Back. Thank you for coming back. This is Two-Way Tonight. Some of you have been here before. I recognize you. Thank you for being part of this. Great episode tonight. A lot of big news to tell you about and show you some sound. Sean Spicer was correct on the morning meeting that President Trump was going to talk at his Oval Office photo op today, and talk he did about many topics, and that's where most of the news we'll tell you about will come from. And then Dr. Patrick Soon-shiong, owner of the Los Angeles Times, noted cancer expert, international man of mystery, and someone who I've got about 100,000 questions for, will be here. And as always, if you're here on the Two-Way platform, we're eager to get your questions about any topic. I told you tonight we'll talk about some recent news around cancer. So we welcome your questions on that or anything else you're interested in. If you're watching on X or on YouTube, please do not raise your hand and please do not put smack in the chat. We believe in peace, love, and understanding here. That means spirited debate, but no negative personal attacks, and try to focus on things that allow us to learn and have greater understanding rather than tearing people down. Simple idea, it works for us. Right after this program ends on YouTube, you'll be able to watch one of our newest colleagues here at Two-Way, Bridget Fedesy, who shows Real America, a fan favorite. If you haven't sampled it yet, I'd urge you to do that at 7. Then quickly tomorrow, two programs to tell you about on Two-Way. First, at 9:00 a.m. Eastern time, the People's Poll, the third edition with contributions from many of you. I was just looking through it. We just got back the first bit of the data. It's super interesting and I look forward to sharing it with you. David Burrell from Wick will be here. So it's 9:00 a.m. Eastern time. And then tomorrow, 4 p.m. Eastern time, it is the debut of the newest show on this platform, the Group Chat with five of our great colleagues. They will be here. That's for Bridget tonight at 7. Tomorrow, 4 p.m. Eastern time, the Group Chat. I'll tell you more about that tomorrow and later today. All right. As always, be ready. Raise your hand if you'd like to be in on the conversation. And away we go. As I said, President Trump talked quite a bit in the Oval Office today. He responded to Elon Musk's interview with CBS where Musk suggested he was not a big fan of the big bill, which some call beautiful. This is number two.
One big beautiful bill, saying he was disappointed it didn't cut enough, essentially that undercut the DOGE efforts. What's your reaction to that? Well, my reaction is a lot of things. Number one, we have to get a lot of votes. We can't be cutting, you know, we need to get a lot of support and we have a lot of support. We had to get it through the House. The House was, we have no Democrats. You know, if it's up to the Democrats, they'll take the 65% increase. If that doesn't get approved, this country is going to have a 65% increase in taxes and lots of other problems, big problems, almost bigger than that. But we'll have a 65% increase as opposed to the largest tax cut in the history of our country. We will be negotiating that bill and I'm not happy about certain aspects of it, but I'm thrilled by other aspects of it. That's the way it is.
Beautiful. The reality is he doesn't disagree very much with Elon, to tell you the truth. He's saying he doesn't love the House version. He wants to change some of it. Elon loves some of the House bill. President also was asked about a report that said this morning that there's talks between US and Israel over Netanyahu's interest in perhaps taking military action against Iran even as the United States and Iran negotiate a nuclear deal. And if you like straight talk from your presidents, you'll find this refreshing rather than saying I can't talk about it, it involves secret national security. The president basically just said, 'Yeah, it's true.' Did you warn Prime Minister Netanyahu against taking some sort of actions that could disrupt the talks there in a phone call last week? Well, I'd like to be honest. Yes, I did. Next question, please.
I did. Senate Republicans want to push. It's not a warning. I said I don't think it's appropriate. What exactly did you tell them? I said I don't think it's appropriate. We're having very good discussions with them and I said I don't think it's appropriate right now because if we can settle it with a very strong document, very strong with inspections and no trust. I don't trust anybody. So, no trust. I want it very strong where we can go in with inspectors. We can take whatever we want. We can blow up whatever we want, but nobody getting killed. We can blow up a lab, but nobody's going to be in the lab as opposed to everybody being in the lab and blowing it up, right? Two ways of doing it. Yeah, I told him this would be inappropriate to do right now because we're very close to a solution. Now, that could change at any moment. Could change with a phone call, but right now I think they want to make a deal. And if we can make a deal, I save a lot of lives.
Pretty incredible. The status of the talks between the US and Iran still a little bit opaque, but the president continues to tout as he did there the possibility of a deal. Another area with talks lots from Russia and Ukraine today, possibility floated again of a three-way face-to-face negotiation Putin, Zelenskyy, Trump. Don't know whether that's on track to happen. The president today hot and cold at once on the question of whether he's interested in sanctions. The president frequently talks about something happening in the next two weeks. He's talked about making a decision about Putin in the next two weeks several other times. Here's what he said today. This is number five, please.
