{"id":25470,"date":"2026-08-02T19:39:45","date_gmt":"2026-08-02T14:39:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=25470"},"modified":"2026-08-02T19:39:45","modified_gmt":"2026-08-02T14:39:45","slug":"rfk-jr-and-dana-bash-battle-in-fiery-cnn-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=25470","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr. and Dana Bash Battle in Fiery CNN Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script>\r\n  atOptions = {\r\n    'key' : '644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6',\r\n    'format' : 'iframe',\r\n    'height' : 90,\r\n    'width' : 728,\r\n    'params' : {}\r\n  };\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script src=\"https:\/\/www.highperformanceformat.com\/644b717812d811d6a1c1fc5b6ccd6fa6\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div id=\"post-body\">\n<p><strong>Robert F. Kennedy Jr<\/strong>. melted down and berated CNN\u2019s <strong>Dana Bash<\/strong> in a wild brawl over Dr. <strong>Anthony Fauci<\/strong>, President <strong>Donald Trump<\/strong>, and vaccines.<\/p>\n<p>In a marathon battle on CNN\u2019s <em>State of the Union<\/em> Sunday, the HHS Secretary \u2014 a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/politics\/fauci-recalls-confronting-rfk-jr-after-vaccine-presentation-i-dont-know-whats-going-on-in-his-head\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">years-long Fauci critic<\/a> who has <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/media\/rfk-jr-says-fauci-prioritized-getting-tv-over-public-health-after-revealing-diary-release\">ramped up his attacks<\/a> in recent days \u2014 defended Trump\u2019s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic despite the fact that Trump kept Fauci in a position of power. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have been placing nearly all the blame on the COVID pandemic and the way that the U.S. Responded to it squarely with Dr. Fauci,\u201d Bash told Kennedy. \u201cBut of course, he worked for President Trump. Does President Trump also deserve some of the blame?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cPresident Trump, as you recall, wanted to end lockdowns,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cI think the thing that did the most damage to our country was the lockdowns, the lockdown that shut down 3.5 million businesses in our country with no due process, no just compensation. All of our churches closed, our schools, and our children are still paying the price for that. And yet we had the worst outcome of any country in the world \u2026 We have the highest death rate from COVID of any nation on earth.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bash fact-checked Kennedy. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s not accurate,\u201d Bash said. \u201cBecause public health experts say that there is a combination of factors that went into that, higher rates of chronic illnesses, which I know you would agree with, gaps to our health care system, and misinformation about vaccines.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy doubled-down.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou just said what I said was inaccurate,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cWhat I said was accurate. We had the highest death rate from COVID of any place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bash noted that, \u201cthere are other countries that had higher\u201d \u2014 and indeed <a href=\"https:\/\/coronavirus.jhu.edu\/data\/mortality\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Johns Hopkins data<\/a> shows there are 13 countries which had a higher COVID death rate. <\/p>\n<p>Kennedy circled back to defend Trump after Bash followed-up. But the interview really got heated when Bash asked Kennedy how he\u2019s preparing for the next pandemic. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need to protect our constitutional rights, that is the primary obligation of our country,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cDuring COVID, we completely dismantled our constitutional rights. We began censoring people in violation of the First Amendment.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cForgive me, but you\u2019re just you\u2019re talking about rights, and I\u2019m asking about a potential public health crisis,\u201d Bash said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd one of the mistakes we made in the last time was suppressing those rights so people weren\u2019t being heard,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cDoctors who were saying, you\u2019re doing it wrong, were being marginalized and vilified.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bash tried to switch topics, but Kennedy sniped at her. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really want to move on,\u201d Bash said. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cOf course you want to move on, \u2019cause you were part of the problem!\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cNo I wasn\u2019t part of the problem!\u201d Bash shot back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was absolute press malpractice,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cYou weren\u2019t doing your job, and your job is a fierce skepticism toward authority. You weren\u2019t doing that. You were beating up on people who were dissenting.