Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took a bizarre swipe at sexual assault survivors while delivering a takedown of Tylenol and casting doubt on vaccines alongside President Donald Trump.
The Health Secretary briefly referenced “believe women,” a slogan popularized by the #MeToo movement, while arguing that some mothers of children with autism believe that vaccines injured their kids.
“Some of our friends like to say we should believe all women, but some of these same people have been silencing and demonizing these mothers for three decades because research on the potential link between autism and vaccines has been actively suppressed in the past,” he said.
Kennedy, a longtime vaccine skeptic whose appointment to the helm of the Health Department stirred uproar, found an ally in Trump in his quest to link vaccines to autism despite all science to the contrary.
Kennedy and Trump used a Monday press conference to warn the public against Tylenol, claiming without providing new evidence that the use of the popular pain reliever during pregnancy “can be associated with a very increased risk of autism.”
“It will take time for an honest look at this topic by scientists, but I want to reassure the people in the autism community that we will be uncompromising and relentless in our search for answers,” Kennedy vowed.
The Health Secretary’s odd remark appeared to reference not just the #MeToo movement, but a slogan that some have claimed was deliberately formulated to muddle the campaign’s message.
The phrase “believe women” rose in popularity as sexual assault survivors spoke out during producer Harvey Weinstein’s public fall from grace in 2017. The Washington Post columnist Monica Hesse argued in 2020, however, that the phrase was eventually twisted into “believe all women” in an effort to strip the original saying of its nuance and “make it seem as if people whose stories are often dismissed or discounted were being crazy for demanding due respect.”
Kennedy is no stranger to the movement against sexual abusers. During his independent campaign for the presidency, Variety reported allegations made against Kennedy by Eliza Cooney, who was a part-time babysitter for the powerful family in the late 1990s.
Cooney recounted that Kennedy groped her twice and made her put lotion on his back. She was 23 and he was 45 at the time.
Kennedy denied the allegations earlier this year when lawmakers were grilling him at his confirmation hearing, but he apologized to Cooney by text when the story first came out in 2024.
“I have no memory of this incident but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did or said that offended you or hurt your feelings,” Kennedy told Cooney in a text obtained by the Post. “I never intended you any harm. If I hurt you, it was inadvertent. I feel badly for doing so.”
Cooney told the newspaper at the time that the apology text felt “disingenuous and arrogant.”
“I’m not sure how somebody has a true apology for something that they don’t admit to recalling. I did not get a sense of remorse,” she said.
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