In the final days of the presidential campaign, former President Donald Trump and some of his top allies have increasingly adopted and spread the anti-vaccine rhetoric typically associated with former independent presidential candidate and vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Misinformation about vaccines has not been a focal point of Trump’s 2024 campaign, but recently Kennedy’s influence and the large role he could play in the Trump administration have come to the fore.
At an event Thursday night in Arizona with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Kennedy, Trump said Kennedy wanted to “look” at pesticides and vaccines in a potential Trump administration and was more than happy to give him carte blanche.
“He can do whatever he wants,” Trump said.
“He really wants to deal with pesticides and, you know, different things. I said, he can do it,” Trump told Carlson. “He can do anything he wants. He wants to look into vaccinations. He wants everything. I think it’s great. I think it’s great.”
He also said Kennedy would “work on health and women’s health.”
During an interview with popular podcast host Joe Rogan that aired Thursday morning, Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance expressed his doubts about the Covid vaccine, saying it was a “red step,” a term borrowed from “The Matrix.” by some to explain their awareness of conspiracies in the community.
“I got the vax and, you know, it didn’t make me stronger or anything, but really the moment I started taking the red pill on the whole vax thing was the sickest I’ve been in 15 years. That’s when I got the vaccine,” Vance said.
“I’ve had five covids at this point. I was in bed for two days, my heart was pounding, like I’m not even allowed to talk about it. , a serious injury, but to even talk about the fact that I’ve been sicker than I’ve ever been in two days and the worst covid experience I’ve ever had was like a sinus infection Even if we are not allowed, I don’t want to trade it,” the senator added.
It is unclear when Vance was vaccinated and whether it was before he contracted Covid. His spokesman did not respond to a request for clarification.
Vance is a young, healthy adult, and if he had been vaccinated before the infection, his immune system would have been ready to fight the virus, doctors said. Common side effects of vaccines can include flu-like symptoms for a day and then usually go away.
Although almost all Americans are protected to some degree from Covid through vaccination or infection or both, there were 29 times more unvaccinated people in the first year after the vaccines were introduced. more likely to be hospitalized with the virus. In July 2021, as Covid cases, hospitalizations and deaths increased, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that “pandemic of the unvaccinated.”
The idea that the effects of the Covid vaccine are worse than the effects of the actual virus is something Kennedy said, and it’s a theory that has been widely debunked.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said regularly That the worst side effects of the Covid vaccines are no worse than the potential effects of the Covid virus. And while Covid increases the virus, Covid vaccines do not increase the risk of death.
In an interview with NBC News in February, Kennedy would not say whether he would allow the Food and Drug Administration to approve certain Covid vaccines on an emergency basis.
“I would say they have to do the science to show that the vaccine will prevent more problems than it actually causes,” Kennedy said.
Trump and Vance’s announcements this week come as the two have publicly embraced Kennedy himself for months. In August, he suspended his independent presidential campaign and endorsed Trump.
Since then he hit the campaign trail along with other fringe members of the political scene, such as former Democratic Republican Tulsi Gabbard, urging supporters to vote for Trump.
And earlier this week, Kennedy told the participants of the event Trump promised to “oversee” public health agencies like the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Agriculture if elected, the former president said.
It was a claim that Howard Lutnick, co-chairman of the Trump-Vance transition team, did not deny. When asked by CNN On Wednesday, Kennedy said whether he was right to say he would lead public health agencies in a potential Trump administration. Lutnick also adopted Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism.
“I spent two and a half hours with Bobby Kennedy Jr. this week and it was the most extraordinary thing,” Lutnick told CNN. “I said tell me. How will it be?” And he said: ‘Why don’t you just listen to my explanation'”.
Lutnik continued the discussion refuted conspiracy theories linking vaccines to autism and accusing the National Institutes of Health of taking money from pharmaceutical companies in exchange for vaccinating babies.
Kennedy has linked autism to vaccines for years, even though numerous authoritative studies over the past few decades have shown that vaccines are not linked to autism and not vaccinating children can harm them.
In a statement to NBC News on Thursday, Trump campaign spokeswoman Caroline Leavitt stressed that there are still “no official decisions” about positions in a potential administration, but Trump said he will “work with passionate voices like RFK Jr. to make America. Their families safe.” let’s get healthy again by providing food and ending the chronic disease epidemic that plagues our children,” he says about type 2 diabetes.
“President Trump will also create a special presidential commission of independent thinkers to investigate the decades-long rise in chronic disease,” he said.
“The only thing President Trump and his campaign team are focused on is winning on November 5th,” Trump campaign adviser Jason Miller said in a statement Friday. plays an important role”.
As president, Trump celebrated Operation Warp Speed, a public-private partnership to get Covid vaccines to Americans faster than the normal vaccine approval process.
“Before Operation Warp Speed, as you know, the typical time frame for development and approval could be infinite. And we were very, very fortunate to be able to do things at a level that no one had seen before. The gold standard vaccine in less than nine months prepared”, – Trump he said in 2020 at an event marking the vaccine’s upcoming emergency approval.
Two people close to the Trump campaign told NBC News this week that Kennedy could spearhead “Warp Speed Surgery for Childhood Chronic Illness”.
At an event with Trump on Thursday, Kennedy said Trump “didn’t want me take the vaccines of people.”
“If you want to get a vaccine, you have to be able to take it,” Kennedy said. “We believe in free choice in this country, but you have to know the risks and benefits of anything you take.”