The Direct Line from RFK Jr. to the CDC Shooting

RFK Jr may not have pulled the trigger, but he identified the target, artificially inflamed the grievance, and provided implicit approval of the methods. Over the past twenty years, he has devoted himself to relentless attacks on vaccines and their promotion by CDC. The bullets that were intended for a mass killing of public health workers were not fired by Kennedy, but they were absolutely propelled by the rhetoric he and the team he has gathered around him have promulgated. One of those people stands out.

In July, Kennedy unilaterally fired a highly qualified vaccine advisory panel selected based on their vaccine-related expertise and replaced them with a largely unqualified panel selected based on their alignment with his anti-vax viewpoints, particularly with respect to the COVID vaccine. Robert Malone typifies his choices and a post on Malone’s website just six hours before the shooting was a chilling harbinger of the horror ahead.

As if to confirm that this was not simply a horribly unfortunate juxtaposition, he posted this just 48 hours after the shooting.

All of this is detailed in a letter from Senator Richard Blumenthal to Kennedy calling for Malone’s removal. Not only has Kennedy not responded, he has not even sought to distance himself in any way from this violent rhetoric. Kennedy has, in many ways been a leader in the assault on CDC.

Furthermore, the comfort of Kennedy with American gun culture is implicit in his MAHA report, which purports to be about improving the health of America’s children. That report fails to mention, much less address, the number one cause of death in children, which is guns. But this was never about public health. It was about grievance, revenge, and “science” by fiat on the part of an unqualified team with fringe viewpoints and fragile egos.

If he cares about healing America, he will immediately fire Malone. Then, he will tender his own resignation.