You believe the Russians are being disrespectful when they say that your criticisms of Putin are simply an emotional response. And do you still believe that Putin actually wants to end the war? I can't tell you that, but I'll let you know in about two weeks. Within two weeks. We're going to find out very soon. We're going to find out whether or not he's tapping us along or not. And if he is, we'll respond a little bit differently, but it'll take about a week and a half, two weeks. We have Mr. Witkoff here who's doing a phenomenal job. He's dealing with them very strongly right now. They seem to want to do something, but until the document is signed, I can't tell you. Nobody can. I can say this, that I'm very disappointed at what happened a couple of nights now where people were killed in the middle of what you would call a negotiation. I'm very disappointed by that. Very, very disappointing.
All right. President also had said some things about Harvard today. Not surprising. He said today he might pardon the people who were convicted of plotting to kidnap Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer. All right. Vice President spoke in Las Vegas today to a big crypto conference. Here is JD Vance about the enduring prospects for crypto. Number 11, please.
Consistent fear that I hear is that there's still this perception that digital assets are not welcome in the mainstream economy. And let me promise you that our effort to change the policy is purely about changing that. We want our fellow Americans to know that crypto and digital assets and particularly Bitcoin are part of the mainstream economy and are here to stay.
All right. We talked this morning about how Republicans have developed a pretty strong asymmetrical advantage over the Democrats on the issue of crypto and to some extent on AI as well. We will continue to cover that. All right. We're going to bring in our guest. If you want to be in on the conversation on any topic, please raise your hand. We'll talk for a bit and then we'll bring you all in. I couldn't be more grateful to have our guest come back. Dr. Patrick Soon-shiong is a lot of things, including a dad, owner of the Los Angeles Times, and one of the world's greatest experts on cancer, pediatric cancer, and cancer science. Doctor, welcome back to Two-Way. Very happy to have you here. Let me unmute you. I want to start by asking you about the trip you just came back from. You were in the Middle East on a trip and I was one early morning here in the United States. I was watching this extraordinary procession of leaders from around the world, some governmental, some private sector, talking to the president and the Saudi ruler, and there you were. So for people who don't know, how did you find yourself not only on this trip to the Middle East but as part of this extraordinary international display of humanity?
Well, first of all, I like your introduction, the man of mystery, because I'm not a man of mystery. I'm really actually at the end of the day just an old doctor that's trying to figure out healthcare, and that's really the basis of the trip. I think the president, as you said, is just really honored to be part of this event both in Riyadh as well as in Doha. I think the opportunity for us as a nation to lead the world in health. We are still the best innovators in the world in health. And as you know, maybe not that in the Middle East, for example in Saudi, 60% of the population are under 30 years old, which means they have a long roadway, and what's happening now is the concern of rising incidence of cancer. We'll talk about that as a separate subject. But the opportunity to be part of this envoy in which the president was bringing both the leaders of our country to create a bond and a bridge. I mean, as you hear, he iterates all the time he wants to save lives, whether it be war and in health. And for the opportunity for us to actually bring this bioshield, which we'll talk about, as truly a generational change in how we treat patients with infection, COVID, cancer, in a completely new paradigm, but share that with the world was why I was there.
Okay. Let's talk a little bit more about the trip. Just show number 16, please, while we keep talking. Had you spent a lot of time in the Middle East?
Believe it or not, that was my first time. You can kill the audio, just run the picture. Who negotiated? So your first time there, what were your impressions of the Middle East? Amazing actually. I mean, my first time to Riyadh, I've been multiple times to Qatar and to Jordan. But my first time in Riyadh, and what struck me was the amazing amount of investment they've made in the Middle East in the infrastructure for healthcare. They may not have the full armamentarium of the tools, but they've built an infrastructure, digital infrastructure, cloud infrastructure, physical infrastructure, and obviously with the resources to build these assets. And the other thing that struck me was the educational level, whether it be in the hospitals or at the regulatory level. I met at every level, the National Guard level, the King Faisal Hospital, the Saudi FDA, and the scientists. Not only were they enthusiastic, they were highly informed, very sophisticated. So to me it was an eye-opener that they could lead the world actually if we brought the technology and through President Trump's visit could expedite what could actually help the globe in terms of this next generation of healthcare. So I was very impressed.
Okay, we're going to talk about the announcement you made this week, but I want to ask you two more things about the Middle East. Then following up what you said, then a couple other topics, and we're going to come back to this exciting announcement and talk about cancer in general. When you say infrastructure, is this for patient treatment, is this for research? What kind of infrastructure have they built?
