Cheryl Hines braved The View Tuesday morning for a tense appearance with some of her husband’s fiercest critics.
Hines’ interview to promote her new book Unscripted began innocently enough, as co-host Sara Haines politely asked her about how she and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. met.
He’s “completely different from anyone I had ever met in my life,” Hines gushed, concluding the first and last lighthearted moment of the interview. “That’s for sure,” Joy Behar added sarcastically, as Sunny Hostin jumped in to grill Hines about the Health Secretary’s track record.
“How did you feel about his decision to suspend his campaign and support Trump and did you share any concerns that you may have had about that?” Hostin asked. Hines stuttered her way through her answer as she would several others throughout the interview, as the hosts took turns asking her about Kennedy’s “dangerous” impact.
“Well, I always share all of my concerns with with my husband,” Hines said, but “I have not been a political person.”
Hines has drawn fierce criticism for her support of Kennedy’s political aspirations, particularly as he aligned himself with Trump after he dropped his own presidential campaign last year. The Curb Your Enthusiasm star has been subject to brutal internet roastings and shunned from industry peers, but has remained by his side and kept any criticisms she may have had about his moves as Health Secretary to herself.
On The View, however, she echoed some of the views his critics find most problematic—particularly Kennedy’s suspicions about vaccines in children and Tylenol for pregnant women.
“What would you say, and I know you’re not a medical professional, but to women who now feel anxious and nervous because their doctors are telling them one thing, but the top public health professionals are telling them something very different” about whether or not they should take Tylenol while pregnant, Trump’s former aide Alyssa Farah Griffin asked.
“Well, they said consult your doctor before taking it,” Hines answered, though Trump specifically said last month, “Don’t take it. Don’t take it. There’s no downside in not taking it…don’t take Tylenol.”
Hines also parroted her husband’s views on vaccinations.
“Can we listen to parents who say, my child got the vaccine and changed and stopped hitting markers, stopped developing the way they were developing—can we listen to people when they say that?” Hines said as she tried to defend Kennedy’s conspiracies. She also declared that despite the Trump administration’s’ new limitations on who can obtain COVID-19 vaccinations, “both” Trump and Kennedy Jr. “want access to vaccines,” further activating her interviewers.
Behar told Hines, “It’s not fair to really put you on the spot about him because you’re his wife. I know that, but when you say that they are pro-vaccine, it seems as though Bobby and Trump are casting doubt on the efficacy of the vaccine, which makes Americans very nervous—so that’s the problem that we’re having.” Behar’s interjection drew applause from the crowd.
Hostin’s critiques of Kennedy grew fiercer as Hines tried to argue that her husband was qualified to be health secretary because of “everything I have seen him do” that “he has dedicated his career to.”
“The problem, respectfully, is that your husband is the least qualified Department of Health and Human Services head that we’ve had in history,” Hostin retorted. “I think that’s very dangerous.”
Hines insisted Kennedy was no less qualified than “one of Obama’s,” who was an economist. “How is he less qualified than an economist?” Hines argued. It only grew more tense on the panel when Hines disagreed that her husband’s medical theories were “misinformation.”
“When you say, you know, ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation’…” Hines began, trying to verbally craft her defense. Hostin jumped in, like “when he’s connecting circumcision to autism,” before her co-hosts and Hines insisted she wait for a rebuttal. “Fauci—people were saying when you get the vaccine, you cannot transmit COVID. It will stop COVID. And that was disinformation, misinformation,” Hines said.
The hosts tried to take the temperature down on the conversation before it ended, and Behar asked the actress to confirm: “Does he or does he not have a brain worm?”
“It ate just a little bit of his brain and died, so don’t worry,” Hines replied.
Goldberg thanked Hines at the end of the tense exchange, “We don’t often get people on this show who we can ask these questions to, and I appreciate that you came on.”
Later, during the hosts’ recap of the conversation, Behar said, “I think that we should have more Republicans on the show, but they don’t want to come on. They’re scared of us.”
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