Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s11e19 Episode Script
RFK Jr.
1
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"!
I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week!
The White House completed
a prisoner swap with Russia,
Venezuela's disputed election
sparked protests across the country,
and Donald Trump had
a disastrous appearance
before the National Association
of Black Journalists,
with maybe the low point being this.
Do you believe that Vice President
Kamala Harris is only on the ticket
because she is a Black woman?
I can say, no, I think it's maybe
a little bit different.
She was always of Indian heritage,
and she was only promoting
Indian heritage.
I didn't know she was Black
until a number of years ago
when she happened to turn Black.
And now she wants to be
known as Black. So, I don't know.
Is she Indian, or is she Black?
She was Indian all the way, and then
all of a sudden, she made a turn,
she became a Black person.
I mean this in the most disparaging
way possible,
that went about as well
as could be expected.
Putting Trump in front of a Black
audience and asking him to speak
on race was never gonna get
more elevated than
"the lady said she was both Indian
and Black, that is cheating".
Also, not that this needs saying,
Harris didn't "make a turn"
into being Black
like it's an interstate offramp.
Her father's Black
and her mother was Indian.
I cannot imagine what JD Vance,
a man with three biracial children,
was thinking while watching Trump
there. Although, you know what?
He was probably thinking,
"Look at that luscious upholstery.
You think those cushions
come all the way off?"
But we're gonna turn to the Olympics.
They've been going on all week,
with some notable hiccups, from the
Olympic flag being flown upside-down,
to the South Korean delegation
being introduced
as the "Democratic People's Republic
of Korea" which is, fun fact,
the wrong Korea, to the triathlon
taking place in the Seine
despite it previously failing
multiple tests for pollution.
Though that did give us this amazing
bit of color commentary
regarding U.S. triathlete
Seth Rider's preparations.
He prepared himself
for what he would face here
by essentially micro dosing E. coli.
He said that he was trying to get
his body used to it in small doses.
And he would do things leading up
to these games,
like not washing his hands after
he would go to the bathroom.
It turns out there is such a thing
as too much Olympic backstory.
Now, I should say, Rider has
since said he was kidding,
which is good for multiple reasons,
not least that not washing your hands
isn't how you microdose E. coli.
The way you do that is by eating
at Chipotle. Everybody knows that.
But there've been glorious moments,
too, from Simone Biles' triumphs,
to this badass South Korean
sharpshooter winning silver,
to this guy who medaled while
looking like he just happened
to wander past the Olympics.
He looks like he was called in
for one last job
and that job involved Microsoft Excel.
Sadly, there were also some
incredibly stupid controversies.
There was a wildly transphobic uproar
over this Algerian boxer
supposedly being trans
despite the fact she isn't.
And there was even anger over the
incredibly French opening ceremony,
which featured a chorus
of beheaded Marie Antoinettes,
a torch relay across the rooftops
of Paris,
and a cancan along the Seine.
The only way it could have been
more French
is if there'd been a menage a trois
between three people
dressed in clown outfits.
And you know what?
There was. There was a clown
threesome as well.
Although one element of the ceremony
got some extra blowback.
This scene, in which drag queens
and other performers
were gathered at a table.
It was meant to evoke pagan feasts.
But some saw something else in it,
and were furious.
I thought that the Opening Ceremony
was a disgrace, actually.
I thought it was a disgrace.
The mocking of the Last Supper.
Catholics and Christians across
the globe are outraged.
They can do certain things.
I thought it was terrible.
It's always strange to watch Trump
act like he cares about religion
because, to echo something
I heard someone say recently,
"I didn't know he was a Christian
until a number of years ago
when he happened to turn Christian.
All of a sudden, he made a turn
and became a Christian person."
Criticism of that scene also focused
on this nearly naked man,
meant to evoke the Greek god
Dionysus,
although he mainly looked
like a perverted Smurf
crashing a wedding reception.
He actually went on CNN
to kind of apologize,
then responded to a follow-up question
with a quintessentially French answer.
What is beautiful in Christianity
is forgiveness.
So, I ask for forgiveness
if I have offended anyone,
and the Christians of the world
will grant me that I'm sure.
Were you able to wash all the
blue paint off after the performance?
It's impossible.
There are still traces of the past.
I keep them in my belly button.
I love it. Every part of that is great,
not just showing the reporter
his blue belly button,
but the way he introduces it
by saying,
"There are still traces of the past."
"Look, we are all ze product
of our choices, our decisions.
We are all the sum
of what came before, no?
The past does not wash out,
no matter how hard you,
how you say,
scrub-a-dub."
And look, there will clearly be more to
say about the Olympics as they go on,
but we're gonna dive straight in
with our main story tonight,
the 2024 election.
It's probably one of the last stories
you want us to cover right now,
below Hippo Hemorrhoids, but above
Your Parents' Sex Life.
Long story short,
they tried wheelbarrow,
that's how your dad hurt his hip.
There's obviously a lot of talk about
these two candidates right now,
but we're gonna focus on the person
currently polling third:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Voters have learned a lot
about RFK recently,
from the fact his distinctive voice
is caused by a condition called
spasmodic dysphonia,
to the news that doctors once
found a dead worm in his brain,
to even his physical fitness routine,
which he's put front and center
in ads like this.
I go to the gym every day.
I hike every day.
I don't ever eat processed food.
I do intermittent fast.
Cool. To be honest, that looks less
like a campaign ad
and more like the dating profile
of a guy who just lost custody.
And while it's a bit weird
to be working out in jeans,
from one jock to another, I get it.
You gotta put in the time and work
to get our kind of body.
Around the gym I'm known
as "John Oliver Esquire"
because I always have permission
to approach the bench.
Is this HGTV?
'Cause I'm all gains.
Call me the third little pig,
because I'm building a brick house.
Kennedy's campaign has
really leaned into his quirkiness,
offering supporters the
chance to win things like
"go whale watching with RFK Jr.
and his wife Cheryl Hines"
or "win a day of falconry
with RFK Jr",
featuring this image of him and a falcon
that looks like they're asking you
to be their third.
And he's attracted
a broad base of supporters,
with polls finding "there isn't a single
issue or topic that seems to unify
RFK voters," who can be drawn
to him for all sorts of reasons.
He's an honest candidate,
he's very truthful.
The Kennedys are really royalty
in this country,
because they do the right thing.
His family has always been
into the rights for the underprivileged.
He's coming to all voters
and saying that if you vote for me,
like, you'll be able to afford to, like,
buy a house.
He's anti-establishment
without all the baggage.
He's going to restore trust and
transparency to our federal institutions
because he's a man of integrity.
He has honor and he's honest.
People like him for a bunch of reasons.
Although, calling a Kennedy
"anti-establishment" is a stretch.
It's like calling the Windsors
"anti-hat". That's just not true.
The Kennedys are the very definition
of the establishment,
and the Windsors are
famously hat bitches.
But the thing most people know about
RFK is that he's often called
a conspiracy theorist.
It's a charge brought up so often,
he was able to read off a list
of insults in this ad.
"He's a walking, talking conspiracy
theory," The New York Times.
"He's completely divorced
from reality," The Guardian.
"He is vile," the White House.
"Being with him was the low point
of my summer," Vanity Fair.
"He has conversations with
dead people," The Guardian.
I wouldn't vote for that guy either.
I mean, that's pretty likable!
And kudos to Vanity Fair
for not soft-pedaling it
with "vile" or "divorced from reality"
and instead going straight
for the jugular
with, "this guy's vibe is so bad it was
the low point of my summer."
That is, genuinely so mean,
and I could not respect it more.
But despite that,
RFK's currently polling around 6%
and in some crucial swing states, like
Michigan, he could tip the balance
especially given, as of taping,
Trump and Harris are neck
and neck there,
and RFK is polling close to 7%.
And to quote absolutely nobody
from Hillary's 2016 campaign,
"We should be worried
about Michigan."
So, if he is this popular, and has the
potential to have this much influence,
tonight, let's talk about RFK Jr.
And let's start with the obvious. He is,
first and foremost, a Kennedy.
His uncle, JFK, was the 35th president
who, as history buffs may know,
was assassinated in 1963.
Five years later,
his dad was also assassinated,
when Kennedy was just 14 years old.
In his teens and 20s,
he struggled with drug addiction,
but in 1983, he got sober and soon
became the chief prosecuting attorney
for what would become the
environmentalist group Riverkeeper,
kicking off a career doing
some genuinely laudable work,
railing against fracking,
Hudson River pollution,
and greedy corporations poisoning
natural resources.
