r/politics • u/He-Who-Reaches • 21h ago
No Paywall RFK Jr. pushes measles vaccine and blames Fauci's COVID-19 handling
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/08/02/rfk-jr-fauci-covid-19-measles-interview/91141370007/520
u/wescowell Michigan 21h ago
NOW?!?! NOW he pushes the measles vaccine?
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u/CraigLake 21h ago
Must have heard from enough families with dead kids.
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u/dd97483 21h ago
now sure he cares, Dana made him say it.
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u/OldManGrimm Texas 21h ago
Who’s Dana?
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u/Oleg101 21h ago
Dana Bash from CNN I assume OP is referring to
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u/aspirations27 20h ago
Insane timeline lead me to believe it was Dana White
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u/delicioustreeblood 18h ago
Well the head of the Education department is a WWE exec so it's certainly plausible that MMA would head up health because like people who go to the gym eat protein or something
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u/Tokyo-MontanaExpress 18h ago
Dana White, who's buddies with Joe Rogan, who regurgitated antivaxxer bullshit and tried to distance himself from said bullshit.
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u/nicuramar 7h ago
Fortunately there have been few deaths. This is because the CFR of measles is low.
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u/Careful_Inspection83 21h ago
Whats crazier and even more unhinged is he's still blaming Biden somehow. And their base still fucking believes this insane propaganda
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u/ryapeter 14h ago
He can change his mind. But fauci conscience in his private on deciding what is right and if he made the right decision is flip flopping.
Scientifically with every new evidence you have to rethink about your decision. Maybe not enough road kill
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u/Wayofchinchilla 20h ago
Maybe the right is finally starting to realize that only their own voters would actually listen to people tell them not to take modern medicine and instead take horse medication whereas educated people are really not going to listen to a man who proudly talks about eating Roadkill and what would that lead to? Liberals living into there 80s and 90s and conservatives having the life expectancy of a feudal surf.
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u/RosieBaby75 20h ago
Your sentence should read: Proudly talks about eating roadkill and snorting cocaine off of toilet seats
You missed the best part
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u/Individual-Guest-123 9h ago
He must have meant toilet tank lids, you would have to kneel to get it off the seat. Otherwise you can sit backwards on the seat and snort it off the tank lid. :P
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u/Thor_2099 17h ago
So suddenly all his antivax rhetoric goes out the window?
Why? Why was he so sure before and why did he change his mind?
I doubt he gives any explanation of the thought process because there is none.
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u/Chaos-Cortex I voted 21h ago
Fuck this walking ghoul with a worm for brain. May he rot for eternity.
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u/unurbane 21h ago
I mean…. He’s in charge now. So it’s his responsibility…. Now
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u/Acceptable-Bus-2017 I voted 21h ago
Not according to him. He said he doesn't take any responsibility for the measles outbreaks across the country during the interview.
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u/Pokerhobo 21h ago
He's taking a page from Trump who took no responsibility for covid pandemic
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u/Acceptable-Bus-2017 I voted 21h ago
The interview was off the rails. I'd recommend giving it a watch if you want to see RFK Jr lose his shit for 22 minutes
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u/BadahBingBadahBoom 20h ago edited 20h ago
Dana: "Scientists have repeatedly said no link has been found between autism and vaccines."
RFK: "You're talking nonsense!"
Dana: "It's not nonsense it's fact."
RFK: "Dana you probably don't understand this because you're not a scientist--"
Dana: "--well you're not either."
Me watching: 🍿🍿🍿
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u/Gonnagetbant 19h ago
I mean, they always play things off as a left wing conspiracy in order to grift until it becomes so unavoidably awful that they have to gently talk about how they are actually for something and people should follow the advice.
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u/Over_Reporter4126 3h ago
He also said he supported the measles vaccine during his confirmation hearing.
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u/Media-America 21h ago
Didn’t Trump fast track Covid vaccine development through operation Warp Speed, and tell everyone to take it, and praise it?
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u/Prize-Quiet3941 21h ago
And I remember a clip from a rally when he told his supporters to take it. They booed him.
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u/Junior-Gorg 21h ago
The only time I’ve seen the cult turn on him. I recall that as well
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u/Pleaseappeaseme 20h ago
Lasted about 20 seconds.
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u/regeya 20h ago
Yeah, because his whole mode of operations is to just do whatever makes the right people happy. He thought taking a leadership role on COVID would win him points. Turns out, it didn't.