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDo you want to sit here and attack me or do you want to have conversations about public health?\u201d Bash asked.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou\u2019re attacking me!\u201d Kennedy replied.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019m not attacking you!\u201d Bash responded. \u201cI\u2019m asking questions about how to prevent the next pandemic. That\u2019s what I\u2019m trying to do. But I also don\u2019t want to use this interview to allow you to say things that aren\u2019t entirely true. You\u2019re talking about therapeutics. Fine. It is also factually true that the COVID vaccine worked. The COVID vaccine prevented deaths. There is data, upon data, upon data.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy took issue with that.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: You think the COVID vaccine protected children?<\/p>\n<p>BASH: I think that what I have to talked to scientists and doctors\u2014<\/p>\n<p>KENNEDY: Can you show me one study that shows that children were protected by the COVID vaccine?<\/p>\n<p>BASH: I can!\u2026I can tell you that when it comes to the vaccine there have been studies that show that because of vaccine disinformation, disinformation there could have been a hundred to two hundred thousand lives in the U.S. saved. But because people didn\u2019t get the vaccine that\u2019s why \u2014 I\u2019m not saying that it entirely\u2026 let me finish!<\/p>\n<p>KENNEDY: You are saying nonsense! You are saying something that you cannot show me a single study that says that.<\/p>\n<p>BASH: I am not saying nonsense! Excuse me! Excuse me!<\/p>\n<p>KENNEDY: Cite me the study! What study?!<\/p>\n<p>BASH: What studies are you talking about? You\u2019re actually talking about studies that actually don\u2019t exist!<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The first half of the interview wrapped with Kennedy accusing CNN of \u201cscaring people.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLet me just say, for the record, that I am not saying that the entire way that the COVID reaction was accurate,\u201d Bash said. \u201cIt was a scary time and people made mistakes. Absolutely.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou were scaring people!\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhy are you saying that?\u201d Bash said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBecause that was the job of CNN!\u201d Kennedy shot back.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOK stop!\u201d Bash said. She added, \u201cWe were listening to the leaders in this country, including the president who had a daily press conference, explaining what was going on and trying to listen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And that was just the first part of this stunning debate \u2014 which raged on for 21 minutes. We will cover the second part of the fiery battle shortly.<\/p>\n<p>Watch above, via CNN.<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>New: The Mediaite One-Sheet &#8220;Newsletter of Newsletters&#8221;<\/strong><br \/>Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/subscribe\">Subscribe now!<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><script type=\"text\/javascript\">\n!function(f,b,e,v,n,t,s){if(f.fbq)return;n=f.fbq=function(){n.callMethod?\nn.callMethod.apply(n,arguments):n.queue.push(arguments)};if(!f._fbq)f._fbq=n;\nn.push=n;n.loaded=!0;n.version='2.0';n.queue=[];t=b.createElement(e);t.async=!0;\nt.src=v;s=b.getElementsByTagName(e)[0];s.parentNode.insertBefore(t,s)}(window,\ndocument,'script','https:\/\/connect.facebook.net\/en_US\/fbevents.js');\n<\/script><br \/>\n<br \/><script async=\"async\" data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"https:\/\/pl30214220.effectivecpmnetwork.com\/9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\/invoke.js\"><\/script>\r\n<div id=\"container-9ab3d4df8a7e1a6171e16ddbf732cc19\"><\/div>\r\n<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Robert F. Kennedy Jr. melted down and berated CNN\u2019s Dana Bash in a wild brawl over Dr. Anthony Fauci, President Donald Trump, and vaccines. In a marathon battle on CNN\u2019s State of the Union Sunday, the HHS Secretary \u2014 a years-long Fauci critic who has ramped up his attacks in recent days \u2014 defended Trump\u2019s&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25471,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/State-of-the-Union-With-Jake-Tapper-and-Dana-Bash-9-20-48-am-2026-08-02.jpg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25470","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsweek-trending"],"brizy_media":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25470","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25470"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25470\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/25471"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25470"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25470"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25470"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}