That is why New York Magazine
called him
"The Kennedy Who Matters",
and Time named him
a "hero for the planet".
And as a candidate he's tried to tap
into the liberal credibility
that his work got back then.
He's promised to be "the greatest
environmental president
in American history,"
and has talked about
a bunch of things that we've covered,
like so-called "forever chemicals,"
or PFAs,
and the proliferation of microplastics.
All the fun stuff you expect
from our comedy show,
which at this point
should probably be called
"You Have Already Been Poisoned with
the Duolingo Owl's Biological Uncle."
He's also proposed raising
the minimum wage to $15
and making student debt
dischargeable via bankruptcy.
And if I ended this piece right now,
it'd honestly be a pretty good ad
for RFK Jr.
But unfortunately,
there's a lot more to say.
And let's start with
his other policy proposals.
Because some are,
to put it mildly, underbaked.
One of his marquee promises is
offering first-time homebuyers
a 3% mortgage rate, funded
by tax-free government issued bonds.
Here he is describing the plan
and see how far he gets into his pitch
before you start hearing alarm bells.
If you have a rich uncle,
who will co-sign your mortgage,
you can get a much better rate.
I'm gonna give everybody a rich uncle,
all these young people,
which is Uncle Sam.
Which is gonna guarantee
your mortgage.
So, that'll allow you to get
that 3% rate.
And if you default on it,
the federal government will inherit…
This is how Freddie Mac
and Fannie Mae operated.
He's suggesting giving low-interest
home loans to buyers with bad credit,
guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie,
an idea with no bad historical
precedents whatsoever.
And if you're wondering,
"Doesn't that guy remember 2008?"
I don't know, but I should point out,
they didn't find the worm until 2010.
So, he might actually have
an amazing excuse there.
But "not fully thinking through"
policies is just the beginning here.
Because RFK's also a lot more
right-wing on certain issues
than you might assume.
On immigration, he's endorsed
Trump's Remain in Mexico policy,
and pledged to finish the wall.
And on Gaza, he's repeatedly
opposed a cease-fire deal,
compared the war there
to the denazification of Germany,
and called Palestinians "arguably
the most pampered people
by international aid organizations
in the history of the world".
And it seems you can say
any stupid thing
if you just put the word "arguably"
in front of it.
Arguably, Boeing is having
a great year.
I mean, it isn't,
but you could argue it,
and then lose that fucking argument.
But it's not just policy where Kennedy
might not be who you want him to be.
He's also admitted to flying
on Epstein's private jet,
and, when asked about that
on a podcast,
gave an answer so honest,
the host seemed to feel the need
to try and rescue him.
Give the context obviously
to the Epstein thing.
First of all,
I'm in New York for most of my life.
And you run into everybody
in New York.
I knew Harvey Weinstein,
I knew Roger Ailes,
O.J. Simpson came to my house.
Bill Cosby came to my house.
You also knew good people.
I did know a lot of 'em,
but you don't know
these people are swamp creatures
until all this stuff comes out.
I mean, sure, but that's still
a who's who of '90s murderers
and sex offenders there.
And while there are lots of things
you can shrug off with
"that's just New York," I'm not sure
this is one of them.
Rats?
That's just New York.
Dragging your clothing four blocks
once a week? That's just New York.
One person in your subway car
talking about Jesus
and another doing flips and eventually
the one doing flips accidentally kicks
the one talking about Jesus?
That's just New York.
But having a rolodex that turns out
to be part sex-offender registry?
That is a you-problem, Bobby,
leave the rest of us out of it.
And in other personal stories,
he comes off even worse.
Just last month,
a Vanity Fair article revealed
that a former babysitter had accused
him of sexual assault.
And that is something you'd expect
he'd have a strong denial for,
but instead, what you get is this.
Listen, I've said this
from the beginning.
I am not a church boy.
I am not running like that.
I had a very, very rambunctious youth.
I said in my announcement speech…
I have so many skeletons
in my closet
that if they could all vote,
I could run for king of the world.
Okay, I'm sorry,
first, "not a church boy"?
If the implication is "people affiliated
with the church don't commit
sexual assault," boy,
do I have bad news for you
and your massive Catholic family.
Also, "rambunctious youth"
is a terrible way to respond
to allegations you assaulted
a babysitter, no matter what
but especially considering the
alleged assault took place
when you were 40 years old.
When he was asked whether more
women might be coming forward,
Kennedy said,
"we'll see what happens."
The only way that answer could be any
worse is if he'd followed it up with,
"Hey, did I tell you Bill Cosby's been
to my house? 'Cause he has."
But obviously, the biggest issue
with RFK
is his reputation as a conspiracy
theorist and anti-vaxxer.
And if you support him, you may think
that that's been overblown.
You might think, "Well, he went
on a podcast that I listened to,
and he seemed totally reasonable."
And he does do a lot of them.
We listened to a bunch, and in doing
so, noticed an interesting pattern:
on the more mainstream ones,
he'll go out of his way
to seem reasonable and open-minded.
In fact, he's got a line he likes
to deploy a lot, in podcasts
and other settings.
I have a critical mind. If somebody
shows me where I got it wrong,
I'll change. I'm not dug in.
I'm not hard-headed in that sense.
I will change my mind always
if somebody confronts me with facts.
If somebody shows me a fact
and I'm wrong,
I'm going to change my opinion
and I'll apologize.
That sounds pretty good.
Even if "show me a fact" sounds like
what a John Oliver action figure would
say when you pull the string.
That and "it's not sexual harassment
if it's a horse."
Unfortunately, history has shown him
to be much more dug-in
than he likes to imply.
And before we get to his more famous
views on vaccines and Covid,
you should know, they're by no means
his only alarming stances.
Take AIDS. It is a scientifically proven
fact that AIDS is caused by HIV.
But in the early '80s, people
looked at the fact it was spreading
in the U.S. and Europe
largely within the gay community
and tried to locate other factors
that might be causing it.
Nowadays, most people
accept that those early theories
were dead ends, but amazingly,
as recently as three years ago,
RFK was out there saying shit
like this.
There's a lot of people
that say it's not a virus.
The virus is a passenger virus,
and these people are dying
mainly because of poppers.
100% of the people who died
of the first thousand who had AIDS
were people who were addicted
to poppers
which are known to cause
Kaposi sarcoma in rats.
They were people who were part
of the gay lifestyle,
where they were burning
the candle at both ends.
Okay, so there is a lot there,
from "a gay lifestyle"
to repeating the claim that "people
were dying mainly because of poppers",
to the notion that poppers
cause Kaposi sarcoma,
which, for the record, they do not.
Multiple studies in humans
have found
that even "heavy popper use showed
no significant association
with the risk of Kaposi sarcoma."
Which does makes sense,
given that poppers are still sold
everywhere in this city.
I got these three blocks from here,
as I do before every taping.
How else do you think I get through
this shit?
But it didn't stop there. Kennedy's
also argued that Anthony Fauci,
who at the time worked
within the NIH,
and other experts wanted to call HIV
a virus partly so that his agency,
and the pharmaceutical industry,
could profit from the production of AZT,
which was "the first drug approved
by the FDA to treat HIV and AIDS.
That is part of a series of arguments
known as "AIDS denialism",
which has done real damage.
One of its biggest proponents,
a scientist named Peter Duesberg,
actually helped persuade
the South African government to forgo
supplying AZT to those with AIDS,
a decision that's been estimated
to have cost over 330,000 lives there.
Yet RFK recently wrote that Duesberg's
arguments were "so clean,
so elegantly crafted,
and so compelling."
And "elegantly crafted"?
That'd be annoying if
you were writing the copy
on the back of a $12 chocolate bar,
but in this instance, it's just obscene.
And it's not just AIDS where Kennedy's
made big eye-catching claims
that bear no resemblance to reality.
Here he is last year, in a Twitter
Spaces chat with Elon Musk,
suggesting that psychiatric drugs may
be a cause of school shootings.
Prior to the introduction of Prozac,
we had none of these events
in our country.
And we'd never seen them
in human history,
where people walk into a school room
of children or strangers
and start shooting people.
There's other nations that have
as many guns per capita as we do.
Switzerland, the last school shooting
was 21 years ago.
We have one every 21 hours.
