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During an interview that aired Sunday on CNN, U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. disputed the claim that his policies have fueled measles outbreaks.
Instead, he fired back with questions about COVID-19 vaccine safety, the harm caused by pandemic-era policies and the media’s role in censoring anyone who criticized the vaccines or policies.
Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Kennedy and host Dana Bash sparred over measles, the safety of the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, the possible vaccine-autism link and gain-of-function research that may have led to the creation of COVID-19 in a lab.
Mary Holland, CEO of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), said the interview gave the public “a glimpse of the real-world controversies” around COVID-19, bioweapons, infectious diseases and vaccination.
“Fierce propaganda and censorship have swirled around these topics for decades,” Holland said.
The competing narratives advanced by Kennedy and the mainstream news media were a frequent source of contention during the interview. In one instance, Kennedy accused mainstream media outlets of “absolute press malpractice” during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“During COVID, we completely dismantled our constitutional rights. We began censoring people in violation of the First Amendment,” Kennedy told Bash.
.@SecKennedy NUKES @DanaBashCNN:
“I’m not debating this with you.”
“Of course you won’t. All you know how to do is repeat things that people told you and say, ‘Trust the experts!’ That’s what you did during Covid. Now we know that Anthony Fauci, who was the ‘expert,’ was… pic.twitter.com/IVRLJfDSZ6
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 2, 2026
Bash suggested Kennedy was spreading misinformation. “I’m not attacking you,” Bash said. “I’m asking questions about how to prevent the next pandemic. And I’ll tell you, that’s what I’m trying to do. But I also don’t want to use this interview to allow you to say things that aren’t entirely true,” she said.
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., CHD’s chief scientific officer, said Bash “couldn’t produce a single fact regarding anything discussed in the interview.”
“Whenever Secretary Kennedy talked about science, she’d deflect with comments like, ‘I’m not here to defend all the practices,’” Hooker said. “Kennedy, in contrast, was bold and showed scientific literacy. Every phrase he spoke was filled with technically accurate scientific information.”
Jeffrey Tucker, president and founder of the Brownstone Institute, called the interview “a genuine turning point in American public life,” tying it to Dr. Anthony Fauci’s congressional testimony last month, Fauci’s refusal to answer at least 111 questions during the hearing and the revelations contained in the newly released Fauci diaries.
“We are nowhere near the true reckoning that Americans deserve, but the momentum today is with the truthtellers, instead of the propagandists and censors,” Holland said. “Finally. It’s long overdue.”
CNN followed the interview by publishing an article fact-checking Kennedy’s statements and suggesting that he “pushes medical misinformation.”
But experts who spoke with The Defender provided their own take on the accuracy of Kennedy and Bash’s statements.
What’s really behind rise in measles cases?
Bash cited recent spikes in measles cases in several U.S. states, which she said have led to “a 35-year high” in the U.S. — the “second record-breaking year in a row,” she said.
She suggested the unvaccinated, spurred on by Kennedy’s “vaccine skepticism,” were to blame. “The outbreak is happening on your watch,” Bash said, asking Kennedy if he accepted “some responsibility.”
“Absolutely not,” Kennedy said. He called it “an international outbreak,” citing outbreaks in England, Canada and Mexico, which have recorded higher per capita levels than in the U.S.
Hooker said it was unfair to blame Kennedy and his policies or public positions on vaccination for a rise in measles cases in the U.S. or worldwide. Instead, he attributed the outbreaks to the decreasing effectiveness of the MMR vaccine.
“The measles vaccine is losing effectiveness as the virus mutates,” Hooker said.
According to Hooker, Bash’s claim that 93% of the measles cases occurred among the unvaccinated is also likely false. He said many cases are being attributed to patients whose vaccine status is listed as “unknown.” Those figures are then added to the “unvaccinated” category.
Hooker said:
“Information regarding vaccinated children who got measles in the Texas outbreak is obscured as the Texas Department of Health and Human Services looked at vaccinated versus a category called ‘unvaccinated or unknown vaccine status.’
“In this way, they could inflate the numbers of unvaccinated cases without really checking status.”
Kennedy suggested that declining MMR vaccination rates have contributed to a rise in measles cases — but said the decline began during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Kennedy said:
“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 is because of the COVID lockdowns — because children during that period did not get vaccinated. And in his diaries, he says this is going to cause massive outbreaks of measles and more children — he says this — are going to die.”
Hooker said this explanation is plausible. “Any ‘vaccine hesitancy’ caused by the secretary would be minimal compared to the full duration of COVID,” he said.
Kennedy said he has “never questioned the efficacy of the MMR vaccine,” and explained why. He said that unlike several other routine childhood vaccinations, the Institute of Medicine — now the National Academy of Medicine has studied the MMR vaccine for a possible association with autism.
“It’s the only one that has been studied,” Kennedy said.
Hooker said the MMR vaccine, at face value, demonstrates effectiveness, with “up to 93% protection.” However, he said the decision to get the measles shot should be based on a risk-benefit analysis, evaluating the risk of death from measles versus the risk of adverse reactions from the MMR vaccine that can lead to death.
“A purported five individuals died of the measles in the U.S. in the past 20 years, whereas the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System [VAERS] shows nearly 100 deaths due to the MMR vaccine in the same time period,” Hooker said.
RFK Jr.: Vaccine-autism link can’t be found if it isn’t studied
Turning to the possible vaccine-autism link, Bash suggested the science is settled, with “more than 40 studies involving 5.6 million people” concluding that no such link exists.
Kennedy pushed back. He said the Institute of Medicine, which “is the ultimate arbiter on vaccine safety, and which does not have an interest in this debate … says that none of the eight vaccines that are administered during the first six months of life have ever been studied for relationship to autism.”
