RFK Jr., Bash clash in heated interview: ‘This is not productive’
The Hill · C · trust 56/100
Comments: by Tara Suter - 08/02/26 11:10 AM ET Comments: Link copied by Tara Suter - 08/02/26 11:10 AM ET Comments: Link copied NOW PLAYING Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and CNN’s Dana Bash clashed over vaccine safety and COVID-19 in a heated interview on Sunday.
The tension in the “State of the Union” interview began when Bash pushed back on a claim from Kennedy about the U.S. having “the highest death rate from COVID of any nation on earth.” Kennedy then reasserted his claim and took shots at Dr. Anthony Fauci, a longtime health official who was in the national spotlight during the pandemic, over lockdowns that occurred during the health emergency.
Bash then said state governors issued the lockdowns mostly after “hearing from hospitals saying that their ICUs were overrun and they needed some help.”
As the conversation went on, Kennedy made claims about how constitutional rights were violated during the pandemic and those who were critical of the COVID-19 response were censored. He alleged that Bash was “part of the problem,” stating that “there was absolute press malpractice” and that she was “beating up on people who were dissenting” during the pandemic.
“Are you going to — you want to sit here and attack me? Or do you want to have conversations about public health?” Bash responded.
“Well, you’re sitting here attacking me,” Kennedy said.
“I’m not attacking you, I’m asking questions about how to prevent the next pandemic,” Bash said, adding later that she didn’t “want to use this interview to allow you to say things that aren’t entirely true.”
Bash also brought up the COVID-19 vaccine, to which Kennedy, a noted vaccine skeptic, pressed her on if she thought “the COVID vaccine protected children.” The CNN anchor responded by pointing to what she said were findings that vaccine disinformation led to thousands of deaths, to which Kennedy accused her of “saying nonsense.”
The two then got into another heated back-and-forth. “This is not productive,” Bash said when the arguing died down.
“Let me just say, for the record, that I am not saying that the entire way that the COVID reaction was accurate,” Bash said. “It was a scary time, and people made mistakes.”
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