Trusting RFK Jr. Ends 'in Tears'

The CDC recently revised its language on vaccines and autism to suggest a possible link between them. During now-HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s confirmation hearing, he was asked by Senator Bill Cassidy to promise that he wouldn't change this wording, and it now seems the senator made a mistake in trusting Kennedy's word.

"They've left the heading about no link between vaccines and autism with an asterisk," Rich notes on today's edition of The Editors. But the text for the asterisk simply explains that they didn’t remove that specific header, “Vaccines do not cause autism,” due to an agreement with Cassidy.

Phil believes that, unfortunately, Cassidy wasn't duped. "I think he just made a political calculation, which makes it even worse." Phil thinks Cassidy might have been worried about his own reelection chances and that "whatever chance he has of getting reelected is demolished if he sinks one of Trump's nominees, who has a sort of cult following.

"So I think he made a calculation that he would just vote for him and then would hope for the best, and if RFK Jr. reverts to who he's been his whole life, then he'll come out and claim he was duped and is critical and so forth."

Noah agrees with Phil, saying he doesn't "think Senator Cassidy was fooled at all. I think he capitulated to political forces that he knew were going to come back to bite him and they have."

"So if Cassidy was sincere," says Rich, "he was very stupid. . . . RFK is so untrustworthy. And of course, this has ended in tears." Rich does "take Phil and Noah's point that Cassidy wasn't sincere here. He was making a calculation.

"But speaking of stupid, this is pretty stupid by RFK as well, just for his own purposes, because it's created this backlash that's totally unnecessary and symbolic because the verbiage on that page doesn't matter so much, at least doesn't matter as much as real concrete policy."

The Editors podcast is recorded on Tuesdays and Fridays every week and is available wherever you listen to podcasts.