaks in Erie, Pennsylvania, at Harris rally

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Pa., said it is not “xenophobic” to want a secure border. (Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)

But Republicans now control the Senate. Not the Democrats. New Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., made sure his body also made the Laken Riley Act its primary focus for early 2025.

“Senate Democrats uniformly opposed (the Laken Riley Act) last year, despite the bill receiving bipartisan support in the House of Representatives,” said Thune. “We’ll see what they do when the new Senate majority brings it up for a vote.”

Sen. John Fetterman, D-Penn., who often bucks his party, quickly signed on to the Laken Riley Act.

“It’s not xenophobic to want a secure border,” said Fetterman. “It’s not xenophobic if you don’t want people with criminal records and that are actively breaking the law to remain here in the nation.”

Fetterman brushed off liberal concerns about violating the civil rights of undocumented persons who may be detained.

“If they’re here,” said Fetterman, “Technically, they’re already breaking the law.”

A slate of other Democrats quickly signed on to support the measure as well.

Sen. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., a freshman who represents a battleground border state, was among them. He argues that Democrats fouled up the border security issue in the election.

“There was inaction all together. It certainly cost the Democratic Party. And I’d say potentially, the White House,” said Gallego. “I think we have to take the lessons from that.”

The Senate voted 84-9 Thursday to break a filibuster to begin debate on the Laken Riley Act. It will be set for passage next week after clearing that procedural hurdle.

Republicans will offer other border security/immigration bills in the next few months. Watch to see if Democrats join them. The lesson culled from the Laken Riley Act is that Democrats who represent competitive turf believe the party messed up when it came to border security. They’re seeking to inoculate themselves on that issue. And even if it’s not all Democrats, this marks a different approach from the party on the border compared to last year.

Chad Pergram currently serves as a senior congressional correspondent for FOX News Channel (FNC). He joined the network in September 2007 and is based out of Washington, D.C.