As the public digests the obscene absurdity of Donald Trump tapping Kash Patel to lead the FBI, the future nominee’s career is coming into sharper focus. The New York Times noted, for example, that Patel has “parlayed his association with the former president into enterprises he promotes under the logo ‘K$H.’”
The result has been a curious enterprise in which Patel sells Trump-related clothing and children’s books that celebrate “King Donald.” The Washington Post had a related report, featuring an even more unsettling product: “Patel has been a pitchman for a variety of products marketed to Trump supporters. One dietary supplement he’s promoted claims to be a COVID vaccine ‘detoxification system.’”
And what, pray tell is, a vaccine “detoxification system”? A Rolling Stone report added:
Most alarmingly, Patel has used his Truth Social account to tout the efficacy of “vaccine reversal” treatments sold by a company whose co-founders previously ran a multi-level marketing business, Xcellent Choice, which was flagged by the watchdog Truth in Advertising. Warrior Essentials, the company behind the trademarked vaccine “detox” pills, claims that one of its products eliminates the spike protein from a Covid-19 vaccine, as well as “zombie cells” and “misfolded DNA.”
In other words, the president-elect’s choice to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation has touted pills that, according to its manufacturer, “reverse” the effects of Covid vaccines — as if that were possible and worthwhile.
What’s more, Patel isn’t alone. I’m reminded of this Washington Post report from 10 years ago about researchers retracting a “bogus study that was used by a company to validate weight-loss claims for green coffee bean pills.”
The study, which was conducted in India but written by researchers from the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania, initially claimed that people who used the supplement lost 16 percent of their body fat (about 18 pounds each) with or without diet and exercise. Now, the paper has been taken down from an open-access scientific journal’s Web site with this message: “The sponsors of the study cannot assure the validity of the data so we, Joe Vinson and Bryan Burnham, are retracting the paper.”
Why is this relevant anew? Because the green coffee bean pills were endorsed by syndicated television personality Dr. Mehmet Oz — whom Trump now wants to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
“You may think magic is make believe, but this little bean has scientists saying they found a magic weight loss cure for every body type,” Oz told viewers. “This miracle pill can burn fat fast for anyone who wants to lose weight. This is very exciting and it’s breaking news.”
The pill, we now know, was neither “magic” nor a “miracle.”
Around the same time, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee starred in infomercials touting “amazing” dietary supplements that he claimed could “reverse” Type 2 diabetes. (In the same infomercial, Huckabee also suggested diabetes patients shouldn’t trust the advice of medical professionals.) When the Republican ran for president in 2016, CBS News’ Bob Schieffer asked him about the infomercials and the dubious advice he gave to the public. Huckabee responded, “You know, I don’t have to defend everything that I have ever done.” Eight years later, Trump tapped Huckabee to serve as the U.S. ambassador to Israel. When looking for common denominators tying together the president-elect’s personnel choices for his second term, let’s not overlook the Republicans with backgrounds in snake-oil sales — and their apparent willingness to rip off American consumers.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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