NewsNation Host Runs Pro-RFK Jr. Segment While Ignoring Nominee’s Anti-Vaxx Advocacy
NewsNation host Leland Vittert cast the opposition to Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services strictly as the handiwork of moneyed interests instead of the nominee’s baseless and potentially harmful views on vaccines.
President-elect Donald Trump nominated Kennedy to lead HHS, and the political scion will go before the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee for his confirmation hearing.
Kennedy has long been an outspoken critic of vaccines, which he has baselessly claimed cause autism. The nominee has also falsely claimed the Covid vaccine has killed millions of people.
On Friday, Vittert played a montage of clips of news hosts and guests criticizing the pick:
DR. KAVITA PATEL: My texts are flying off the chain, both Democrats and Republicans, saying, “This can’t be real. Someone must’ve gotten this wrong. This can’t be possible.”
[…]
DR. SANJAY GUPTA: Significant concerns. Horror, even. Somebody said to me today, “I can’t think of any single individual who’d be more damaging to public health.
[…]
JAKE TAPPER: Well, America, I hope you like measles.
[…]
RACHEL MADDOW: We all feel a little bit, I don’t know if flummoxed is the right word, sort of rocked by the increasing incredulity of these choices.
Though the above remarks were responses to Kennedy’s anti-vax positions, Vittert portrayed the opposition as a group of “attack dogs” doing the bidding of large food and pharmaceutical companies:
It’s pretty simple, though. When the attack dogs come out, you know there are some of the largest interest groups, the big money, terrified and threatened. In this case. Big food and big pharma hate Robert F Kennedy.
The host then welcomed fitness guru Jillian Michaels to the program, where the two spoke about Kennedy’s opposition to highly processed foods and additives. During the exchange, Michaels hinted at Kennedy’s position on vaccines in somewhat innocuous terms.
“Robert Kennedy has been tasked with three things,” she said. “Root out this kind of corruption. Demand gold standard researched when it comes to drugs and vaccines. And make America healthy again over the next two years. And you are absolutely right when you said that big food, big pharma, and in fact, big insurance are very frightened and they’re coming out in force.”
“Yeah, there’s no question about this,” Vittert replied.
At no point did they address the nominee’s opposition to vaccines, which has arguably already had deadly effects.
In 2019, a measles outbreak ravaged Samoa, where Kennedy had visited just months before. His nonprofit organization “helped spread misinformation that contributed to the decline in measles vaccination that preceded the lethal eruption.” Eighty-three people died in the outbreak.
Watch above via NewsNation.
