“Properly America, I hope you want measles,” Jake Tapper joked Thursday night on CNN, segueing right into a breaking report on vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. being tapped by President-elect Donald Trump’s administration to steer the Division of Well being and Human Providers.
The timing couldn’t have been extra apt, as Tapper had been internet hosting a dialogue with former White Home communications director Kate Bedingfield on the controversy that the Trump administration has drawn for its proposed cupboard picks this week.
Kennedy, a once-Presidential hopeful who suspended his impartial marketing campaign in August and endorsed Trump shortly after, has lengthy been vocal about his perception within the lack of effectiveness of vaccinations of any sort, additionally arguing in opposition to their means to curb the unfold of COVID. In latest days, a video has recirculated exhibiting Kennedy proposing a principle that COVID “assaults sure races disproportionately” and “the individuals most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and the Chinese language.” Kennedy denied the feedback in 2023, saying his phrases had been meant to precise his perception that the U.S. was making “ethnically focused” bioweapons.
Tapper has been a vocal opponent of Kennedy’s vaccine beliefs for a number of years now. When challenged to a debate by Kennedy in 2021, the CNN anchor known as the invitation “really embarrassing” and continued “I’m not going to lend credence to a conspiracy theorist whose views are so false, unhinged, and harmful to public well being his personal siblings really feel the necessity publish op-eds in opposition to him.”
Earlier than the election, Kennedy had made common appearances at Trump marketing campaign occasions. Trump had vowed that Kennedy would “go wild on medicines” in his administration if elected.
“For too lengthy, Individuals have been crushed by the economic meals complicated and drug firms who’ve engaged in deception, misinformation and disinformation with regards to Public Well being,” Trump wrote in an announcement Thursday, asserting Kennedy had been tapped to steer the HHS. “The Security and Well being of all Individuals is a very powerful function of any Administration, and HHS will play a giant function in serving to be sure that all people can be shielded from dangerous chemical substances, pollution, pesticides, pharmaceutical merchandise, and meals components which have contributed to the overwhelming Well being Disaster on this Nation.”