The one thing that we have that's
different than anybody in the world
is the amount of psychiatric drugs
our children are taking
and our people are taking
and we need to look at that.
Okay. So, before we go any further,
let me just say this:
I also don't want to be doing this.
I don't want to be debunking
his arguments at length.
I am so close to taking a hit of these
poppers, you have no idea.
But he's made so many confident
assertions there,
and if you leave even one
unchallenged, people will think,
"well, maybe there's something to it."
So, with that in mind, first,
Prozac hit the market in 1988,
and as you probably already know,
there were tons of shootings
and mass shootings before then,
including at schools.
As for the claim "other countries
have as many guns as we do,"
they just don't.
U.S. civilians have the highest rate
of gun ownership in the world
by a factor of more than two.
And as for linking school shootings
to the amount of psychiatric drugs
our children are taking,
researchers haven't found any link
between antidepressants
and school shootings.
In fact, one study found
that over 87% of the secondary
school shooters it sampled
were not on psychiatric medications
at the time of their attacks.
So, multiple facts there
are just plain wrong,
despite how confidently
he just spewed them out there.
He could just as easily have pointed
out the link between school shooters
and milk.
A shocking number have
above-average dairy intake.
And ice cream, in particular,
may contain neuroglycerides
that initiate
psychopathic behavior.
Except none of that is true.
I just made all that shit up.
"Neuroglycerides" isn't even a word.
Lactose Quarterly isn't a magazine!
But it does show just how easy it is
to reel people in
when you're spouting self-assured
bullshit on an unchallenged platform.
And if you're noticing a pattern here,
that RFK will find a problem,
and then work backwards to point
at a big, powerful entity
pulling the strings, that's basically
what he's done with vaccines.
Although, again, he will deny that,
insisting he's not anti-vax at all.
Here he is making that point,
under oath, before Congress.
I have never been anti-vax.
I have never told the public
avoid vaccination.
The only thing I've asked for, and my
views are constantly misrepresented,
so that the truth of what I believe
is not allowed to have a conversation
about that with the American people,
which I believe vaccines should
be tested with the same rigor
as other medicines and medications.
That's a pretty vehement denial.
Quick shout out to the guy recording
that like it's his kid's dance recital.
When are you gonna watch
that footage, dude?
You do know there are other
cameras recording this, right?
Remember when I said Kennedy
goes on a lot of podcasts,
and can sound reasonable? He goes
on a bunch of fringey ones, too.
And when addressing those audiences,
he sends out a very different message
like on this one, three years ago.
Our job is to resist and to talk
about it with everybody.
I see somebody on a hiking trail
carrying a baby and I say to them,
"Better not get 'em vaccinated."
If he hears it from 10 other people,
maybe he won't do it.
Maybe he will save that child.
When they hear that from 10 people,
it'll make an impression on 'em.
If we all kept our mouths shut, don't
keep your mouth shut anymore.
Confront everybody on it.
I love that. I love it. Thank you.
"I love that. I love it."
I have to say, that is exactly the kind
of person I'd expect to be co-hosting
an anti-vaccine podcast.
The sort of person you'd expect to see
walking around a grocery store
during a Covid surge, licking everything
to "fortify her immune system."
But I only say that because
she actually did that,
and posted it to Instagram, because
of course she fucking did.
But also, you don't get to say,
"I'm not anti-vax",
and then wander around the woods
telling people to not vaccinate
their babies like you're some red-pilled
version of Smokey the Bear.
Who I'm realizing is clearly where
you get
your workout wardrobe
inspiration from.
Over the years, Kennedy's promoted
a number of theories about vaccines,
including how they supposedly
cause autism.
We've discussed his claim that
a preservative caused thimerosal
was linked to autism in our piece
on vaccines several years ago.
Not only is it bullshit,
thimerosal hasn't been
in children's vaccines since 2001,
except for the flu vaccine,
and even then, there was,
and remains, a version
without thimerosal in it.
But Kennedy parlayed the initial panic
he helped cause
into founding
the Children's Health Defense,
one of the country's leading
anti-vaccine organizations.
And he's continued to fearmonger
about a connection between
thimerosal and autism ever since.
In 2015, he said of kids
getting vaccinated,
"They get the shot, that night they
have a fever of 103,
they go to sleep, and three
months later their brain is gone,
this is a holocaust, what
this is doing to our country."
Which is clearly absurd.
A vaccine cannot make
someone's brain go away,
although I'm increasingly believing
that a dead worm might be able to.
And if you're noticing a certain cruelty
in how Kennedy tends to talk about
autistic people, you're not wrong.
It goes well beyond the anti-vax
community's general gross tendency
to imply that they'd rather have
a kid die from polio or measles
than be diagnosed with autism.
'Cause just listen to him here.
I bet you've never met anybody
with full-blown autism your age.
You know, headbanging,
with a helmet on, non-toilet trained,
nonverbal.
I've never met anybody like that
my age, but in my kids age now,
one in every 34 kids has autism
and half of those are full-blown,
meaning that description.
Okay, first, if there's limited variety
in the people you've met your age,
maybe it's because you've only
ever hung out with the same circle
of five or six sex offenders
or murderers.
I don't know.
I am just asking questions.
And I could talk about the history
of autism diagnoses,
and how they're still so new,
the first person to be given one
died just last year.
I could discuss the fact that autistic
people were long misunderstood
and institutionalized.
I could also throw in that there
is definitely no such diagnosis
as "full-blown autism".
I could just let this guy with autism
point out
that just because RFK didn't know
anyone with autism,
didn't mean they didn't exist,
in the most deliciously derisive way.
Fucking Mount Everest wasn't
discovered until 1852,
but I'm pretty sure it was still there.
Also, yeah, like all those fucking
old grandpas
with, like,
a giant ass train collection,
you don't think they're just
a little bit on the spectrum?
Just a teeny weeny?
God, conspiracy theorists are
the dumbest people on the planet,
bar none.
Yeah. I honestly cannot put it
much better than that.
And look, RFK will insist he just wants
vaccines to be tested
for safety and efficacy,
but as we have said before,
they have been, and repeatedly.
Not only are vaccines already held
to a higher safety standard
than other medications,
thousands of studies have found
they're safe and effective,
including a systematic review
of over 160 studies on vaccine safety
that found any serious adverse
reactions were extremely rare.
You could look at this study of over
650,000 children born in Denmark,
some vaccinated, some not,
which concludes that the "MMR
vaccination does not increase
the risk for autism,"
or this meta-review of 10 studies
involving over one and a quarter
million children,
which also "revealed no relationship
between vaccination and autism."
There are so many examples
like this,
and it's why experts will tell you that
a person's chance of having
a bad reaction to a vaccine
is about one in a million.
As one expert we spoke to pointed out,
given that we have over 40,000 deaths
by car accident in the U.S. per year,
the most dangerous aspect
of vaccinating children
is driving to the doctor's office
to get them.
Especially, by the way, if your kids are
singing "Baby Shark" the whole time.
Because that will make you drive
off a fucking cliff.
And I know this can all seem
very abstract.
But the thing is, Kennedy's ideas
have been put to the test
in the real world, and sometimes
with hideous consequences.
Take what happened in Samoa.
In 2018, there was a horrible accident,
when two children
died from a measles vaccine
that two nurses had "incorrectly mixed
with a muscle relaxant".
It was awful,
but it was human error.
Nevertheless, the anti-vax movement
seized on the sudden fear
of vaccines there, and the following
year, Kennedy visited Samoa,
in a trip arranged by a local
antivaccine influencer there.
He met
with other anti-vaccine activists,
including one who wrote that the
meeting was profoundly monumental
for this movement.
He even met with the prime minister,
with whom he discussed vaccines,
in his words, "a limited amount".
And when, a few months later, there
was a measles outbreak in Samoa,
RFK wrote a four-page letter
to the prime minister
in which he "suggested the measles
vaccine itself might be
the true cause of the crisis."
In the end, that outbreak killed
83 people,
mostly infants and children,
in large part due
to their lack of vaccinations,
an outbreak Kennedy
later referred to as "mild".
And when confronted about all of this,
he is quick to try and distance himself.
Yeah, I'm aware there was
a measles outbreak,
but I didn't have anything…
I have nothing to do with people
not vaccinating in Samoa.
I never told anybody not to vaccinate.
I didn't go there for any reason
to do with that.
Got it. So, you just popped in to one
of the most remote countries on earth,
and just happened to encounter all
your anti-vax buddies along the way.