On the contrary, the Institute of Medicine found an association between autism and two vaccines, Kennedy said.
“It found two studies, one on the DTP [diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis] vaccine that showed that it does cause autism, and one on the hepatitis B vaccine that again suggests that it does cause autism,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy defended efforts to study all possible causes of autism, including vaccines. “I’m trying to find out why has autism gone up so much,” Kennedy said.
Hooker said the “vast majority” of the childhood vaccination schedule “has never been studied by federal officials, scientists and those with federal or Pharma funding.”
However, recent independent studies “show a significant relationship between vaccine exposure and autism.”
RFK Jr.: COVID lockdowns ‘did the most damage’ to Americans’ health
A portion of the interview focused on COVID-19-era policies, with Bash defending lockdowns and other public health restrictions enacted during that period, and Kennedy suggesting that lockdowns “did the most damage” to Americans’ health.
Bash: “Covid was a scary time.”
RFK: “You were scaring people.”
Bash: “Why are you saying that?”
RFK: “Because that was the job of CNN. To put the chyrons up on how many people are dying to get people to believe a lie.” pic.twitter.com/oTItEWU7BR
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) August 2, 2026
“Our children are still paying the price for that,” Kennedy said. Despite the strict restrictions in much of the U.S. during the pandemic, the U.S. “had the worst outcome of any country in the world” in terms of COVID-19 deaths.
Hooker said Kennedy’s statement was generally accurate, noting that the U.S. was “among the worst of the developed nations in terms of mortality, with an estimated 1 million-plus deaths” during the pandemic. He said the U.S. “lagged behind leaders including Iceland, Denmark and Singapore,” which had a much lower death rate.
Internal medicine doctor Dr. Meryl Nass, founder of Door to Freedom, said Bash “refused to engage” with Kennedy on these issues, which she called “profound.”
“It has been said that something close to 50% of small businesses owned by Black people went under, and I think upwards of 25% of small businesses overall went under because of the pandemic. How could restaurants remain viable when they weren’t allowed to serve customers?” Nass asked.
RFK Jr.: Claim that COVID vaccines are safe, effective unsupported
Turning to the COVID-19 vaccines, Bash suggested they’ve been proven safe. It is “factually true that the COVID vaccine worked,” she said.
Kennedy disagreed, asking Bash to cite a study. “You’re making assertions you can’t support,” Kennedy said.
Hooker said the data show that the COVID-19 vaccines contributed to a significant rise in cardiac conditions, including myocarditis, in children. He said:
“The rate of myocarditis in children receiving the vaccine has been reported as nearly 1 in 1,000. In addition, up to 2% of individuals tested after receiving the COVID vaccine had evidence of muscle damage.
“Bash is also talking about data that was obtained right after children were vaccinated, which didn’t account for dramatically waning vaccine efficacy down into the negative range.”
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RFK Jr.: COVID, RSV, Lyme disease products of gain-of-function research
Kennedy suggested COVID-19 originated from laboratory research — specifically, gain-of-function research. He also suggested that other viruses may have resulted from such research.
“COVID-19 pandemic and many other global pandemics that we have, have come from gain-of-function research,” Kennedy said. “The RSV epidemic that we have that is the biggest killer of kids in this country today came from these kinds of experiments. Lyme disease almost certainly came from this kind of research,” Kennedy said.
Hooker agreed. He said evidence suggests that RSV resulted from “chimpanzee testing on the polio vaccine,” which then spread to humans. Similarly, Lyme disease spread from a biolab in Plum Island, New York — much like COVID-19 likely spread from China’s Wuhan Institute of Virology. Both viruses contained elements that were likely manmade.
Nass criticized gain-of-function research. “In terms of preparing a response to a pandemic, the worst thing you can do is try to create new, deadly microorganisms based on the theory that we need to know what can be created in order to defend against it,” she said.
Fauci’s diaries, public refusal to answer questions have ‘flipped the script’
Several experts suggested that despite CNN’s attacks on Kennedy, the interview marked a turning point in the news media’s narrative on COVID-19 and vaccine safety — and suggested that it is part of a broader narrative shift.
Experts pointed to a post on X by Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator under the Biden administration, endorsing the theory that COVID-19 resulted from a lab leak.
Sayer Ji, chairman of the Global Wellness Forum and founder of GreenMedInfo, said that mainstream scientists and news organizations can no longer ignore such narratives.
“The sheer volume of documented fact has finally outgrown the machinery built to suppress it,” Ji said. “Five years ago, that sentence would have gotten a private citizen throttled on every platform in the country. It is now said out loud by the man who ran the program.”
Tucker suggested that the release of Fauci’s diaries and his refusal to answer 111 questions during last week’s congressional hearing have “flipped the script.”
“What you see happening now is catharsis,” Tucker said. “There will be no more putting up with the usual incantations about experts and science that does not exist. Kennedy has been a major leader of the dissidents all along, and now is his moment.”
Related articles in The Defender
- RFK Jr. Demands Editors of Journal Defend ‘Concern’ About 2020 Vaccine Study
- Congress Asked Fauci at Least 111 Questions — Fauci Refused to Answer at Least 111 Times
- ‘I Am the Most Famous’: Fauci Basked in Media Spotlight, Newly Released Diaries Show
- RFK Jr. Rejects Blame for Measles Outbreak, Calls for Better Care After Texas Girls’ Deaths
- ‘Uncompromising and Relentless’: HHS to Study All Possible Causes of Autism, Including Vaccines
- From Chimpanzees to Children: The Origins of RSV — Respiratory Syncytial Virus
