The following is the transcript of an interview with Dr. Jerome Adams, the former U.S. surgeon general during President Trump’s first term, that aired on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Aug. 10, 2025.
MARGARET BRENNAN: We turn now to former Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, who served in the first Trump administration. Welcome back to Face The Nation.Â
FORMER U.S. SURGEON GENERAL DR. JEROME ADAMS: Thank you, Margaret.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about this tragic shooting Friday in Atlanta. I understand there were at least four CDC buildings that were shot at, and our colleagues are reporting investigators are looking at the motives, including that the suspect believed he was sick as a result of the COVID vaccine. What do you make of the incident itself, as well as the broader impact on the health workers there on the grounds of the CDC?
DR. ADAMS: Yes. Well, first off, on behalf of the American people, I want to say thank you to the dedicated professionals at the CDC and to all public health and medical workers across this country. And I also want to honor Officer David Rose who made the ultimate sacrifice while protecting those families and people who’ve worked at the CDC. My heartfelt condolences go out to his family, his friends and his colleagues. And finally, I want to be clear, because our secretary of HHS has not been. Violence is never the answer, no matter your level of frustration or anger with the system. We have to find better, more peaceful ways to express our concerns and work towards solutions. Now, Margaret, quickly you asked about the secretary and how you respond to a crisis defines a leader, and quite frankly, Secretary Kennedy has failed in his first major test in this regard. It took him over 18 hours to issue a tepid response to these horrific shootings, and that’s not even considering how his inflammatory rhetoric in the past have actually contributed to a lot of what’s been going on.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Those are some strong words. I mean, the secretary did issue a statement saying no one should face violence while working to protect the health of others. You think he needs to more directly condemn this shooter and his alleged motivations? I mean, there has been, to be fair, a lot of angry rhetoric against health officials for years now. Why do you think the secretary himself needs to address it?
DR. ADAMS:Â Well, the secretary, before he was considering running for president or secretary, was involved in an outbreak in American Samoa where 83 people died, over 70 of them children, in response to a measles outbreak, which local officials on the ground there said he helped inflame. As president, he said, I will drain the cesspool at the CDC and hold people responsible, when he was running for president, he made this statement just last year. Unfortunately, someone beat him to trying to hold people responsible. And again, as secretary of HHS, it took him 18 hours to respond to this shooting, and he still has not unequivocally condemned the violence. He said no one should be harmed while working to protect the public. There’s an out there, Margaret. If you don’t believe that people are working to protect the public, then that means it’s okay to commit violence, at least in some people’s eyes. Dr. Vinay Prasad, who the lieutenant HHS Secretary Kennedy, said, I don’t believe in forgiveness because in my opinion these pieces of, and he said, human excrement are still lying. So I’m upset. I’m upset because people at the CDC were calling me while this was going on, asking for cover that they couldn’t get from their secretary.
MARGARET BRENNAN: What were they asking you to do?Â
DR. ADAMS: They were asking me to make a public statement because they felt under attack. They didn’t know if this was going to continue. They were scared, and they wanted someone, someone who they felt had had a public voice to go out there and say this is wrong. Violence is wrong. This is not the answer.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Well, absolutely, I think all of us want to be careful in the language we use and precise, certainly on this program. And I think what you were referring to are some of what Secretary Kennedy said when he was a presidential candidate. But even in office, the FDA commissioner on this program said he wrote an article “why the people don’t trust the CDC.” The Secretary himself has said in the past, the CDC is a cesspool of corruption. You, to be clear, want the leaders of our health institutions to come out and say they have confidence in the CDC now?
DR. ADAMS: Exactly. I wrote a recent op-ed that is in STAT News where I talked about this. As leaders, we have to be responsible with what we’re saying and how we’re saying it. We have to understand people are listening. And when you call the CDC a cesspool, when you say I will hold people responsible, when you make claims that have been proven false time and time again about safety and efficacy of vaccines, that can cause unintended consequences. And so while I don’t know Secretary Kennedy personally, and I don’t want to make, make assertions about his character, I will say based on his actions and his rhetoric he is, he’s adding, he’s fanning the flames that lead to situations like we saw at the CDC.
MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about health policy, because days earlier, Secretary Kennedy made an announcement that the U.S. is halting $500 million for vaccine research into that technology known as mRNA. You’re very familiar with it because it was used during Operation Warp Speed to very quickly get that COVID vaccine. Secretary Kennedy said, though, mRNA vaccines quote, “don’t work against upper respiratory infections.” Do you know what he means? And what does stopping this research do for pandemic preparations?
DR. ADAMS: Well, that- that’s simply not true. We know that- that by the most conservative estimates, over 2 million lives have been saved because of mRNA technology. It helped us develop COVID-19 vaccines in record time. And it’s, quite frankly, President Trump’s greatest achievement. It’s fascinating to me that in this conversation about whether he should receive the Nobel Prize for something, the thing that he should be considered for the Nobel Prize for, his health secretary is trying to undermine. For folks who may not be familiar, though, Margaret, mRNA stands for messenger mRNA, it’s a natural molecule that’s in all of our bodies. It’s like a recipe card that tells your body how to make a protein. And this idea, again, helps us develop vaccines and new treatments for everything from cancer, melanoma, which my wife has, to HIV, to better flu vaccines, and Zika. The- these are advances that are not going to happen now. People are going to die because we’re cutting short funding for this technology.Â
MARGARET BRENNAN: It’s interesting you talk about President Trump’s great achievement there, because he was asked by my colleague, Nancy Cordes, about Operation Warp Speed, and this is what he said this week. Take a listen.
[BEGIN SOUND ON TAPE]
DONALD TRUMP: Operation Warp Speed was, whether you’re Republican or Democrat, considered one of the most incredible things ever done in this country. The efficiency, the- the way it was done, the distribution, everything about it was- has been amazing.
[END SOUND ON TAPE]
MARGARET BRENNAN: What would have happened in 2020 if we didn’t have mRNA vaccines?
DR. ADAMS: If we did not have mRNA vaccines, the best experts at the time, Bill Gates, Tony Fauci, were saying it would have taken at least 18 to 24 additional months to get a vaccine. The record before that, Margaret, was six years to get a vaccine using the technology that Secretary Kennedy said he wants to go back to, whole virus technology. And so, as I mentioned, by the most conservative estimates, at least 2 million lives were saved. Many people say that up to 20 million lives were saved because of the vaccines. It is President Trump’s greatest achievement, bar none.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Senator Bill Cassidy, who I think you know, Republican, a doctor, he voted for Secretary Kennedy’s confirmation, said it’s “unfortunate the Secretary just canceled a half a billion dollars worth of work, wasting the money which is already invested,” in other words, not getting it back. And he said it’s “conceding to China this important technology.” Here’s the thing, Secretary Kennedy did say, mN- mN- excuse me, Secretary Kennedy did say this technology is helpful against cancers. Can you have it both ways? Can you stop the investment but then still take the parts of it and sort of preserve that?
DR. ADAMS: Well, that’s a great question, and it’s absolutely the case that you cannot denigrate mRNA technology. Even if you do develop a new technology for other areas, people aren’t going to trust it. There aren’t- they aren’t going to take it. And the way research works is that a lot of what we’ve learned about mRNA technology, and developing the COVID vaccines, has led to the excitement, the innovation, the advancements, which now present opportunities for cancer. So it risks stalling process- progress in many of the most promising areas of modern medicine.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Dr. Adams, thank you for your time this morning.
DR. ADAMS: Thank you so much. I appreciate it. And if you have questions about vaccines, talk to your doctor, because unfortunately, our current secretary is not spreading information that is knowledgeable, that’s appropriate, and that is- not fanning the flames that cause situations like happen- happened at the CDC.
MARGARET BRENNAN: Dr. Adams, I appreciate your time. We’ll be back in a moment.
