John Thune Shades RFK Jr. in MSNBC Swipe: ‘If I Were a Woman…’

Senate Majority Leader John Thune has once again distanced himself from President Donald Trump’s Health Secretary, telling MSNBC’s Ali Vitali that he if he were a woman, he “wouldn’t be taking advice” from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Sitting down with MSNBC on Thursday for the first time since taking over as Senate Majority Leader, Thune pushed back against suggestions that the Republican Party is drifting toward total loyalty to Trump, insisting dissent still exists within GOP ranks – and used the Tylenol debate as a case in point.

Trump and Kennedy held a press conference in September in which they blamed women taking Tylenol while pregnant as a leading cause of autism in the U.S., misrepresenting the current vaccine schedule, and falsely asserting that the Amish and people in Cuba have “no autism.” At the time, Thune said he was “very concerned” about the remarks.

During the interview, which aired on Thursday’s Morning Joe, Vitali asked if the GOP was becoming a “party of no dissent.”

“I mean, I would argue and I’ve dissented a number of times just in the last few weeks,” Thune refuted.

Pressed for examples, the South Dakota Republican cited disagreements over “Tylenol” and the “FCC,” before turning to Kennedy, whose appointment to head the Department of Health and Human Services has alarmed even some conservatives.

When asked whether Kennedy’s rhetoric on public health was “dangerous,” Thune replied: “Well, I – I’ve said that I think that if I were a woman, I’d be talking to my doctor and not taking, you know, advice from RFK or any other government bureaucrat, for that matter.”

While stressing that internal disputes are often handled “privately rather than publicly,” Thune added that Congress remains “a co-equal, independent branch of the government.”

Watch above via MSNBC.