Corporate media began raising their warnings and concerns about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Thursday, almost immediately after President-elect Donald Trump appointed him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Kennedy, who had originally run as the Independent Party’s presidential nominee before ending his campaign to endorse Trump, has faced backlash since launching his campaign in April 2023. Following Trump’s announcement of Kennedy’s role in his second administration, hosts and political pundits on outlets such as MSNBC and CNN criticized the choice.
PBS host Margaret Hoover, appearing on “Erin Burnett OutFront,” claimed that people could die because of Kennedy’s views, specifically citing his stance on measles.
“RFK Jr. has a specific example, for example, the island of Samoa, where he decided he went to the island of Samoa when there was an outbreak of measles because there had been a circumstance where poorly administered vaccines had caused deaths,” Hoover said. “He then said it was because of the vaccines that these erroneous deaths occurred, which led to an outbreak of measles where thousands of individuals end up getting measles because he told them that the vaccines had erroneously killed these two people. Then many more scores of people died of measles.”
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“You cannot lie about vaccines and not have people believe it to some degree and then have real life consequences. People will die if this kind of spokesmanship is elevated to the chief health department of the United States of America,” Hoover added. “By the way, that’s not to mention the research that he’s going to defund for infectious disease and viruses, at least is what he has said.”
CNN’s Jake Tapper was seen earlier questioning former Illinois Republican Rep. and anti-Trumper Adam Kinzinger about whether he believed Kennedy would be approved by the Senate, before sharply teasing viewers by stating he hoped they “like measles.”
“I’d actually be surprised if [Republican Florida Rep. Matt] Gaetz gets confirmed. That’s why I was surprised he resigned the House because he’s not going to have anything to fall back on, but he’ll go be a Fox News commentator or something. So I do expect that there will be resistance to him,” Kinzinger said. “The rest of them, I don’t know, maybe RFK Jr. I mean, is there enough, you know, are there enough Senate Republicans left?”
“Well, America, I hope you like measles,” Tapper later said.
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Doctors were additionally touted on CNN throughout the evening, with Chief Medical Correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta telling host Wolf Blitzer that he’s heard “of concern” regarding Kennedy and his stance on vaccines.
“Well, I think a lot of it does have to do with what Brian was talking about and vaccines specifically. He’s talked in the past about COVID specifically being bioengineered to attack certain demographics of populations,” Gupta said. “But when it comes to vaccines and his continuously talking about the connection between vaccines and autism, for example, I think that’s what probably gets the most attention. He’s sometimes tough to pin down, Wolf, because he’ll say one thing at one time and then say something else or say that he didn’t say that.”
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“There’s a lot of concern. Even over the last hours, I’ve been getting a lot of notes from people. I mean, I think it’s fair to say that the medical community is not monolithic,” Gupta added. “There’s disparate voices here, but they’re pretty much in lockstep about the concerns with regard to some of these public health issues and RFK. I think that’s sort of the big thing.”
Brown University of Public Health Dean Dr. Ashish Jha also told Blitzer that in addition to Kennedy’s views on vaccines his oversight over health insurance programs like Medicare could put American’s health “at risk” and called him an “extraordinarily bad choice.”
“Obviously, we know about his vaccine views, but the HHS secretary oversees Medicare, will determine what is covered and not through the program for seniors that all seniors live under. It oversees Medicaid that covers nearly half the kids in America. This is a very big job,” Jha said.
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“The way that previous secretaries have managed it in the Trump administration, Biden administration, others, is to let the scientists in those agencies make those determinations. RFK Jr. has given us all the signals that he does not plan to do that,” Jha added. “He does not plan to lean on evidence and rigorous analysis to make decisions, but instead use his own ideas, which sound good on a bumper sticker, but really are not the policies we need in this country.”
However, not all Democrats appeared to be upset over Trump’s choice, with Democratic Colorado Gov. Jared Polis posting on X that he is excited for Kennedy to take the lead on health within America.
“He helped us defeat vaccine mandates in Colorado in 2019 and will help make America healthy again by shaking up HHS and FDA. I hope he leans into personal choice on vaccines rather than bans (which I think are terrible, just like mandates) but what I’m most optimistic about is taking on big pharma and the corporate ag oligopoly to improve our health,” Polis wrote.
“He will face strong special interest opposition on these, but I look forward to partnering with him to truly make America healthy again and I hope that we can finally make progress on these important issues,” Polis added.
(Featured Image Media Credit: Screenshot/CNN/”Erin Burnett Outfront”)
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