Digital infrastructure. You know, in 2008 or 2010, I went to President Obama and I presented what I call, he asked me for a one-pager, and one day you and I will talk about what I call the rocket ship, where I believe that the day will come, and the day is now, that every human being will be like an astronaut that we'll be able to monitor in real time your signals, whether it be your EKG, your temperature, heart rate, and if we can manage data in real time through the cloud, we could apply AI, which is what I call the medical large language model. There's not a language model, and actually predict whether you're going to have a heart attack before you have a heart attack, can predict what treatment you need. They've invested in that infrastructure. I went to see, for example, in Saudi, hundreds of hospitals, but they know every hospital what's going on as a patient walks in the door. So I think that's what I mean by this infrastructure of actually having what I call capturing the human signal engine, and one day you and I will talk about that, putting that into the cloud on an individual basis and really having real-time data management and then outcomes and then payment that'll change healthcare forever.
Is anybody in the world doing that now?
We will. But it's not happening anywhere currently. It's not happening even in the United States. When I say we will, I don't mean it flippantly. We've built this, we are now running 700 hospitals in the United States. We have what are called the NORAD mission control center of healthcare, and we're going to transfer that immediately into Riyadh, King Faisal Hospital, National Guard, etc., as well as into Qatar, because they've actually invested in this infrastructure. What they needed was the knowledge domain. They built a very coordinated delivery domain, and in that context we can then measure the outcomes and change the course of healthcare.
You may not know the answer to this, but if you do, I'd like to hear. Of the doctors in Saudi, the healthcare FDA officials, were they educated in Saudi Arabia, in the United States, or where?
Both. And they were highly educated. I mean, they came from every school you can think of in the United States, whether it be Harvard, UCLA, wherever you want to think about. But not only were they educated, they had great insight. They gave me an insight that made my jaw drop, actually. I had given them before my meeting the documentation of the bioshield just so they were prepared about what we were going to talk about. Not only had they consumed it, they had more insight into what it meant sadly than any regulatory authority that I've met yet in the United States or Europe. So I think we underestimate not only their capabilities, their intellect, their enthusiasm, their youth, and you combine that with the resources that they have. This is why I think I was so grateful that President Trump's visit from that perspective, bringing innovation and creating this as a bridge to the entire Middle East. I mean, he surprised a lot of people with the Syrian announcement and meeting, and I think that's what's going to be transformational for the first time. Maybe there'll be peace in the Middle East, and if healthcare could be this bridge to peace, that would be a great honor for me.
All right, let's stay with this topic because I want to do bioshield 101. We've talked about it before here, but not everybody has been present. So first, let's put up the announcement. This is number 15, please. ImmunityBio and Saudis launched cancer bioshield platform. That's an announcement you just made with folks in the region. So let's start simple. How is cancer currently treated for the most part, and how is this a new paradigm?
One day I'm going to have to call you Dr. Hellprin, right? Because at the end of the day, it's interesting. A paper just came out of Nature. So let's start simple. You're absolutely right because it's so profound and yet it's simple. But maybe it's simple to me because it's been my life's work. You and I have in our body a thing called the natural killer cell. Everybody understands the word T-cell because it's become a word that everybody understands. So let's talk about these two cells. Natural killer cell and T-cells. It's much more complex than that, but I'm trying to keep it simple. And that's called lymphocytes. Those two cells, those lymphocytes, are the only cells necessary, not the only, but the most important cells necessary to kill cancer. What in the last 24 months or so has occurred in my brain. Those are also the only cells that actually involve in killing infection. Those are the only cells necessary for sepsis. Those are the only cells necessary if you don't die of aging. So in a funny way, these cells are the way to think about it as a fountain of long life or the fountain to protect you when you have a life-threatening disease. Those are called lymphocytes. When we give chemotherapy, we wipe out these lymphocytes. When we give radiation, we wipe out these lymphocytes. When we give steroids, we wipe out these lymphocytes. We didn't realize this. And we didn't realize this because there were never in the history of medicine a therapy to activate the lymphocytes in your body. So to be simple, your body is a factory. Think about your body as a factory. There's a secret key in your body called IL-15 that turns on these lymphocytes and makes them go nuts. They just proliferate and then kill the infection, kill the cancer. What have we been doing wrong? Inadvertently, we've been killing these lymphocytes. That's called lymphopenia. You understand the word anemia for red blood cells, and we have a blood transfusion and we have a drug called Epogen, but never in the history of mankind have we had a molecule that your body produced called IL-15 protein that stimulates the lymphocytes, and that's what the bioshield is.
