{"id":884805,"date":"2026-10-16T21:50:12","date_gmt":"2026-10-16T21:50:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/884805\/"},"modified":"2026-10-16T21:50:12","modified_gmt":"2026-10-16T21:50:12","slug":"reporter-fires-back-after-rfk-jr-aide-tries-to-help-boss-weasel-out-of-a-question","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/884805\/","title":{"rendered":"Reporter Fires Back After RFK Jr. Aide Tries To Help Boss Weasel Out Of A Question"},"content":{"rendered":"

A member of the press didn\u2019t back down on Thursday when an aide for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/a> attempted to shut down his question.<\/p>\n

Kennedy joined Rep. Jennifer Kiggans (R-Va.) in Virginia Beach for a roundtable on addressing shortages in the healthcare workforce, and at the tail end of the presser, the reporter asked him about recent measles deaths<\/a> in Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

\u201cDo you believe that five deaths, potentially six, from measles in the state of Pennsylvania \u2015\u201d the journalist began to ask.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re also not going to talk about measles,\u201d the aide interjected, cutting off the reporter.<\/p>\n

The journalist fired back by pointing out one simple fact: \u201cHe\u2019s the highest-ranking health official in the country! He can answer that question! He\u2019s a cabinet secretary!\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Kennedy then began to answer, but not before he did a bunch of finger-pointing first. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve done better. We\u2019re having a global measles outbreak right now,\u201d Kennedy said. \u201cIt\u2019s all over the world, and the measles outbreak is occurring because so many people went unvaccinated during the COVID pandemic, and this is something that Anthony Fauci, in fact, predicted.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201c[Fauci] said, \u2018We\u2019re gonna kill more people from measles than we save from COVID\u2019 as we\u2019re shutting down measles vaccination programs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy\u2019s remarks refer to a private journal entry written by Fauci on May 6, 2020<\/a>, during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The entry was later discussed during a congressional hearing<\/a> over the summer. <\/p>\n

\u201cGreater than one million children worldwide have missed their measles vaccination because of the shutdown,\u201d Fauci wrote. \u201cThis is terrible and needs to be addressed, since on that basis alone there would be far, far more excess deaths from measles among children than coronavirus deaths among children.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"SecretarySecretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during an announcement at the Health and Human Services (HHS) headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Monday, Oct. 5, 2026.<\/p>\n

Bloomberg via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Kennedy went on to claim that the U.S. has \u201cdone better, and particularly my administration, has done better at controlling the outbreak than any other country in the world.\u201d <\/p>\n

After rattling off a few stats, he then decided to place the blame on Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) for the state\u2019s outbreak, accusing him of refusing CDC Epi-Aid because \u201cthey didn\u2019t want help from the Trump administration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy claimed that the state has finally asked for help from the federal government and he expects he\u2019ll be able to \u201cbring that outbreak to a quick close.\u201d<\/p>\n

Last month, both Trump and Kennedy blamed the outbreak in Pennsylvania squarely on Shapiro.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019ve got a bad governor in Pennsylvania. People just don\u2019t know it. He\u2019s very, he\u2019s close to incompetent,\u201d Trump said at the time<\/a>, with Kennedy in agreement. <\/p>\n

Shapiro responded by blasting the president and Kennedy in a post on X.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncompetence is letting measles, a disease that was declared eliminated in 2000, reemerge,\u201d Shapiro wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cIncompetence is spending your time promoting outright lies instead of urging people to get a vaccination that would protect them against this deadly disease,\u201d the Democratic lawmaker added. <\/p>\n

\u201cIncompetence is denying the tragedy of four measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania,\u201d Shapiro continued. \u201cIncompetence is standing right behind you, Mr. President.\u201d<\/p>\n

Incompetence is letting measles, a disease that was declared eliminated in 2000, reemerge.<\/p>\n

Incompetence is spending your time promoting outright lies instead of urging people to get a vaccination that would protect them against this deadly disease. <\/p>\n

Incompetence is denying the\u2026 https:\/\/t.co\/1Wu12FCl5C<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2014 Governor Josh Shapiro (@GovernorShapiro) September 18, 2026<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A member of the press didn\u2019t back down on Thursday when an aide for Health and Human Services…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":884806,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[371316,371317,223250,97,5599,16348],"class_list":["post-884805","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-cabinet-secretary","tag-global-outbreak","tag-government-accountability","tag-health","tag-public-health","tag-rfk-jr"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884805","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=884805"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/884805\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/884806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=884805"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=884805"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=884805"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}