It's the ultimate conspiracist code:
"nothing is a coincidence except
when I do it."
And look, on some level, I do get
why people are drawn to RFK.
There is an earned distrust of Big
Pharma and medical authorities.
And illness and disease are scary.
Kennedy's explanations,
as bullshit as they may be,
can almost be comforting
at a frightening time.
That is an environment
in which he thrives.
And it may explain why
his popularity took off
during the Covid pandemic.
There was a lot of uncertainty
back then,
and medical experts were
understandably making mistakes
and learning in real-time.
Kennedy saw that, and he pounced.
He took a lot of big swings,
including writing a book
in which he claimed
that Fauci was using Covid to execute
a historic coup d'état
against western democracy.
Once again, his "just asking questions"
caused real harm to real people.
For example, he pushed the idea that
the Covid vaccine was dangerous,
especially to young people, even
writing the foreword to this book
called "Cause Unknown: The Epidemic
of Sudden Deaths in 2021 and 2022",
a compilation of young people
who'd died suddenly,
heavily implying their deaths
were caused by the vaccine.
Look, it is true that a very few young
people reported heart complications
after receiving the vaccine,
but not only is the risk rare,
and most patients felt better quickly,
but importantly, in children and teens,
the risks of getting Covid
and developing severe illness that
could seriously impact the heart
are far greater than the risk
of experiencing
post-vaccine heart complications.
Nevertheless, in that book's foreword,
RFK wrote that it proves
an undeniable and urgent reality,
laid out with facts that can
be confirmed by any reader,
point by point, page by page.
He even went on Joe Rogan
to give the book a hard sell.
If you have a skeptic and you can get
them to sit down for 90 minutes
with this book when they get up
they will have converted.
It's sickening. I mean, it's terrible.
These beautiful children who were
dying on the playing field.
And Covid was killing people,
but it was old people.
"Cause Unknown: The Epidemic of
Sudden Deaths in 2021 and 2022."
Edward Dowd.
Died after first vaccine dose.
Dies at hospital.
Football. Died on the field.
Okay, set aside that Joe Rogan's just
muttering random words off the cover
with an energy level I'd describe as
"just ate a fistful of melatonin pills,"
that is a pretty hard sell from RFK,
give this book to people for 90 minutes
and they'll be converted.
But the AP found that dozens
of individuals included in the book
died of known causes
not related to vaccines,
including suicide and choking while
intoxicated.
The book even includes one person
who died in 2019.
So, unless the headline was, "Time
Traveler Dies of Covid Vaccine,"
they don't really belong in there.
But that's not all.
'Cause when the book was first printed,
one of the kids on the cover
was Braden Fahey,
who died after collapsing during
football practice at just 12 years old.
But we know for a fact that the
Covid vaccine didn't kill Braden,
'cause he wasn't vaccinated.
He died from a malformed
blood vessel in his brain.
And no one ever contacted his parents
to ask about their son's death,
or for permission to use his photo.
Something they are, understandably,
furious about.
It's just another gut punch.
We've been punched in the gut as hard
as you can be punched in the gut.
And this is just another
one right after.
You try so hard to each day to heal,
and then you just have to take
on a whole other nightmare.
And part of you wants
to just dismiss it and go,
"We've dealt with so much,
we can't deal with anymore."
But then, you know, you just have
to do it for your son,
and we can't as his parents
look the other way.
That is awful.
They've had to go out of their
way to correct the record
about their son's death,
in the face of someone who not only
has the platform of a Kennedy,
but also of a presidential candidate.
Now I should tell you,
after that story,
Braden was removed from the cover
of subsequent editions of that book.
But not only is the first
version with him on the cover
still selling on Amazon,
even the newer edition,
despite everything we just told you,
still includes him inside the book.
And the publishers' excuse
for this is enraging,
because they argued to us this week
that the book never specifically says
that the people shown in it died
from the Covid vaccine,
just that it highlights "a new trend
of people dying suddenly
for unknown causes." Which is not
what the book does at all.
And it is definitely not what RFK
did when he tweeted out its cover,
with Braden's picture on it,
and claimed the book showed
"the Covid shots are a crime against
humanity".
That tweet is still up,
which is a little odd to me,
because what was it that Kennedy
liked to say?
If somebody shows me a fact
and I'm wrong,
I'm gonna change my opinion
and I'll apologize.
That's weird.
But I guess it does make sense.
Saying, "If somebody shows me
a fact and I'm wrong,
I'm gonna totally ignore it and force
grieving parents to relive
the worst thing that's ever happened
to them,"
doesn't quite have the same ring
to it, does it?
And look, I could litigate
Kennedy's stupid arguments all night,
but I really do not want to do that
to myself, or to you.
There are not enough poppers
in the world to take the edge off this,
and to quote Kennedy's neurologist,
"I really don't have time to go down
all these worm holes."
Hopefully, though, at this point,
you've got a better sense
of who this man actually is.
And if you don't know any of this,
I do get why you might like him.
Because the idea of RFK is appealing.
But so many of the reasons
to support him just don't stand up
under the slightest scrutiny.
If you're voting for him because
he seems honest or trustworthy,
I think you've seen otherwise.
If it's the Kennedy legacy,
you should know
over a dozen members of his own family
have come out against his campaign.
If you're voting for the environmental
hero of the '90s,
I'll point out, multiple prominent
environmental groups have opposed
his campaign,
including many former colleagues.
If you like that he's against polluters
and Big Pharma, I get it.
We criticize them all the time.
But when we do that, we make sure
we've got our facts right
and don't just pull them out of the ass
of our best workout jeans.
And finally, if you're frustrated with
the two-party system, me, too.
But honestly, the way to dismantle
that isn't through voting
for one magical candidate,
it'll come from building a movement
toward ranked-choice voting.
And it's important to know:
at least one of those parties
may not be as opposed to Kennedy
as he says he is to them.
Because Republicans seem to be
counting on him to siphon off
Democratic votes.
His campaign's largest contributor
is Timothy Mellon,
a Republican megadonor
who's also donated $50 million
to a pro-Trump group this election.
And if Trump wins a second term,
Kennedy may wind up working for him.
Because when we reached out
to RFK's campaign this week,
they told us he and Trump have
discussed the possibility
of a cabinet position for him,
Health and Human Services.
And if that is true,
that is a fucking nightmare.
There is no good outcome here.
Even if RFK drops out tomorrow,
he'll have injected and
amplified misinformation that,
as you've seen,
takes a lot of effort to debunk.
If he stays in, history has shown
spoiler candidates can do
intense damage to no real end.
And don't just take that from me,
Ralph Nader, famously,
helped swing the election for
George W. Bush back in 2000.
And there was a guy back then who
was very smartly imploring him
to drop out.
Despite fading poll numbers, the core
support behind Nader's candidacy
is making some liberal
Democrats unhappy.
There's a political reality here,
which is that his candidacy could draw
enough votes in certain key states
from Al Gore to give the entire
election to George W. Bush.
Exactly. And look, this is the only time
you're gonna hear me say this,
but RFK is, and don't you
dare take this out of fucking context,
making a really good point there.
But the fact is, the rest of the time,
Kennedy is a full-blown menace,
and frankly,
spending this much time
thinking about him has been,
if I may quote Vanity Fair,
the low point of my summer.
And now, if you'll excuse me,
I think I have earned these.
And now, this.
And Now: Local News Celebrates
a Surprisingly Divisive Holiday.
How do you feel
about cheesecake, Greg?
I love it. It's one
of my favorite desserts.
Well, then, today's your day, because
today is National Cheesecake Day.
Give me a classic New York-style
cheesecake,
and it's gonna be 15 pounds back
on me again.
Any cheesecake's a winner for me,
I'll be celebrating today, for sure.
Today's National Cheesecake Day,
so what's your favorite cheesecake?
I'm not a fan of cheesecake.
I don't like cheesecake.
You don't like cheesecake?
It just doesn't make sense
in my brain.
I don't know if it's about the flavor
or the texture or whatever…
It's just so thick.
- What's your favorite cheesecake?
- I'm not a cheese guy.
Why do you hate America?
Now, where did your, you know,
dislike come from?
- Have you ever tried it?
- I don't want to try it.
Thanks so much for watching.
We'll see you next week, good night!
Welcome, welcome, welcome!
And now, this. Show me a fact!
It's not sexual harassment
if it's a horse.
The conditions at the sweatshop
this doll was made in will horrify you.
