As Robert F. Kennedy Jr. implodes spectacularly under questioning, a media observer explains how Fox News’s treatment of the whole mess revealed how precarious Trump’s political position has truly become.
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Sargent: That’s rough stuff. And Democratic Senator Maria Cantwell called RFK a “charlatan,” and other Dems brutally exposed him in many other ways. Matt, what did you make of those exchanges?
Gertz: Well, look, I think that they are a body blows to Robert F. Kennedy’s credibility. After all, these are conservative Republicans, strong supporters of President Trump, but also medical doctors who understand that what Kennedy has been doing has really been ripping away at the fabric of the U.S. health system and the nation’s ability to fight serious infectious diseases and threatening the vaccine regimen that protects our children and all of us from those diseases. I will say, though, it’s unfortunate that they’ve come to the conclusion that there’s something to be worried about here after they already voted to confirm him. It’s not like it’s somehow a surprise that Robert F. Kennedy is an anti-vax kook. That has been his political project for the last decade and a half. He and the nonprofit that he oversaw were at the forefront of trying to reduce Americans’ trust in vaccines and in pushing the false claim that vaccines cause autism in children.
Sargent: Well, Matt, I will tell you what. I think that these Republican senators probably went to RFK and went to Trump before the vote on him and said,
You can’t really go too far with this stuff. We’ve got to support you because we’re all with President Trump and so forth, but you really can’t let this get out of hand, man. And then all of a sudden they see they’ve got a full-blown sociopath destroying public health in this country, and they’re like,
Oh ****. Now I don’t mean to let them off the hook, but—
Gertz: No, of course. I think the problem is once they voted for him, they gave up the power that they had over him. Now he’s in that position. Donald Trump shows no indication of wanting to remove him. So absent the House attempting to impeach him and the Senate removing him from office, which just seems like comical in its plausibility, there isn’t really a lot they can do other than express their deep concern with the person that they have put in such a position of power.
Sargent: Well, they certainly have a lot to friggin explain for doing that. A lot of deaths on their hands as well. You looked at a bunch of the chyrons that Fox News was running during this hearing. One quoted RFK angrily accusing a Democratic senator of making stuff up about his vaccine stance. Another chyron on Fox suggests that it’s wrong to say RFK is denying people vaccines. And as you noticed, Fox ran that latter chyron pretty relentlessly throughout much of the questioning. Matt, can you talk about that? And what else did you see on Fox News along these lines?
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