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The Unraveling of RFK Jr.

The HHS Secretary’s disastrous CNN interview spotlights the risks of a presidency that refuses to admit mistakes.

Adam Kinzinger Aug 4 ∙

Note: Video for paid subsribers follows article.

On Sunday, the secretary of Health and Human Services ranted like a madman on national television during the country’s worst measles outbreak in 35 years. Was he furious about the children suffering from a virus whose spread is largely preventable? Of course not.

Instead, what drew HHS Secretary Kennedy’s ire was CNN’s Dana Bash asking whether Donald Trump deserved any blame for how he handled COVID.

Kennedy refused to say yes. Instead, he blamed Anthony Fauci, governors, and the press. Bash reminded him that Trump was the president at the time and that Kennedy wrote in 2024 that Trump had “let bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci shut down the entire country.” Kennedy went back to blaming Fauci.

That was the least alarming part of the interview.

A few minutes later, Bash asked whether Trump wanted Kennedy to pursue studies linking vaccines to autism. “He certainly does,” Kennedy said. When Bash noted that study after study had found no link between vaccines and autism, Kennedy went berserk. “You’re repeating it like a parrot,” he repeated twice. He told Bash she had been “fooled,” challenged her to debate him and accused Anthony Fauci of “lying about everything.”

Kennedy had no new evidence to offer. Each time Bash cited a study, he treated it as proof that she had been deceived. Every expert who disagreed with him was a liar. The interview showed what happens when a conspiracy theorist runs the health department for a president who wants the government to confirm his delusional beliefs and refuses to accept blame when those beliefs cause harm.

But Kennedy’s belligerence had a limit. He gladly insulted Bash, accused scientists of dishonesty and blamed Fauci for virtually everything that happened during the pandemic. But when Bash asked if Trump deserved any responsibility, Kennedy dodged and evaded. He’ll fight anyone before he will tell Trump that Trump was wrong—and not only because listing all the times Trump has been wrong would take too long.