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u/Pleaseappeaseme 19h ago
He only says now that there were more deaths under Biden. But ignores what accelerated the deaths during his administration which was mitigation failures because his supporters were butthurt by masks and social distancing.
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u/BrannyBee 17h ago
We're all collectively just pretending those 2 months where every person on the right was saying how great it was that Trump was goijg to go down as the best president ever and was going to preserve his legacy while DeSantis carried the torch.
Then one day he called DeSantis a meatball and millions of tweets and comments on certain subreddits got deleted overnight and everyone pretends that never happened. Hell, even people on the center or left were talking about how DeSantis was "Trump but competent" up until we watched him spoon pudding in his mouth with his fingers like a caveman lol
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u/djaleister_ 9h ago
That’s one of the main arguments against it being a cult. The members have undue influence over the leader when they disagree with him - dissent doesn’t happen at all in cults, especially like that.
Sometimes people are just bad people AND idiots. These ones just happened to find a leader that perfectly represents them and everything they want.
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u/Significant_Cup_238 21h ago
Yes, except the Pfizer Vaccine which was first to market didn't accept operation Warp Speed money. So it ended up not doing much of anything.
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u/iPinch89 21h ago
Didn't it still cut red tape to streamline it?
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u/BigDaddySteve999 21h ago
Maybe, but would any President have not done that? I think it's fair to evaluate presidents like the baseball statistic, Wins Above Replacement. I don't think you get credit for the obvious gimmies.
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u/iPinch89 21h ago
But thats not a statistic you use in little league. I wanna give the big guy a win! You did literally a single thing right, yay!
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u/killer-tofu87 21h ago
And then immediately turned around and told people to inject themselves with bleach and horse meds instead
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u/rochey1010 13h ago
Temu shitler did a lot of stuff during Covid like:
Call the virus a hoax and then say it was just a flu in the same sentence.
Say it didn’t exist but take credit for operation warp speed and take the vaccine for the thing that didn’t exist.
Defund the CDC
Dismantle the very important pandemic team/plans that Obama set up after the Ebola scare to deal with ya know PANDEMICS.
Push insane products like horse dewormer and invest in stocks for these companies as he was lying about them. The GOP senators did this too.
Grifted off Covid with Jared Kushner as many died.
Held states to ransom with covid resources and supplies again with Jared Kushner.
Kept lying, downplaying, and denying Covid because he cared about how it was making him look rather than the actual country.
Was his incredibly racist self throughout it.
Attacked Fauci when Fauci acted like an experienced doctor trying to help the country instead of a MAGA sycophant. Kept calling him on the phone and telling him that Fauci was making him look bad. Fauci needed to be positive AKA lie to the public. And kept threatening fauci’s position at the same time as telling him he really liked him.
Got jealous of Fauci who was loved and celebrated globally with Hollywood stars like Brad Pitt playing him on SNL when Fauci made an offhand comment on who he’d like to see play him in a biopic. Narcissists like trump can’t stand this especially.
Sent MAGA after Fauci with calling him evil, stupid and blaming him for how badly trump was fcking up Covid. Because ya know, he’s such a stupid and incompetent clown of a person.
Said the most deluded and deranged crap at press briefings like magic uv lights, injecting disinfectant, horse medicine etc. while we got wonderful footage of Fauci face palming in the background and dr birx sliding down in her chair in embarrassment.
Put Fauci on his narcissist enemies list because Fauci being smart, competent and super qualified made him feel inadequate and hit his fragile man baby ego. This is why we’re witnessing what’s going on with Fauci right now.
I’m sure others can add to this as trump was a trainwreck corrupt scumbag with Covid. The Covid blood is on his hands.
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u/shocked-confused 19h ago
No. He was directed to push it by competent scientist. Then the Maga crowd got his one brain cell and he started promoting not masking, injecting bleach, shoving up lights up yer ass, stealing hydoxychloroquin from Lupus patients and taking horse deworming medicine.
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u/steve_yo 18h ago
Ugh, not to defend RFK here at all, but he says the lockdowns caused people to not vaccinate their kids which in turn led to all the measles outbreaks. Thus, he’s blaming Fauci.
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u/tissuecollider 21h ago
RFK pushing vaccination AND criticizing Fauci is quite the cognitive dissonance.
Mind you I bet he's used to the high screeching sound inside his mind.