So how is it possible that using chemotherapy or steroids or other traditional cancer treatments, given the negative effect that they have, how are they ever effective in fighting cancer?
Because we've won the battle, lost the war. And for us to win the battle and lose the war, meaning that we have this short-lived satisfaction of giving chemotherapy, it's like a nuclear bomb into your body and the tumor goes in shrivels and you see what we call a response, when that actually is not the goal. The goal is overall survival. But more importantly, the goal is to survive with a high quality of life. So now you wipe out these lymphocytes, you get a shriveling of the tumor, you're all happy. Our regulatory authority says response rate, which is fine, or progression-free survival, which are these terms, meaning it's okay to get something approved until it progressed. That's the end point. And let's give you the drug at what we call maximum tolerated dose. These are all terms of art that's in the regulatory filings. So think about how we've been thinking about this. It's giving somebody enough so it doesn't kill the person. It may kill the cancer, but Darwinianly allow these resistant cells to go and hide, and we'll talk about the hide part, and come back with metastasis, and then we say sorry, you're no longer incurable. Is it possible that we've induced the incurability of the disease? A very tough question. And I'm going to need a flak jacket when I go around saying, is it possible that in 50 years we thought about this wrong? And Mark, I've thought about analogies of how I would describe it, and you talked me into this show, the last show, and we will call this Cancer Decoded, and maybe we will have these long-form sessions where we'll go into this about this, whether it be brain cancer, ovarian cancer, lung cancer, and really trying to understand, which I've spent 35 years now of my life understanding this beautiful, exquisite body of ours and how it works. And if you understand that, we could get insight into how to treat the disease. So if you ask me what was jaw-dropping to me when I went to the Middle East, one of the most senior regulatory person who was already reviewing my document, which I'd sent to him, the same document by the way that I sent to the FDA, he said, 'You know what? I have just realized the disease is lymphopenia. Cancer is just a symptom.' I said, 'Wow, you get it.' So it's a way to think about this. Think about TB and you're coughing. So imagine if I just treat the cough and forget about treating the TB. Well, that's how I now think about what we're doing in treating cancer. We're not treating the root cause.
This is an extraordinary paradigm shift, and as you said, it's taking something that has seemed to have worked in some cases but really had big downside. Explain the history of the bioshield that led to the announcement you made this week with the people in the Middle East.
Well, I don't want to sort of prelude your Cancer Decoded show, but I'll give you a summary.
Well, we're going to reconvene. We'll have an announcement soon. We're going to reconvene on a regular basis and walk through it. But just give people the headline of how we got to the announcement that you made and what the announcement means.
How you got to the announcement or how we got to developing the bioshield? Which would you like to know?
I sort of see them as linked. What's the prelude to the announcement? What does the announcement mean?
Well, how I developed the bioshield is a light bulb went on when I was assistant professor at UCLA in 1990. And why did the light bulb go on? Because in 1990 I was doing pancreas transplantation at UCLA. So I did the UCLA or West Coast's first pancreas transplant in a diabetic patient. In that patient, my goal was to suppress the immune system. Obviously, I don't want that patient's immune system to kill this pancreas transplant I just gave. But I had another job. I was also at the VA and UCLA in which I was a cancer surgeon and I was doing these things called Whipples for pancreatic cancer and gastric cancer. And in that instance, I want your body to work and kill the cancer. And I said there has to be a what I call a unifying theory in your body that would understand whether it should kill or suppress. And that was the natural killer cell. And I learned about the natural killer cell, which only in the late 80s was it even discovered, this cell in your body, yet the cell has been in your body in evolution for 500 million years. So I became obsessed by this thing. I said what does it turn on? What turns it on? What turns it off? And we'll go into the Cancer Decoded story one day. And at the end of the day, there's a receptor on this thing called IL-15. And if I can turn this thing on, boy, we have a bioshield.
And so what is the announcement you made? Just a paragraph. What will happen with your work now in conjunction with the Saudis?
So what we've come to a commitment with the Saudis is to bring the bioshield not only to Saudi but to the entire Middle East and even to Africa. What impressed me amazingly is that in Saudi Arabia, whether you're a Saudi citizen or not, they treat everybody. What impressed me, they have this thing called CAR T-cell therapy, and you know there are only a few hospitals in our country that do CAR T-cell therapy, etc. They're number three in the world. That was amazing to me. So they had the sophistication and the capability of taking this next evolution of therapy and making it happen. And their commitment is to make this happen in 90 days. And I said, 'Okay, I'm in at the highest level.' And you saw that conversation that I had with the president and MBS, his excellency, at that event. And I'm sure people would love to be a fly on the wall understanding that conversation, but suffice it to say, we talked about the bioshield. Amazing.
