{"id":26169,"date":"2026-08-03T14:50:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-03T09:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=26169"},"modified":"2026-08-03T14:50:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-03T09:50:26","slug":"cnn-posts-scathing-fact-check-on-rfk-jrs-stunning-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/?p=26169","title":{"rendered":"CNN Posts Scathing Fact-Check on RFK Jr&#8217;s Stunning 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>CNN posted a scathing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2026\/08\/02\/politics\/rfk-jr-fauci-medical-misinformation?cid=ios_app\">fact-check article<\/a> immediately after <strong>Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s<\/strong> stunningly contentious interview on Sunday\u2019s <em>State of the Union<\/em>, claiming the Health and Human Services chief pushed \u201cmedical misinformation\u201d during his appearance.<\/p>\n<p>Anchor <strong>Dana Bash<\/strong> grappled with Kennedy for 22-minutes about autism, measles, and Covid, with Kennedy accusing Bash of \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/media\/news\/youre-talking-nonsense-rfk-jr-berates-cnns-bash-in-fiery-22-minute-brawl-on-fauci-trump-and-vaccines\/\">saying nonsense<\/a>\u201d when she pushed back on his medical inaccuracies and attempts to politicize how the U.S. is planning for the next pandemic.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn attempting to rewrite the history of the US Covid-19 response, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Sunday pinned the blame for pandemic lockdowns on Dr. <strong>Anthony Fauci<\/strong>, while simultaneously reviving a string of debunked assertions about vaccines, RSV and measles,\u201d the CNN article by <strong>Aileen Graef<\/strong> and <strong>Katherine Dillinger<\/strong> began.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAs HHS secretary, Kennedy\u2019s skepticism of mainstream science is no longer just outsider rhetoric; it now shapes official federal policy,\u201d the article continued. \u201cHis efforts to reframe the pandemic\u2019s legacy come as the US battles its worst measles resurgence in more than three decades \u2014 a crisis experts warn is fueled directly by the type of vaccine misinformation and institutional distrust Kennedy amplified during the broadcast.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The article referred to Bash\u2019s interview with\u00a0Dr. <strong>Ashish Jha<\/strong> that she conducted immediately after the marathon Kennedy session. Jha served\u00a0as the White House Covid-19 response coordinator under President <strong>Joe Biden<\/strong> from 2022 to 2023, and condemned Kennedy\u2019s false claims.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere was a lot of information that secretary Kennedy said that it just isn\u2019t true. Just factually not true,\u201d Jha said.<\/p>\n<p>When addressing Kennedy\u2019s claims about vaccines and autism, Jha said, \u201cThis has been an issue that we have settled over and over again. There is zero link between vaccines and autism. This stuff does get a little tiresome.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On measles, Dr. Jha said, \u201cThe truth is\u00a0that the last two years we\u2019ve had more measles cases than the entire rest of the 21st century, the cases combined than the last two.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Jha said he didn\u2019t think it was a coincidence that the outbreak happened after the Trump administration stopped actively promoting vaccines.<\/p>\n<p>Bash, then asked about gain of function research, \u201cwhich is, you go into a lab, and you take a disease and you give it mutations in order to see what happens, to try to come up with potential help for it, vaccines for it, in the future. He said that RSV and Covid came from gain of function research.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cFirst of all, no, RSV did not come from any gain of function research. Obviously, Covid remains controversial,\u201d Jha said, adding, \u201cI have come to conclude that [Covid] is more likely to have been a lab leak.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Watch the clip 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>CNN posted a scathing fact-check article immediately after Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s stunningly contentious interview on Sunday\u2019s State of the Union, claiming the Health and Human Services chief pushed \u201cmedical misinformation\u201d during his appearance. Anchor Dana Bash grappled with Kennedy for 22-minutes about autism, measles, and Covid, with Kennedy accusing Bash of \u201csaying nonsense\u201d when&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":26170,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.mediaite.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/RFK-Jr.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26169","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\/26169","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=26169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usnews-14267fa.ingress-comporellon.ewp.live\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}