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"!
I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week!
The White House completed
a prisoner swap with Russia,
Venezuela's disputed election
sparked protests across the country,
and Donald Trump had
a disastrous appearance
before the National Association
of Black Journalists,
with maybe the low point being this.
Do you believe that Vice President
Kamala Harris is only on the ticket
because she is a Black woman?
I can say, no, I think it's maybe
a little bit different.
She was always of Indian heritage,
and she was only promoting
Indian heritage.
I didn't know she was Black
until a number of years ago
when she happened to turn Black.
And now she wants to be
known as Black. So, I don't know.
Is she Indian, or is she Black?
She was Indian all the way, and then
all of a sudden, she made a turn,
she became a Black person.
I mean this in the most disparaging
way possible,
that went about as well
as could be expected.
Putting Trump in front of a Black
audience and asking him to speak
on race was never gonna get
more elevated than
"the lady said she was both Indian
and Black, that is cheating".
Also, not that this needs saying,
Harris didn't "make a turn"
into being Black
like it's an interstate offramp.
Her father's Black
and her mother was Indian.
I cannot imagine what JD Vance,
a man with three biracial children,
was thinking while watching Trump
there. Although, you know what?
He was probably thinking,
"Look at that luscious upholstery.
You think those cushions
come all the way off?"
But we're gonna turn to the Olympics.
They've been going on all week,
with some notable hiccups, from the
Olympic flag being flown upside-down,
to the South Korean delegation
being introduced
as the "Democratic People's Republic
of Korea" which is, fun fact,
the wrong Korea, to the triathlon
taking place in the Seine
despite it previously failing
multiple tests for pollution.
Though that did give us this amazing
bit of color commentary
regarding U.S. triathlete
Seth Rider's preparations.
He prepared himself
for what he would face here
by essentially micro dosing E. coli.
He said that he was trying to get
his body used to it in small doses.
And he would do things leading up
to these games,
like not washing his hands after
he would go to the bathroom.
It turns out there is such a thing
as too much Olympic backstory.
Now, I should say, Rider has
since said he was kidding,
which is good for multiple reasons,
not least that not washing your hands
isn't how you microdose E. coli.
The way you do that is by eating
at Chipotle. Everybody knows that.
But there've been glorious moments,
too, from Simone Biles' triumphs,
to this badass South Korean
sharpshooter winning silver,
to this guy who medaled while
looking like he just happened
to wander past the Olympics.
He looks like he was called in
for one last job
and that job involved Microsoft Excel.
Sadly, there were also some
incredibly stupid controversies.
There was a wildly transphobic uproar
over this Algerian boxer
supposedly being trans
despite the fact she isn't.
And there was even anger over the
incredibly French opening ceremony,
which featured a chorus
of beheaded Marie Antoinettes,
a torch relay across the rooftops
of Paris,
and a cancan along the Seine.
The only way it could have been
more French
is if there'd been a menage a trois
between three people
dressed in clown outfits.
And you know what?
There was. There was a clown
threesome as well.
Although one element of the ceremony
got some extra blowback.
This scene, in which drag queens
and other performers
were gathered at a table.
It was meant to evoke pagan feasts.
But some saw something else in it,
and were furious.
I thought that the Opening Ceremony
was a disgrace, actually.
I thought it was a disgrace.
The mocking of the Last Supper.
Catholics and Christians across
the globe are outraged.
They can do certain things.
I thought it was terrible.
It's always strange to watch Trump
act like he cares about religion
because, to echo something
I heard someone say recently,
"I didn't know he was a Christian
until a number of years ago
when he happened to turn Christian.
All of a sudden, he made a turn
and became a Christian person."
Criticism of that scene also focused
on this nearly naked man,
meant to evoke the Greek god
Dionysus,
although he mainly looked
like a perverted Smurf
crashing a wedding reception.
He actually went on CNN
to kind of apologize,
then responded to a follow-up question
with a quintessentially French answer.
What is beautiful in Christianity
is forgiveness.
So, I ask for forgiveness
if I have offended anyone,
and the Christians of the world
will grant me that I'm sure.
Were you able to wash all the
blue paint off after the performance?
It's impossible.
There are still traces of the past.
I keep them in my belly button.
I love it. Every part of that is great,
not just showing the reporter
his blue belly button,
but the way he introduces it
by saying,
"There are still traces of the past."
"Look, we are all ze product
of our choices, our decisions.
We are all the sum
of what came before, no?
The past does not wash out,
no matter how hard you,
how you say,
scrub-a-dub."
And look, there will clearly be more to
say about the Olympics as they go on,
but we're gonna dive straight in
with our main story tonight,
the 2024 election.
It's probably one of the last stories
you want us to cover right now,
below Hippo Hemorrhoids, but above
Your Parents' Sex Life.
Long story short,
they tried wheelbarrow,
that's how your dad hurt his hip.
There's obviously a lot of talk about
these two candidates right now,
but we're gonna focus on the person
currently polling third:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Voters have learned a lot
about RFK recently,
from the fact his distinctive voice
is caused by a condition called
spasmodic dysphonia,
to the news that doctors once
found a dead worm in his brain,
to even his physical fitness routine,
which he's put front and center
in ads like this.
I go to the gym every day.
I hike every day.
I don't ever eat processed food.
I do intermittent fast.
Cool. To be honest, that looks less
like a campaign ad
and more like the dating profile
of a guy who just lost custody.
And while it's a bit weird
to be working out in jeans,
from one jock to another, I get it.
You gotta put in the time and work
to get our kind of body.
Around the gym I'm known
as "John Oliver Esquire"
because I always have permission
to approach the bench.
Is this HGTV?
'Cause I'm all gains.
Call me the third little pig,
because I'm building a brick house.
Kennedy's campaign has
really leaned into his quirkiness,
offering supporters the
chance to win things like
"go whale watching with RFK Jr.
and his wife Cheryl Hines"
or "win a day of falconry
with RFK Jr",
featuring this image of him and a falcon
that looks like they're asking you
to be their third.
And he's attracted
a broad base of supporters,
with polls finding "there isn't a single
issue or topic that seems to unify
RFK voters," who can be drawn
to him for all sorts of reasons.
He's an honest candidate,
he's very truthful.
The Kennedys are really royalty
in this country,
because they do the right thing.
His family has always been
into the rights for the underprivileged.
He's coming to all voters
and saying that if you vote for me,
like, you'll be able to afford to, like,
buy a house.
He's anti-establishment
without all the baggage.
He's going to restore trust and
transparency to our federal institutions
because he's a man of integrity.
He has honor and he's honest.
People like him for a bunch of reasons.
Although, calling a Kennedy
"anti-establishment" is a stretch.
It's like calling the Windsors
"anti-hat". That's just not true.
The Kennedys are the very definition
of the establishment,
and the Windsors are
famously hat bitches.
But the thing most people know about
RFK is that he's often called
a conspiracy theorist.
It's a charge brought up so often,
he was able to read off a list
of insults in this ad.
"He's a walking, talking conspiracy
theory," The New York Times.
"He's completely divorced
from reality," The Guardian.
"He is vile," the White House.
"Being with him was the low point
of my summer," Vanity Fair.
"He has conversations with
dead people," The Guardian.
I wouldn't vote for that guy either.
I mean, that's pretty likable!
And kudos to Vanity Fair
for not soft-pedaling it
with "vile" or "divorced from reality"
and instead going straight
for the jugular
with, "this guy's vibe is so bad it was
the low point of my summer."
That is, genuinely so mean,
and I could not respect it more.
But despite that,
RFK's currently polling around 6%
and in some crucial swing states, like
Michigan, he could tip the balance
especially given, as of taping,
Trump and Harris are neck
and neck there,
and RFK is polling close to 7%.
And to quote absolutely nobody
from Hillary's 2016 campaign,
"We should be worried
about Michigan."
So, if he is this popular, and has the
potential to have this much influence,
tonight, let's talk about RFK Jr.
And let's start with the obvious. He is,
first and foremost, a Kennedy.
His uncle, JFK, was the 35th president
who, as history buffs may know,
was assassinated in 1963.
Five years later,
his dad was also assassinated,
when Kennedy was just 14 years old.
In his teens and 20s,
he struggled with drug addiction,
but in 1983, he got sober and soon
became the chief prosecuting attorney
for what would become the
environmentalist group Riverkeeper,
kicking off a career doing
some genuinely laudable work,
railing against fracking,
Hudson River pollution,
and greedy corporations poisoning
natural resources.
