Bulwark Takes - RFK Jr.’s CNN Meltdown Was Even Worse Than You Think

Episode Date: August 3, 2026

Will Saletan dismantles RFK Jr.'s disastrous CNN interview, exposing one false claim after another on COVID, vaccines, Anthony Fauci, Donald Trump, and the media. From conspiracy theories to blatant contradictions, the secretary of Health and Human Services spends more time attacking Dana Bash than defending his own claims and the facts don't hold up. If the nation's top health official is still pushing COVID misinformation, Americans deserve to know.Right now, Larineco is offering our listeners up to 50% off at https://BuyLarine.com/BulwarkTakes

Hey, did you hear? Watermelon is back at booster juice all summer long. Nice! I love the watermelon explosion. And the watermelon wave! Yep, they even got a new watermelon assaye bowl this year. The one in a melon bowl. And what does that sound like? Like that. Booster juice. Canadian-born, blending since 1999. Hey, it's Will Salatant from the Bullwork. believe Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is our Secretary of Health. Okay, yesterday this guy went on CNN,

and he accused the media of misleading people about COVID and vaccines, which is hilarious because nobody, nobody spreads more BS about COVID and vaccines than Bobby Kennedy. Let me take you through this interview. I'm going to show you what I'm talking about. The first thing I got to show you is that Kennedy went off on the interviewer, Dana Bash. You were part of the problem. No, I wasn't part of the problem. It was absolute press malpractice. And then a couple of minutes later, he went after her again.

I am not saying that the entire way that the COVID reaction was accurate. It was a scary time and people made mistakes. Absolutely. You were scaring people. Why are you saying that? Because that was the job of CNN. Okay. Okay. Okay. Stop. Okay. Stop. How many people are trying to be, we were listening to.

Bash is trying to be reasonable. She's conceding that some of what the government did to stop COVID turned out to be a mistake. But Kennedy isn't trying to be reasonable. He is looking for a fight. You were the problem, he says. And he presents it as a conspiracy theory. He says, scaring people was the goal. It was the goal of CNN. In fact, he says, he says, he says, he says, scaring people was the goal. It was the goal of CNN. In fact, he says, he says that reporting the death count, I don't know if you could hear exactly what he said there, but he said that when CNN put up chiron's numbers on the screen that showed how many people were dying of COVID, he says that was part of a plot to get people to comply. Reporting the death count is basic, basic journalism. The Secretary of Health is accusing the media of committing malpractice and participating in a government plot by committing journalism.

And then watch what happens when Bash talks about studies that show autism is not caused by vaccines. There is study after study after study. It's one of the most studied things out there in science. You're repeating it like a parrot. You're repeating it like a parrot. You're repeating it like a parrot, he says. Twice. Twice he says that. He's literally repeating himself, right? She's not the one talking like a parrot. He is. The guy has no shame. Okay, but wait, it gets better. Kennedy says Bash doesn't understand genetics because she isn't a scientist. Are you also trying to find out how it interacts with people's DNA, what's predisposed to have an autistic child? Are you doing both? Yeah, but Dana, you probably don't understand this because you're not a scientist, but genes don't cause. Genes don't cause epaulness.

I understand genes epidemic. They provide a vulnerability. A gene provides environmental. That's what I'm asking. Okay, I got to give her points for telling him, hey, buddy, you're not a scientist either. But can you believe the arrogance? She's asking him about interactions between genes and environmental. factors. She wants to know if he's studying predispositions. And his response is, lady, you don't understand genetics. Let me show you what Bobby Kennedy understands about genetics. Here's what he said three years ago when he was running for president about COVID and Jews and China. In fact, COVID-19, there's an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks. certain races disproportionately. COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people.

The people who are most immune are Askinajic Jews and Chinese. We do know that the Chinese are spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing as a vital weapons. Golly. So apparently, Kennedy does think genes play a role in epidemic. He thinks COVID might have been engineered to kill white people and black people, but not Chinese people or Jews. This guy is a nut job. And then he sits there and he lectures Dana Bash about genetics.

The problem with Kennedy is he doesn't think like a scientist. He's a fanatic. Listen to the way he talks about Anthony Fauci. Now we know that Anthony Fauci, who was the expert, was long. lying about everything, about mass, about the social distancing, about natural immunity, about the transmission from the vaccine, about the source of COVID. Everything. Fauci was lying about everything. Nothing he said was true. That is the way a fanatic talks. Let me show you how a scientist talks. Fauci said, N95 masks are better than cloth masks. Fauci said social distancing was

good at preventing transmission through droplets, which fall down, but not so good at preventing aerosol transmission. Fauci said the COVID vaccines make you less likely to get infected and therefore less likely to transmit COVID, but they don't guarantee you won't get COVID. That is how a scientist talks. Things are complicated. Kennedy can't accept that. He needs a black and white view of the world. So he says Fauci was evil and Fauci lied about everything. Except, except when Fauci says something Kennedy agrees with. For example, let me tell you, because actually Anthony Fauci in his diaries answers the question about why we're having a measles outbreak right now. The reason we're having a measles outbreak because of the COVID lockdowns, because people didn't like children during that period,

did not get vaccinated. And in his diary, He says this is going to cause massive outbreaks and measles. Kennedy is right about that. Here is what Fauci wrote in his diary. Quote, more than a million children worldwide have missed their measles vaccinations because of the shutdown. This is terrible, and it needs to be addressed, unquote. And Fauci wrote that he was going to bring this up