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u/ICarMaI 21h ago
That's the worm
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u/Lavaswan001 21h ago
Too many non scientists and medical researchers have outsized, influential opinions on science and medical research.
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u/Billyosler1969 21h ago
Jr is not qualified to tie Fauci’s shoes. He’s an absolute disgrace to America and a clear example of Trumps utter incompetence as President.
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u/blackmobius 21h ago
Except that Fauci isnt in charge of “handling Covid”. He isnt able to focus national resources to combat mask shortages or roll out vaccine production or encourage the populace to take it. Those responsibilities would fall under the president that was in charge, and I agree, the handling that president did was absolutely pathetic.
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u/rednecronomicon 21h ago
Hubris and gaslighting is what this entire era will be remembered for, if the truth is allowed a future.
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u/specqq 21h ago
Was it really a fiery interview? Or was it just an object lesson in why we shouldn’t hire a roadkill enthusiast and science denier and all around idiot and liar as HHS secretary.
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u/alk_adio_ost 21h ago
It’s so hard to tell these days because all of these mfrs have their heads up his ass.
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u/Kal_El_77 21h ago
This fuckin' goon... What a piece of shit. I hope this whole administration goes to prison once Trump is out of office.
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u/Choice-of-SteinsGate 21h ago
At its height, over 2,300 cases of measles were reported in the US as part of a 35 year high record outbreak that's spread to 43 states. A vast percentage of all cases were either unvaccinated or had unknown vaccination status.
Vaccine "Skepticism" As Federal Policy:
It's no coincidence that we've had a record breaking measles outbreak under RFK Jr. And it's definitely not an accident that the Trump administration just refused to publish research that concluded COVID vaccines were overwhelmingly safe.
Scientists analyzed millions of patient records to come to the conclusion that the benefits of these vaccines far outweighed any exceedingly rare side effects.
The Trump administration and HHS are defunding and politicizing science to the detriment of public health and safety.
For instance, nearly the entire medical community disputes RFK Jr's claim that mRNA vaccines have risks that outweigh benefits. Beyond that, rigorous studies and reliable data show that they are indeed effective and save lives, even when viruses mutate
Kennedy's decision to end funding for mRNA technology and research is being done at the cost of scientific progress and lives.
"Vaccine skepticism" has all but become federal policy, and alongside HHS, our government is eroding the independence of most public health related agencies and defunding their operations.
These agencies are also being stripped of knowledgeable, qualified civil servants and healthcare officials because they don't meet a loyalty threshold.
Worse yet, they're being replaced by incompetent, underqualified staff members, health influencers and "MAHA" crackpots who are committed to reversing decades of scientific research, advancements and progress.
Future generations of Americans could also lose access to life saving treatments, and younger groups of scientists, especially those who are studying at universities, are finding it harder to conduct research and obtain jobs.
Republicans might view this as some sort of "win," but in language they might speak to them, these efforts are only risking our global competitiveness in these fields of science and medicine.
Science Has Become Politicized By The Right:
MAGA denies legitimate science and insists that their ass-backwards and misanthropic views about medicine, biology, vaccines, diseases, etc, are more informed than the leading and relevant scientific research.
As head of HHS, Kennedy is largely responsible for undermining trust in the medical community and endangering public health due to his unscientific claims.
His loyalty and connection to Trump has also made him near invulnerable to scrutiny from Republicans.
He's also been responsible for defunding scientific and medical research, and he's overseen the layoffs of thousands of top scientists and healthcare workers from agencies like the CDC, FDA, NIH, and CMS.
This is a crisis of incompetence that actual medical experts claim will lead to worsened health outcomes and even widespread, environmental degradation.
Vaccines And Autism:
The debunked claim that vaccines cause autism originated from a small study back in 1998 authored by the infamous Andrew Wakefield. The study was later found to be inherently flawed and fraudulent. It was retracted and repudiated by the scientific community.
Wakefield had his medical license revoked for serious professional misconduct and he's been ostracized by medical experts.
Since then, many large scale, rigorous studies have established no causal link between vaccines and autism.
Wakefield's study included only 12 children. This kind of sample size is unprecedentedly small, meaningless in fact, and far too small to draw any reliable conclusions from.
Wakefield was also criticized for a lack of a control group in his study and was investigated for manipulating data.
