'Roiling with conspiracy theories': RFK Jr.’s 'madness' abounds in New Yorker interview

10 July 2023

Much of the Democratic Party, from centrists to progressives, is rallying around President Joe Biden's 2024 reelection campaign. But Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., one of Biden's presidential primary challengers, has been enjoying favorable coverage in right-wing media. Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson has been praising Kennedy's anti-vaxxer views and applauding him as a thorn in the side of the Democratic establishment.

Many mainstream media outlets have avoided giving Kennedy a platform, as they view his anti-vaxxer claims as unscientific and dangerous. But The New Yorker's David Remnick interviewed him for an article published in Q&A form on July 7.

Although polite, Remnick isn't shy about asking some tough questions.

Remnick notes, "If there is a madness, slight or otherwise, in Kennedy's bid, it is not confined to his hubris. He is roiling with conspiracy theories: SSRIs like Prozac might be the reason for school shootings, vaccines cause autism. There are many."

At times during the interview, the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, Jr. and son of Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, Sr. (D-Massachusetts) sounds like a mainstream liberal — telling Remnick, "I'm a Kennedy Democrat. I believe in labor unions. I believe in a strong, robust middle class. I believe in racial justice, in policies that are going to actually help the lowest people on the totem pole."

But other times, the interview takes a much more MAGA-like turn when RKF Jr. describes COVID-19 vaccines as dangerous and blames vaccines for childhood autism.

The presidential candidate told Remnick, "I want good testing with the vaccines, and I want good science…. Well, you know, the scientists all, at one point, believed that the COVID vaccine prevented transmission. And…. I said, 'No, they don't prevent transmission, because I read the monkey studies in May of 2020, and I saw that the amount of the concentration of the virus in the nasal pharynx of the vaccinated monkey was identical to the unvaccinated monkeys. And I said, 'These vaccines should be dead in the water'…. I've read the science on autism…. If (autism) didn't come from the vaccines, then where is it coming from?"

Remnick pushes back against RFK, Jr.'s claims, noting that "vaccines have proved highly effective against the worst outcomes of COVID-19, including hospitalization and death." And he adds that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) "has reported that widespread vaccination in a population reduces the spread of the virus."

Remnick's full interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. continues at this link.

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