CNN’s Jake Tapper delivered a scathing assessment of President-elect Donald Trump’s choice of vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the next secretary of health — going on the air when the news broke: “Well, America, I hope you like measles.”
The longtime Kennedy critic made the criticism during Thursday’s show, as Tapper discussed Trump’s other Cabinet picks, including Rep. Scandal-stricken Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) for attorney general, with guest Kate Bedingfield, a former White House communications chief under President Biden. .
Kennedy, who suspended his presidential campaign as an independent in August and endorsed Trump soon after, has been vocal about his belief in the lack of effectiveness of vaccines, particularly the COVID vaccine.
Ahead of Kennedy’s expected nomination, a video was recirculated in which he proposed a theory that COVID “disproportionally attacks certain races” and “the most immune people are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
Kennedy said last year that the comments were taken out of context, clarifying that he was expressing his belief that the US was making “ethnically targeted” bioweapons.
Tapper has feuded with Kennedy for years over vaccines, including the politician’s longtime claim that they cause autism.
When challenged in a debate by Kennedy in 2021, the CNN anchor called the invitation “truly disgraceful” and continued: “I’m not going to give credence to a conspiracy theorist whose views are so false, intact and dangerous to the public health. His own brothers and sisters feel the need to publish opeds against him.”
Trump vowed on the campaign trail that Kennedy would be “medicated” in his administration if elected.
“For too long, Americans have been oppressed by the food industrial complex and drug companies that have engaged in fraud, misinformation and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump wrote in a statement Thursday, announcing that Kennedy had been tapped to led the Department. of Health and Human Services.
He continued: “The safety and health of all Americans is the most important role of any administration, and HHS will play a major role in helping to protect everyone from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceuticals, and food additives.” that have contributed to the overwhelming health crisis in this country.”
Critics have slammed Trump’s decision, including the editorial board of the New York Post, which wrote in a scathing op-ed that Kennedy’s installation “violates medicine’s first rule” of “doing no harm.”
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