That is why New York Magazine
called him
"The Kennedy Who Matters",
and Time named him
a "hero for the planet".
And as a candidate he's tried to tap
into the liberal credibility
that his work got back then.
He's promised to be "the greatest
environmental president
in American history,"
and has talked about
a bunch of things that we've covered,
like so-called "forever chemicals,"
or PFAs,
and the proliferation of microplastics.
All the fun stuff you expect
from our comedy show,
which at this point
should probably be called
"You Have Already Been Poisoned with
the Duolingo Owl's Biological Uncle."
He's also proposed raising
the minimum wage to $15
and making student debt
dischargeable via bankruptcy.
And if I ended this piece right now,
it'd honestly be a pretty good ad
for RFK Jr.
But unfortunately,
there's a lot more to say.
And let's start with
his other policy proposals.
Because some are,
to put it mildly, underbaked.
One of his marquee promises is
offering first-time homebuyers
a 3% mortgage rate, funded
by tax-free government issued bonds.
Here he is describing the plan
and see how far he gets into his pitch
before you start hearing alarm bells.
If you have a rich uncle,
who will co-sign your mortgage,
you can get a much better rate.
I'm gonna give everybody a rich uncle,
all these young people,
which is Uncle Sam.
Which is gonna guarantee
your mortgage.
So, that'll allow you to get
that 3% rate.
And if you default on it,
the federal government will inherit…
This is how Freddie Mac
and Fannie Mae operated.
He's suggesting giving low-interest
home loans to buyers with bad credit,
guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie,
an idea with no bad historical
precedents whatsoever.
And if you're wondering,
"Doesn't that guy remember 2008?"
I don't know, but I should point out,
they didn't find the worm until 2010.
So, he might actually have
an amazing excuse there.
But "not fully thinking through"
policies is just the beginning here.
Because RFK's also a lot more
right-wing on certain issues
than you might assume.
On immigration, he's endorsed
Trump's Remain in Mexico policy,
and pledged to finish the wall.
And on Gaza, he's repeatedly
opposed a cease-fire deal,
compared the war there
to the denazification of Germany,
and called Palestinians "arguably
the most pampered people
by international aid organizations
in the history of the world".
And it seems you can say
any stupid thing
if you just put the word "arguably"
in front of it.
Arguably, Boeing is having
a great year.
I mean, it isn't,
but you could argue it,
and then lose that fucking argument.
But it's not just policy where Kennedy
might not be who you want him to be.
He's also admitted to flying
on Epstein's private jet,
and, when asked about that
on a podcast,
gave an answer so honest,
the host seemed to feel the need
to try and rescue him.
Give the context obviously
to the Epstein thing.
First of all,
I'm in New York for most of my life.
And you run into everybody
in New York.
I knew Harvey Weinstein,
I knew Roger Ailes,
O.J. Simpson came to my house.
Bill Cosby came to my house.
You also knew good people.
I did know a lot of 'em,
but you don't know
these people are swamp creatures
until all this stuff comes out.
I mean, sure, but that's still
a who's who of '90s murderers
and sex offenders there.
And while there are lots of things
you can shrug off with
"that's just New York," I'm not sure
this is one of them.
Rats?
That's just New York.
Dragging your clothing four blocks
once a week? That's just New York.
One person in your subway car
talking about Jesus
and another doing flips and eventually
the one doing flips accidentally kicks
the one talking about Jesus?
That's just New York.
But having a rolodex that turns out
to be part sex-offender registry?
That is a you-problem, Bobby,
leave the rest of us out of it.
And in other personal stories,
he comes off even worse.
Just last month,
a Vanity Fair article revealed
that a former babysitter had accused
him of sexual assault.
And that is something you'd expect
he'd have a strong denial for,
but instead, what you get is this.
Listen, I've said this
from the beginning.
I am not a church boy.
I am not running like that.
I had a very, very rambunctious youth.
I said in my announcement speech…
I have so many skeletons
in my closet
that if they could all vote,
I could run for king of the world.
Okay, I'm sorry,
first, "not a church boy"?
If the implication is "people affiliated
with the church don't commit
sexual assault," boy,
do I have bad news for you
and your massive Catholic family.
Also, "rambunctious youth"
is a terrible way to respond
to allegations you assaulted
a babysitter, no matter what
but especially considering the
alleged assault took place
when you were 40 years old.
When he was asked whether more
women might be coming forward,
Kennedy said,
"we'll see what happens."
The only way that answer could be any
worse is if he'd followed it up with,
"Hey, did I tell you Bill Cosby's been
to my house? 'Cause he has."
But obviously, the biggest issue
with RFK
is his reputation as a conspiracy
theorist and anti-vaxxer.
And if you support him, you may think
that that's been overblown.
You might think, "Well, he went
on a podcast that I listened to,
and he seemed totally reasonable."
And he does do a lot of them.
We listened to a bunch, and in doing
so, noticed an interesting pattern:
on the more mainstream ones,
he'll go out of his way
to seem reasonable and open-minded.
In fact, he's got a line he likes
to deploy a lot, in podcasts
and other settings.
I have a critical mind. If somebody
shows me where I got it wrong,
I'll change. I'm not dug in.
I'm not hard-headed in that sense.
I will change my mind always
if somebody confronts me with facts.
If somebody shows me a fact
and I'm wrong,
I'm going to change my opinion
and I'll apologize.
That sounds pretty good.
Even if "show me a fact" sounds like
what a John Oliver action figure would
say when you pull the string.
That and "it's not sexual harassment
if it's a horse."
Unfortunately, history has shown him
to be much more dug-in
than he likes to imply.
And before we get to his more famous
views on vaccines and Covid,
you should know, they're by no means
his only alarming stances.
Take AIDS. It is a scientifically proven
fact that AIDS is caused by HIV.
But in the early '80s, people
looked at the fact it was spreading
in the U.S. and Europe
largely within the gay community
and tried to locate other factors
that might be causing it.
Nowadays, most people
accept that those early theories
were dead ends, but amazingly,
as recently as three years ago,
RFK was out there saying shit
like this.
There's a lot of people
that say it's not a virus.
The virus is a passenger virus,
and these people are dying
mainly because of poppers.
100% of the people who died
of the first thousand who had AIDS
were people who were addicted
to poppers
which are known to cause
Kaposi sarcoma in rats.
They were people who were part
of the gay lifestyle,
where they were burning
the candle at both ends.
Okay, so there is a lot there,
from "a gay lifestyle"
to repeating the claim that "people
were dying mainly because of poppers",
to the notion that poppers
cause Kaposi sarcoma,
which, for the record, they do not.
Multiple studies in humans
have found
that even "heavy popper use showed
no significant association
with the risk of Kaposi sarcoma."
Which does makes sense,
given that poppers are still sold
everywhere in this city.
I got these three blocks from here,
as I do before every taping.
How else do you think I get through
this shit?
But it didn't stop there. Kennedy's
also argued that Anthony Fauci,
who at the time worked
within the NIH,
and other experts wanted to call HIV
a virus partly so that his agency,
and the pharmaceutical industry,
could profit from the production of AZT,
which was "the first drug approved
by the FDA to treat HIV and AIDS.
That is part of a series of arguments
known as "AIDS denialism",
which has done real damage.
One of its biggest proponents,
a scientist named Peter Duesberg,
actually helped persuade
the South African government to forgo
supplying AZT to those with AIDS,
a decision that's been estimated
to have cost over 330,000 lives there.
Yet RFK recently wrote that Duesberg's
arguments were "so clean,
so elegantly crafted,
and so compelling."
And "elegantly crafted"?
That'd be annoying if
you were writing the copy
on the back of a $12 chocolate bar,
but in this instance, it's just obscene.
And it's not just AIDS where Kennedy's
made big eye-catching claims
that bear no resemblance to reality.
Here he is last year, in a Twitter
Spaces chat with Elon Musk,
suggesting that psychiatric drugs may
be a cause of school shootings.
Prior to the introduction of Prozac,
we had none of these events
in our country.
And we'd never seen them
in human history,
where people walk into a school room
of children or strangers
and start shooting people.
There's other nations that have
as many guns per capita as we do.
Switzerland, the last school shooting
was 21 years ago.
We have one every 21 hours.
The one thing that we have that's
different than anybody in the world
is the amount of psychiatric drugs
our children are taking
and our people are taking
and we need to look at that.