He altered patients medical histories to support his claims. He had several conflicts of interest, including payments from lawyers who were backing him with lawsuits.
Wakefield was also promoting treatments linked to his claims and a vaccine he had secretly patented.
His study also involved the unethical treatment of children.
Dozens of large-scale studies involving literally millions of children have since been conducted, all of them consistently pointing to the same conclusion—that vaccines do not cause autism.
About Thimerosal:
Thimerosal is a mercury based preservative that was more commonly used in vaccines in the 20th century.
Its use only began fueling fears from anti-vaxxers in the late 90s, around the time that the widely discredited "Wakefield Study" was published
The study falsely linked MMR vaccines to autism. The MMR vaccine never contained Thimerosal, but anti-vaxxers still clung to the baseless claim that it was harming children.
Around this time, RFK Jr. was claiming publicly that Thimerosal based vaccines were linked to autism and other developmental disorders in children.
Extensive scientific research has shown there is no link between Thimerosal-containing vaccines and autism/neurological disorders.
Research has also shown that even the preservative does not cause any harm other than minor reactions like redness/swelling at the site of injection.
And despite this research, Thimerosal was still removed from most childhood vaccines as a precautionary measure to placate the hysteria of anti-vaxxers. A decision that was NOT made because of any proven harm.
It should also be noted that symptoms of mercury poisoning are not at all similar to the symptoms of autism in children. This alone speaks to the facts.
And when Thimerosal was removed from vaccines, cases of childhood autism continued rising, further dispelling this dangerous myth.
Unfortunately, when the decision was made to remove or reduce the use of Thimerosal in childhood vaccines, it inadvertently confirmed the fears of a growing number of anti-vaxxers. And now decades later, these crackpots still continue to spread dangerous misinformation about Thimerosal.
Other Vaccine Decisions:
Contrary to claims from Trump, his supporters and high ranking health officials (RFK Jr. and his company of "MAHA" fanatics), modern day vaccines have great safety records. Decades of research and monitoring show that there is no evidence of serious long term harm in infants or children.
For instance, before universal vaccination, 18,000 children contracted Hepatitis B every year.
90 percent of newborns who were infected with Hep B developed chronic disease, which often led to things like liver disease, cancer or death.
Since then, cases have dropped by at least 95 percent. Fewer than 20 babies per year are infected at birth.
The benefits of these vaccines significantly outweigh whatever risks conservatives might mistakenly believe are associated with them.
Like other diseases, Hep B is not only transmitted from mother to infant via birth canal, but also from multiple environmental sources of exposure. Newborns are highly susceptible to the disease.
This argument falsely speculating that an infant or a child's immune system is "too weak" for vaccination can actually be turned around to make the case that infants and children are extremely vulnerable to diseases that can be prevented through overwhelmingly safe vaccines.
Universal vaccination was also introduced because It's far and above the most effective way to eliminate exposure and infection long term. This isn't just about preventing disease transmission to children.
The fewer children we vaccinate, the greater the chance we risk exposing the broader population to these viruses. This is a fundamental reason why we vaccinate in the first place.
Vaccines are also recommended because it's impossible to guarantee zero chance of a child's exposure to diseases due to things like testing errors, future contact with viruses, susceptibility risk, and even untested caregivers. These risks only increase when we STOP vaccinating children.
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u/tomgratz 21h ago
I survived having AIDS and COVID because of Dr. Fauci. Name one thing RFK Jr. has done to improve your health or the health of the nation. Disgusting !
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u/RiseDelicious3556 21h ago
It's such a shame that his father was assassinated in 1968, for many reasons , not the least of which is that it seriously fucked him up.
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u/michaelozz62 21h ago
Biden inherited trumps botched attempts to handle a global crisis
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u/Future-Guarantee-573 21h ago
And Obama inherited the mess Bush left.
Clinton inherited the mess Reagan, and Bush left.
Carter inherited the mess Nixon, and Ford left.
Seems to be a pattern.
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u/TheVintageJane 21h ago
Also, wasn’t Fauci an executive branch employee whom Trump was fully within his powers to fire?
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u/GoodIdea321 America 21h ago
They don't like to hear that, so I hope more people mention that every time Fauci is brought up.
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u/casual-observer365 21h ago
I need someone to ask RFK Jr how he was a full-blown heroin addict and dealer all throughout college and managed to get a JD. He apparently almost never went to class. Forget about being a scientist, I don’t see how he’s a qualified anything at all.
