Michael Lewis: The NIH “Murder Mystery,” DOGE, and Our Government Immune System
Micheal Lewis is one of, if not the best storyteller of our era. You know and likely have read his books Moneyball, The Big Short, The Blind Side, Flash Boys, Liar’s Poker, and The Undoing Project, to name a few. He has long been one of my favorite authors. This was the first interview that Michael did on his new book, BLOCKERS, published on October 6th, streamed live on Substack Sept 29th. It’s his 21st book and 4 of the last 5 have been about the US government: The Fifth Risk (2019), Premonition (2021), and Who Is Government? (2025). His ability to talk with the silent civil servant heroes of multiple government agencies (the Blockers), members of the DOGE destruction team, and much more from the current US government administration. Here’s a gift link to the exclusive excerpt at WSJ I won’t review all the things we discussed here, but the chapter on the NIH reads like an Agatha Christie murder mystery. We learned a whole different version of what happened that differed from what was previously reported. Thank you jojofinance, Andrew Bowdle, Tracy Paeschke, MD, FACC, Bob Fleischman, Sean Stevenson, and many nearly 500 others for tuning into my live video with Michael Lewis! Join me for my next live video in the app. Ground Truths has 217,000 subscribers from every US state and 214 countries. There are over 300,000 followers of Ground Truths so more than 100,000 folks who can easily convert to be free subscribers. Your subscription to these free essays and podcasts makes my work in putting them together worthwhile. If you’re not a subscriber, please join! If you found this interesting PLEASE share it! The proceeds from all voluntary paid subscriptions go to support our summer internship program. It enabled us to accept and support a record number of 62 summer interns that joined us in 2026! These are high school, college and medical students selected from thousands of applicants. We couldn’t do this expanded program without the funds coming in through Ground Truths. Thank you! Get full access to Ground Truths at erictopol.substack.com/subscribe