Okay. So, before we go any further,
let me just say this:
I also don't want to be doing this.
I don't want to be debunking
his arguments at length.
I am so close to taking a hit of these
poppers, you have no idea.
But he's made so many confident
assertions there,
and if you leave even one
unchallenged, people will think,
"well, maybe there's something to it."
So, with that in mind, first,
Prozac hit the market in 1988,
and as you probably already know,
there were tons of shootings
and mass shootings before then,
including at schools.
As for the claim "other countries
have as many guns as we do,"
they just don't.
U.S. civilians have the highest rate
of gun ownership in the world
by a factor of more than two.
And as for linking school shootings
to the amount of psychiatric drugs
our children are taking,
researchers haven't found any link
between antidepressants
and school shootings.
In fact, one study found
that over 87% of the secondary
school shooters it sampled
were not on psychiatric medications
at the time of their attacks.
So, multiple facts there
are just plain wrong,
despite how confidently
he just spewed them out there.
He could just as easily have pointed
out the link between school shooters
and milk.
A shocking number have
above-average dairy intake.
And ice cream, in particular,
may contain neuroglycerides
that initiate
psychopathic behavior.
Except none of that is true.
I just made all that shit up.
"Neuroglycerides" isn't even a word.
Lactose Quarterly isn't a magazine!
But it does show just how easy it is
to reel people in
when you're spouting self-assured
bullshit on an unchallenged platform.
And if you're noticing a pattern here,
that RFK will find a problem,
and then work backwards to point
at a big, powerful entity
pulling the strings, that's basically
what he's done with vaccines.
Although, again, he will deny that,
insisting he's not anti-vax at all.
Here he is making that point,
under oath, before Congress.
I have never been anti-vax.
I have never told the public
avoid vaccination.
The only thing I've asked for, and my
views are constantly misrepresented,
so that the truth of what I believe
is not allowed to have a conversation
about that with the American people,
which I believe vaccines should
be tested with the same rigor
as other medicines and medications.
That's a pretty vehement denial.
Quick shout out to the guy recording
that like it's his kid's dance recital.
When are you gonna watch
that footage, dude?
You do know there are other
cameras recording this, right?
Remember when I said Kennedy
goes on a lot of podcasts,
and can sound reasonable? He goes
on a bunch of fringey ones, too.
And when addressing those audiences,
he sends out a very different message
like on this one, three years ago.
Our job is to resist and to talk
about it with everybody.
I see somebody on a hiking trail
carrying a baby and I say to them,
"Better not get 'em vaccinated."
If he hears it from 10 other people,
maybe he won't do it.
Maybe he will save that child.
When they hear that from 10 people,
it'll make an impression on 'em.
If we all kept our mouths shut, don't
keep your mouth shut anymore.
Confront everybody on it.
I love that. I love it. Thank you.
"I love that. I love it."
I have to say, that is exactly the kind
of person I'd expect to be co-hosting
an anti-vaccine podcast.
The sort of person you'd expect to see
walking around a grocery store
during a Covid surge, licking everything
to "fortify her immune system."
But I only say that because
she actually did that,
and posted it to Instagram, because
of course she fucking did.
But also, you don't get to say,
"I'm not anti-vax",
and then wander around the woods
telling people to not vaccinate
their babies like you're some red-pilled
version of Smokey the Bear.
Who I'm realizing is clearly where
you get
your workout wardrobe
inspiration from.
Over the years, Kennedy's promoted
a number of theories about vaccines,
including how they supposedly
cause autism.
We've discussed his claim that
a preservative caused thimerosal
was linked to autism in our piece
on vaccines several years ago.
Not only is it bullshit,
thimerosal hasn't been
in children's vaccines since 2001,
except for the flu vaccine,
and even then, there was,
and remains, a version
without thimerosal in it.
But Kennedy parlayed the initial panic
he helped cause
into founding
the Children's Health Defense,
one of the country's leading
anti-vaccine organizations.
And he's continued to fearmonger
about a connection between
thimerosal and autism ever since.
In 2015, he said of kids
getting vaccinated,
"They get the shot, that night they
have a fever of 103,
they go to sleep, and three
months later their brain is gone,
this is a holocaust, what
this is doing to our country."
Which is clearly absurd.
A vaccine cannot make
someone's brain go away,
although I'm increasingly believing
that a dead worm might be able to.
And if you're noticing a certain cruelty
in how Kennedy tends to talk about
autistic people, you're not wrong.
It goes well beyond the anti-vax
community's general gross tendency
to imply that they'd rather have
a kid die from polio or measles
than be diagnosed with autism.
'Cause just listen to him here.
I bet you've never met anybody
with full-blown autism your age.
You know, headbanging,
with a helmet on, non-toilet trained,
nonverbal.
I've never met anybody like that
my age, but in my kids age now,
one in every 34 kids has autism
and half of those are full-blown,
meaning that description.
Okay, first, if there's limited variety
in the people you've met your age,
maybe it's because you've only
ever hung out with the same circle
of five or six sex offenders
or murderers.
I don't know.
I am just asking questions.
And I could talk about the history
of autism diagnoses,
and how they're still so new,
the first person to be given one
died just last year.
I could discuss the fact that autistic
people were long misunderstood
and institutionalized.
I could also throw in that there
is definitely no such diagnosis
as "full-blown autism".
I could just let this guy with autism
point out
that just because RFK didn't know
anyone with autism,
didn't mean they didn't exist,
in the most deliciously derisive way.
Fucking Mount Everest wasn't
discovered until 1852,
but I'm pretty sure it was still there.
Also, yeah, like all those fucking
old grandpas
with, like,
a giant ass train collection,
you don't think they're just
a little bit on the spectrum?
Just a teeny weeny?
God, conspiracy theorists are
the dumbest people on the planet,
bar none.
Yeah. I honestly cannot put it
much better than that.
And look, RFK will insist he just wants
vaccines to be tested
for safety and efficacy,
but as we have said before,
they have been, and repeatedly.
Not only are vaccines already held
to a higher safety standard
than other medications,
thousands of studies have found
they're safe and effective,
including a systematic review
of over 160 studies on vaccine safety
that found any serious adverse
reactions were extremely rare.
You could look at this study of over
650,000 children born in Denmark,
some vaccinated, some not,
which concludes that the "MMR
vaccination does not increase
the risk for autism,"
or this meta-review of 10 studies
involving over one and a quarter
million children,
which also "revealed no relationship
between vaccination and autism."
There are so many examples
like this,
and it's why experts will tell you that
a person's chance of having
a bad reaction to a vaccine
is about one in a million.
As one expert we spoke to pointed out,
given that we have over 40,000 deaths
by car accident in the U.S. per year,
the most dangerous aspect
of vaccinating children
is driving to the doctor's office
to get them.
Especially, by the way, if your kids are
singing "Baby Shark" the whole time.
Because that will make you drive
off a fucking cliff.
And I know this can all seem
very abstract.
But the thing is, Kennedy's ideas
have been put to the test
in the real world, and sometimes
with hideous consequences.
Take what happened in Samoa.
In 2018, there was a horrible accident,
when two children
died from a measles vaccine
that two nurses had "incorrectly mixed
with a muscle relaxant".
It was awful,
but it was human error.
Nevertheless, the anti-vax movement
seized on the sudden fear
of vaccines there, and the following
year, Kennedy visited Samoa,
in a trip arranged by a local
antivaccine influencer there.
He met
with other anti-vaccine activists,
including one who wrote that the
meeting was profoundly monumental
for this movement.
He even met with the prime minister,
with whom he discussed vaccines,
in his words, "a limited amount".
And when, a few months later, there
was a measles outbreak in Samoa,
RFK wrote a four-page letter
to the prime minister
in which he "suggested the measles
vaccine itself might be
the true cause of the crisis."
In the end, that outbreak killed
83 people,
mostly infants and children,
in large part due
to their lack of vaccinations,
an outbreak Kennedy
later referred to as "mild".
And when confronted about all of this,
he is quick to try and distance himself.
Yeah, I'm aware there was
a measles outbreak,
but I didn't have anything…
I have nothing to do with people
not vaccinating in Samoa.
I never told anybody not to vaccinate.
I didn't go there for any reason
to do with that.
Got it. So, you just popped in to one
of the most remote countries on earth,
and just happened to encounter all
your anti-vax buddies along the way.