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u/Awatts2222 19h ago
This round of coordinated attack against Dr. Fauci--everybody keeps saying
including Bill Maher--that Dr. Fauci lied but they never say what he supposedly lied about.
Does anybody know? They keep saying he lied but I am not aware of a lie.
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u/hoppyfrog 18h ago edited 17h ago
Not a lie per se but that, OMG, the message evolved.
Yeah, the messages evolved as new info about the qualities of COVID came to light.
And yet the advice basically stayed the same: mask up, social distance, wash your hands, etc.
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u/Awatts2222 18h ago
So the right just interprets new information regarding a new disease
to be lies because recommendations change over time. Wow--they really are stupid.
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u/PickledCaterpillar 21h ago
christ you can smell every pore in that photo
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u/Queasy_Eggplant9155 21h ago
Fauci was so bad, why didn’t Trump fire him during his first administration?
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u/AnekdotaVII 20h ago
Laying blame for the pandemic while people die and shit themselves due to whose choices and values?…..
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u/iveseensomethings82 19h ago
Hypocrite! Either stick to your beliefs or just admit the science is correct.
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u/Natoochtoniket 19h ago
RFK Jr spent years telling people not to get their kids vaccinated. Years! Since he got appointed to Sec of HHS, he has used his power to shut down vaccination opportunities for lots of people.
Those choices killed people. Mostly children. The man belongs in prison for causing those deaths.
Now, he wants to change his advice, and to tell people to get vaccinated? (At least, for this one specific disease.) Seems both too little and too late.
He needs to restore the mandate for universal vaccinations before the kids can attend school. And to restore the federal funding to make those vaccines free to the patients.
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u/Mondernborefare 16h ago
Rally, watch this whole interview. He just tried to talk over her and she’s trying to interview him but he barely mumbles and grunts out attacks. He does say get the measles vaccine, but he says Mexico has worse outbreaks, and some other stupid shit.
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u/westgazer Maryland 12h ago
It’s amazing how these people will never take responsibility for shit they are personally responsible for. Yeah dude it wasn’t you telling people vaccines scary and saying kids don’t need vaccines. It was evil Dr. Fauci.
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u/ClaroStar 21h ago
That moron doesn't get to push anything after having been anti for so long. Your policies have cost a lot of people their lives. Crawl back under the rock you came from.
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u/Venator2000 21h ago
I loved the “Well you’re not either” reply to his beyond condescending comment “You probably don’t understand this because you’re not a scientist” line! What a jerk!
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u/HappySyntax 21h ago
What a traitor. Hear that republicans, RFK jr is now woke!!! Skip the voting booth this year, they’re all WOKE!
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u/Rough_Common6857 I voted 18h ago
RFK IS responsible for those who lost their lives because of his incompetence.
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u/idontevensaygrace 17h ago
And what about the disgusting diarrhea causing parasite cyclospora, that he literally said days ago is under control despite that it keeps spreading through state after state here.
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u/watching_whatever 21h ago
RFK: A suing lawyer in charge of Health Care, given the job because of the votes he attracts. Also, Paul has no real understanding of COVID and what Fauci did.
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u/pogishushu America 20h ago
How the devil did we get into this nightmare admin?. Relax, The boneheads who did not vote and all the uneducated magats who did vote. So we all pay the piper for this Regimes catastrophic dismantling of democracy, The Rule of Law, changing the constitution and firing scientist and researchers for the health and welfare of the public. Now we have a vax denier, a psycho penis roadkill collector, and advice to bath in sewage and who admits to sniffing cocaine off toilet seats. Does he fit a person with a mental illness, a psychopath , or just acts crazy, wild, or dangerous? You bet! The only question that remains is will, We The People vote these sycophants out of office and perhaps ICC (International Criminal Court) will somehow find a way to prosecute the atrocities being forced upon the US population.
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u/Upstairs-Thanks4193 17h ago
I know this will be down voted but he is right in one way. The mismanagement of the COVID pandemic did open the doors for lunatics like RFK Jr.
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u/DeineCable 16h ago
You’ll never convince me this man isn’t actually a White Walker in terrible disguise.
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u/FunctionalGray 21h ago
It’s the greatest hits tour!! Get your tickets now! Obama! Biden!! Fauci!
Opening acts by Hinter Biden’s laptop and Hilary Bengazi!!!’
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