Trump Whips Reporters Into Frenzy When Asked About RFK, Banning Polio Vaccine

Tommy ChristopherDec 16th, 2024, 1:23 pm
 

President-elect Donald Trump touched off a frenzy at a press conference on Monday when he suggested that the polio vaccine “should be looked at” even though he’s a “big believer.”

Last month, Trump made good on a campaign promise by nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to serve as his Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) despite a history of troubling statements and beliefs. Most recently, his comments about the polio vaccine and association with an attorney who tried to get the vaccine’s approval revoked have come under scrutiny.

Trump spoke to reporters in West Palm Beach, Florida with SoftBank Group CEO Masayoshi Son on Monday, and took questions for almost an hour.

One reporter asked Trump about his Time Magazine “Person of the Year” interview, during which he promoted a debunked and false belief about vaccines and autism, and another touched off a frenzy of shouting when she asked Trump about the polio vaccine and whether it should be mandated:

REPORTER: Can I ask just quickly, do you believe there’s a connection between vaccines and autism? Do you believe there’s a link–

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I don’t do it right now. You have some very brilliant people looking at it. I had dinner the other night with the head of Pfizer, the head of Eli Lilly and RFK, as you know, and [Mehmet] Oz. And we had and other people within the administration that are involved in the medical.

And we’re looking to find out. You know, if you look at autism. So 30 years ago, we had I’ve heard numbers of like 1 in 200,000, 1 in 100,000. And now I’m hearing numbers of 1 in 100. So something’s wrong. There’s something wrong, and we’re going to find out about it.

(SHOUTING)

REPORTER: What about the polio vaccine?

REPORTER: Can I follow up on Robert Kennedy? He’s on the Hill today. He’s meeting with senators. What do you say to people who are worried that his views on vaccines will translate into policies that will make their kids less safe?

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: No, I think he’s going to be much less radical than you would think. I think he’s got a very open mind or I wouldn’t have put him there. He’s going to be very much less radical.

But there are problems. I mean, we don’t do as well as a lot of other nations, and those nations use nothing. And we’re going to find out what those problems are.

And another thing that came up, the dinner was fascinating because I had Bobby and I had, again, the head of Pfizer. You know, that is he’s a highly respected man who has run an incredible company. Likewise with Lilly, the top two people.

And we had the head of the industry also. So all the companies were represented. And I said, let’s have it out now a little bit. And you know, what came out of that meeting is that we’re paying far too much because we’re paying much more than other countries.

And we have laws that make it impossible to reduce. And we have a thing called the middleman. You know, the middleman. Right? The horrible middleman that makes more money, frankly, than the drug companies. And they don’t do anything except there are middlemen.

We’re going to knock out the middleman. I’m going to be very unpopular after that.

(SHOUTING).

REPORTER: What about the polio vaccine?

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: I don’t know who these I don’t know who these middlemen are, but they are rich as hell.

And we’re going to knock out the middleman and we’re going to get drug costs down at levels that nobody has ever seen before. And that’s really I tell you, we spend more time talking about that with Bobby and with the executives. And as all of them, we spent more time talking about that than anything else.

REPORTER: Thanks sir. President Trump, what about the polio vaccine?

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: Well, I’m a big believer in it, and I think everything should be looked at. But I’m a big believer in the polio vaccine. The Salk vaccine.

REPORTER: Do you think schools should mandate vaccines? Do you think schools should mandate vaccines?

PRESIDENT-ELECT DONALD TRUMP: I don’t like mandates. I’m not a big mandate person. So, you know, I was against mandates.

Mostly Democrat governors did the mandates and they did a very poor thing.

And, you know, in retrospect, they made a big mistake having to do with the education of children know, they lost like a year or two years of their lives. The mandate was a bad thing.

I was against the mandate.

Watch above via Mediaite.

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