It's the ultimate conspiracist code:
"nothing is a coincidence except
when I do it."
And look, on some level, I do get
why people are drawn to RFK.
There is an earned distrust of Big
Pharma and medical authorities.
And illness and disease are scary.
Kennedy's explanations,
as bullshit as they may be,
can almost be comforting
at a frightening time.
That is an environment
in which he thrives.
And it may explain why
his popularity took off
during the Covid pandemic.
There was a lot of uncertainty
back then,
and medical experts were
understandably making mistakes
and learning in real-time.
Kennedy saw that, and he pounced.
He took a lot of big swings,
including writing a book
in which he claimed
that Fauci was using Covid to execute
a historic coup d'état
against western democracy.
Once again, his "just asking questions"
caused real harm to real people.
For example, he pushed the idea that
the Covid vaccine was dangerous,
especially to young people, even
writing the foreword to this book
called "Cause Unknown: The Epidemic
of Sudden Deaths in 2021 and 2022",
a compilation of young people
who'd died suddenly,
heavily implying their deaths
were caused by the vaccine.
Look, it is true that a very few young
people reported heart complications
after receiving the vaccine,
but not only is the risk rare,
and most patients felt better quickly,
but importantly, in children and teens,
the risks of getting Covid
and developing severe illness that
could seriously impact the heart
are far greater than the risk
of experiencing
post-vaccine heart complications.
Nevertheless, in that book's foreword,
RFK wrote that it proves
an undeniable and urgent reality,
laid out with facts that can
be confirmed by any reader,
point by point, page by page.
He even went on Joe Rogan
to give the book a hard sell.
If you have a skeptic and you can get
them to sit down for 90 minutes
with this book when they get up
they will have converted.
It's sickening. I mean, it's terrible.
These beautiful children who were
dying on the playing field.
And Covid was killing people,
but it was old people.
"Cause Unknown: The Epidemic of
Sudden Deaths in 2021 and 2022."
Edward Dowd.
Died after first vaccine dose.
Dies at hospital.
Football. Died on the field.
Okay, set aside that Joe Rogan's just
muttering random words off the cover
with an energy level I'd describe as
"just ate a fistful of melatonin pills,"
that is a pretty hard sell from RFK,
give this book to people for 90 minutes
and they'll be converted.
But the AP found that dozens
of individuals included in the book
died of known causes
not related to vaccines,
including suicide and choking while
intoxicated.
The book even includes one person
who died in 2019.
So, unless the headline was, "Time
Traveler Dies of Covid Vaccine,"
they don't really belong in there.
But that's not all.
'Cause when the book was first printed,
one of the kids on the cover
was Braden Fahey,
who died after collapsing during
football practice at just 12 years old.
But we know for a fact that the
Covid vaccine didn't kill Braden,
'cause he wasn't vaccinated.
He died from a malformed
blood vessel in his brain.
And no one ever contacted his parents
to ask about their son's death,
or for permission to use his photo.
Something they are, understandably,
furious about.
It's just another gut punch.
We've been punched in the gut as hard
as you can be punched in the gut.
And this is just another
one right after.
You try so hard to each day to heal,
and then you just have to take
on a whole other nightmare.
And part of you wants
to just dismiss it and go,
"We've dealt with so much,
we can't deal with anymore."
But then, you know, you just have
to do it for your son,
and we can't as his parents
look the other way.
That is awful.
They've had to go out of their
way to correct the record
about their son's death,
in the face of someone who not only
has the platform of a Kennedy,
but also of a presidential candidate.
Now I should tell you,
after that story,
Braden was removed from the cover
of subsequent editions of that book.
But not only is the first
version with him on the cover
still selling on Amazon,
even the newer edition,
despite everything we just told you,
still includes him inside the book.
And the publishers' excuse
for this is enraging,
because they argued to us this week
that the book never specifically says
that the people shown in it died
from the Covid vaccine,
just that it highlights "a new trend
of people dying suddenly
for unknown causes." Which is not
what the book does at all.
And it is definitely not what RFK
did when he tweeted out its cover,
with Braden's picture on it,
and claimed the book showed
"the Covid shots are a crime against
humanity".
That tweet is still up,
which is a little odd to me,
because what was it that Kennedy
liked to say?
If somebody shows me a fact
and I'm wrong,
I'm gonna change my opinion
and I'll apologize.
That's weird.
But I guess it does make sense.
Saying, "If somebody shows me
a fact and I'm wrong,
I'm gonna totally ignore it and force
grieving parents to relive
the worst thing that's ever happened
to them,"
doesn't quite have the same ring
to it, does it?
And look, I could litigate
Kennedy's stupid arguments all night,
but I really do not want to do that
to myself, or to you.
There are not enough poppers
in the world to take the edge off this,
and to quote Kennedy's neurologist,
"I really don't have time to go down
all these worm holes."
Hopefully, though, at this point,
you've got a better sense
of who this man actually is.
And if you don't know any of this,
I do get why you might like him.
Because the idea of RFK is appealing.
But so many of the reasons
to support him just don't stand up
under the slightest scrutiny.
If you're voting for him because
he seems honest or trustworthy,
I think you've seen otherwise.
If it's the Kennedy legacy,
you should know
over a dozen members of his own family
have come out against his campaign.
If you're voting for the environmental
hero of the '90s,
I'll point out, multiple prominent
environmental groups have opposed
his campaign,
including many former colleagues.
If you like that he's against polluters
and Big Pharma, I get it.
We criticize them all the time.
But when we do that, we make sure
we've got our facts right
and don't just pull them out of the ass
of our best workout jeans.
And finally, if you're frustrated with
the two-party system, me, too.
But honestly, the way to dismantle
that isn't through voting
for one magical candidate,
it'll come from building a movement
toward ranked-choice voting.
And it's important to know:
at least one of those parties
may not be as opposed to Kennedy
as he says he is to them.
Because Republicans seem to be
counting on him to siphon off
Democratic votes.
His campaign's largest contributor
is Timothy Mellon,
a Republican megadonor
who's also donated $50 million
to a pro-Trump group this election.
And if Trump wins a second term,
Kennedy may wind up working for him.
Because when we reached out
to RFK's campaign this week,
they told us he and Trump have
discussed the possibility
of a cabinet position for him,
Health and Human Services.
And if that is true,
that is a fucking nightmare.
There is no good outcome here.
Even if RFK drops out tomorrow,
he'll have injected and
amplified misinformation that,
as you've seen,
takes a lot of effort to debunk.
If he stays in, history has shown
spoiler candidates can do
intense damage to no real end.
And don't just take that from me,
Ralph Nader, famously,
helped swing the election for
George W. Bush back in 2000.
And there was a guy back then who
was very smartly imploring him
to drop out.
Despite fading poll numbers, the core
support behind Nader's candidacy
is making some liberal
Democrats unhappy.
There's a political reality here,
which is that his candidacy could draw
enough votes in certain key states
from Al Gore to give the entire
election to George W. Bush.
Exactly. And look, this is the only time
you're gonna hear me say this,
but RFK is, and don't you
dare take this out of fucking context,
making a really good point there.
But the fact is, the rest of the time,
Kennedy is a full-blown menace,
and frankly,
spending this much time
thinking about him has been,
if I may quote Vanity Fair,
the low point of my summer.
And now, if you'll excuse me,
I think I have earned these.
And now, this.
And Now: Local News Celebrates
a Surprisingly Divisive Holiday.
How do you feel
about cheesecake, Greg?
I love it. It's one
of my favorite desserts.
Well, then, today's your day, because
today is National Cheesecake Day.
Give me a classic New York-style
cheesecake,
and it's gonna be 15 pounds back
on me again.
Any cheesecake's a winner for me,
I'll be celebrating today, for sure.
Today's National Cheesecake Day,
so what's your favorite cheesecake?
I'm not a fan of cheesecake.
I don't like cheesecake.
You don't like cheesecake?
It just doesn't make sense
in my brain.
I don't know if it's about the flavor
or the texture or whatever…
It's just so thick.
- What's your favorite cheesecake?
- I'm not a cheese guy.
Why do you hate America?
Now, where did your, you know,
dislike come from?
- Have you ever tried it?
- I don't want to try it.
Thanks so much for watching.
We'll see you next week, good night!
Welcome, welcome, welcome!
And now, this. Show me a fact!
It's not sexual harassment
if it's a horse.
The conditions at the sweatshop
this doll was made in will horrify you.