at a meeting of the coronavirus task force. And he did, and he talked about it in public. He said, we need to get those kids vaccinated. So apparently Fauci wasn't lying about everything. Imagine that. But Kennedy thinks Fauci is the devil. And guess who Kennedy thinks is God? You have been placing nearly all the blame on the COVID pandemic

and the way that the U.S. responded to it squarely with Dr. Fauci. But of course, he worked for President Trump. Does President Trump also deserve some of the blame? President Trump wanted to end the lockdowns. In fact, in Anthony Fauci's diaries, he talks about how President Trump is calling him every day, trying to get him to reopen the country. Oh, so Trump, Trump was a hero because he was trying to open,

he was trying to open the country. But then Bash points out that a couple of years ago, Kennedy said just the opposite. You tweeted back in 2024 that he let bureaucrats like Anthony Fauci shut down the entire country. Whoa, look at that. And check out the date of the tweet. That's April 2024. That is just four months before Kennedy turned around and endorsed Trump. And he said this. And don't you want a president who's going to protect America's freedoms? So in four months, Kennedy,

went from Trump shut down the country to Trump protected your freedom. Why? Because obviously, Trump made him the Secretary of Health. These guys cut a deal. And now Kennedy sits there and he tells you Trump was a hero because Trump wanted to reopen the country. This message is brought to you by Lorentco. I'm always ready to upgrade my routines. And recently I heard about Lorentco, a chewing gum that actually makes your teeth stronger every time you use it. Larienco is better for you chewing gum that uses the same mineral your teeth are made of to support daily enamel health. Loreenco uses nano-hydroxyapatite, the mineral that your animal is actually made of to strengthen your enamel and repair damage. It comes in tons of flavors, including mint,

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He was just trying to pretend that the virus wasn't there. Remember this? When you do testing to that extent, you're going to find more people. You're going to find more cases. So I said to my people, slow the testing down. Trump was trying to conceal the extent of the virus as it was killing people. I don't have words for how disgusting that is, but Kennedy won't admit it. And then Kennedy pretends that after Trump, this wonderful guy left office, everything was terrible for years.

The president was trying to reopen the country when he left. The country was kept closed for now. another year, almost a year and a half after that. Yeah, no. That's just not true. Here is a report from the National Center for Education Statistics. It says, for example, by May 2021, that's just four months after Trump left office, most public school students, 52% were enrolled in full-time, in-person instruction. And by fall, 2021, 98% of public schools were planning to.

offer full-time, in-person learning. So no, the country was not shut down for another year and a half, not even half a year. And this is just one of a bunch of things that Kennedy said that turn out to be bogus. Here is another one about vaccines and autism. Let me tell you what the Institute of Medicine says, which is the National Academy of Sciences, which is the ultimate arbiter on vaccines, in which it does not have an interest in this debate. It says that none of the eight vaccines that are administered during the first six months of life have ever been studied for a relationship to autism.

It found two studies, one on the DTP vaccine, and showed that it does cause autism. Whoa, the Institute of Medicine says there's a study showing that the DTP vaccine, that's diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, that that vaccine causes autism, that sounds really scary. Except I just spent quite a while looking for that study and it's not there. In fact, the Institute of Medicine hasn't existed under that name since 2015. It became the National Academy of Medicine.

And if you look for any study under the National Academy of Medicine related to autism and that vaccine, you still don't find anything. And here's another one from Kennedy. And clearly COVID-19 pandemic and many other global pandemics that we have have come from gain of function research. The RSV epidemic that we have that is the biggest killer of kids in this country today came from these kind of experiments. The Lyme disease almost certainly came from this kind of research. No, no, I've been digging around to see what the hell Kennedy is talking about. And once again, there is, there's just nothing to back him up.

Nothing about RSV, which is a respiratory virus being caused by gain of function research. He's just making it up. And meanwhile, he won't acknowledge the most basic things that are true. Watch what happened when Bash told him this. It is also factually true that the COVID vaccine worked. The COVID vaccine prevented deaths. There is data upon data upon data. Let's talk about the measles, please,

because this is something that is happening as we speak. Can you think the COVID vaccine protected children? See, he can't let that go. He can't stand to admit that the vaccines saved lives. But in the same interview, in the same interview, he said this. We have the highest death rate from COVID of any nation on earth. No kidding. And can you guess why?

why we had a high death rate? Here's a clue. Look at this chart. These are the 20 most vaccinated countries during COVID. Guess who's not on this chart? Us, the United States. And if you read the study, it says, in the most vaccinated countries,

the COVID death rate fell by almost 70%. But in the rest of the world, it only fell by about a quarter. And here's another table that shows that our vaccination rate in the United States was lower than all, than all of the comparable countries. And our fatality rate was about twice as high as theirs. So Kennedy sits there and complains that we had a high death rate from COVID,

while he refuses to acknowledge, and in fact, he personally contributed to the most important reason why we lost so many lives. He is a zealot and a crackpot. He's wrong and he's dishonest again and again. And then he gets angry when the press calls him on it. And he says they're not being tough enough on the government. Your job is a fierce skepticism toward authority.

And you weren't doing that. I am. I am. My job is also. No. Okay. Are you going to, you want to sit here and attack me or do you want to have conversations about public health? You're sitting here and attacking me?

I'm not attacking you. Your job is to tell the truth in the American public. Yes. Yes. My job is to get as much information as I can. And to maintain a posture of serious skepticism for government authority. Did you catch what he did there with his arm? He pointed.

He pointed away from himself when he said government authority. And he told her, you're attacking me. Dude, you are the government. You are the secretary of health. Danabash is being skeptical. She's being skeptical of the Secretary of Health because he's sitting there lying to her audience. He's not mad because she's not doing her job.

He's mad because she is. See you next time.