Invite your friends and earn rewards. We would be grateful if you would share The Warning with your family and friends. You earn rewards when they subscribe. The nihilism and madness of RFK Jr. PLUS: Join my weekly conversation with Ryan Lizza TODAY at 12 pm ET Steve Schmidt Sep 8 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a sinister and amoral man. He is a killer. He is profoundly corrupt. Robert F. Kennedy is an angel of death and spreader of disease. He peddles his conspiracies with premeditation and specific intention. Of course, his goal is to make money, not murder, but in the end, it is all semantics. What makes Robert F. Kennedy Jr. evil is that he is happy to cash his checks on the caskets of dead children. He does so without hesitation or doubt because his sociopathy makes it impossible for him to care about other people, like his tortured wife who killed herself, or the young babysitter of his children, whom he attempted to rape. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a liar, junkie, pusher, predator and epic embarrassment. He disgraces his father’s noble name, and the legacy of deep sacrifice rendered by his estimable family in service of the United States of America. Today, he is in charge of one quarter of all government spending and America’s public health. Why? Why would a man so sick, twisted and corrupt, with no credibility outside the fever swamps of his supporters’ delusions be put in charge of anything — by anyone — who, at the end of the day, would seem interested in the concept of success, like Donald Trump? The simple answer was that he wanted to send a signal and a “f@#k you.” Psychology is a critical aspect of politics in this moment. Chris Christie is from New Jersey. Donald Trump is from Queens, New York. Generally speaking, the Northeast of the United States, particularly the tri-state area of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, is filled with people who understand one another. Here is how Chris Christie describes the ‘why’ on yesterday’s edition of ABC News’ This Week: The president did this. He knows. The president’s smart enough to know RFK Jr. doesn’t belong in that job. But after he won, he wanted to show everybody, I can do whatever I want to do because this Senate will be compliant no matter what I do and I’ll put the greatest vaccine and public health denier of the last 20 years in charge of public health in America. It’s a human middle finger, George, to everybody who opposed him. Spot on. Some of my earliest memories as a child come from visiting the Bayonne, New Jersey, apartment of my grandfather’s brother and my Aunt Carrie. I can still hear the squishy sound of my sneakers pressing into the uneven rubber runner that ran down the middle of the hallway. It led to their door, with the smells of the Italian cooking growing stronger with each step. When the door swung open I would be greeted by an ebullient Italian aunt and Uncle Bill, a powerfully-built man in a wheelchair. Uncle Bill was a Normandy veteran, a D-Day paratrooper, who survived the war. He walked down the gang plank of his troop ship when it returned him to the United States after fascism had been destroyed — at least for a while. Polio put him in the wheelchair. It did not discriminate against rich or poor, black or white, woman or man. This is a picture of a polio ward full of children in iron lungs: Photo credit: Science History Images/Alamy Stock Photo Can you imagine the misery? More importantly, can you comprehend the insanity of this moment when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and a crackpot Florida surgeon general are calling for an end to all vaccine mandates? Here is an exchange between Jake Tapper and Joseph Ladapo, Florida’s surgeon general: There isn’t a whole lot more to learn about the character or derangements of the people who will be responsible for killing untold numbers of Americans in the years ahead. The only mystery is the progression of the consequences as cured diseases, whose eradication was understood as a miracle by the generations ravaged by them, come back to life so America can be both “great” and “healthy again.” I thought it might be interesting to refresh our collective memory about the man who invented the vaccine that was too late to help my Uncle Bill. He always made sure to point out how lucky we were to live in the time we were living because science to him wasn’t just wondrous; it was miraculous. This is a New York Times’ profile about Dr. Jonas E. Salk from 1955. Consider the words below as you comprehend the nihilism and madness of RFK Jr. and his legion of crackpots, such as the frauds Calley and Casey Means, the latter a medical residency drop-out and Instagram influencer, whom Trump has nominated to be the surgeon general of the United States: Dr. Jonas E. Salk is a shy, quiet scientist 40 years old. He is a native New Yorker and the father of three boys. In the development of his vaccine he frequently worked eighteen hours a day, sometimes twenty-four. But although he pressed the development, he refused, as a scientist, to sacrifice thoroughness for speed. A psychiatrist friend described him as “one of the clearest, most deliberate thinkers I've ever known. He has great emotional stability. You can bet he won't push his work one second faster than it's absolutely safe to do so.” If Dr. Salk had had his way, no word of discovery would have been published until the vaccine had been tested thoroughly. When the news came out in the spring of 1953, he rushed to New York to see that the press did not overstate the matter. Dr. Salk talks rapidly and evenly. His gaze is level from behind light-rimmed glasses that accent his high dark hairline. His appearance is almost clinically neat. Brilliant in School He was born in upper Manhattan, the eldest of three sons, on Oct. 28, 1914. His father, employed in the garment district, soon afterward moved the family to the Bronx, where Jonas attended grade school. He was graduated from Townsend Harris High School, which then was a secondary school for exceptional students. Friends said he was a studious youth who “read everything he could lay his hands on, tried to be a perfectionist in school work right down to the last little essay, and earned high grades.” He received his B. S. degree from the 'College of the City of New York in 1934. While a student, he worked summers as a counselor at a boys' camp and also was employed for a time as a laboratory technician. With the help of fellowships in chemistry and experimental surgery, he studied medicine at the New York University College of Medicine. After receiving his M. D. degree in June, 1939, he remained for a short time as a fellow in bacteriology. He then interned for two years at Mount Sinai Hospital. His First Research A fellowship in epidemiology from the National Research Council made it possible for Dr. Salk to attend the University of Michigan in 1942 for research on the influenza virus. At Michigan, collaborating with Dr. Thomas Francis Jr., he helped develop commercial vaccines against influenza. He became a research fellow in the department of epidemiology of the university's School of Public Health in 1943, a research associate in 1944 and assistant professor of epidemiology in 1946. When the University of Pittsburgh expanded its work in virus research in 1947, Dr. Salk joined the staff. Since then he has been director of the Virus Research Laboratory of the School of Medicine. In 1949 he was promoted from associate research professor of bacteriology to full research professor. Continuing his work on influenza vaccines, he became increasingly interested in the search for an effective preventive against poliomyelitis. Dr. Salk acknowledged that he did not administer the test vaccine to children—who included his own—without emotion. "When you inoculate children with a polio vaccine,” he said, "you don't sleep well for two or three months." But he disavowed any credit for daring. "I had the courage of my convictions," he said quietly. "I couldn't have done it unless I had been more critical of myself than others were of me. It was courage based on confidence, not daring, and it was confidence based on experience.” Let’s get back to the This Week panel. Chris Christie zeroed in on the appalling Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy, a medical doctor, who was the deciding vote in the Kennedy confirmation: I really don’t want to hear about Bill Cassidy because he is a co-conspirator with the president of the United States for putting this wholly unqualified man in charge of 25 percent of all government spending. Without Cassidy’s vote, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would not be in. And maybe he’s feeling some guilt from what he did. Christie perfectly summed up the situation. Every word was self-evidently true to any right thinking and rationale person. Yet, according to panelist Reince Priebus, a model of capitulation, collaboration and cynicism none of this is so. He sees it differently. Here’s his take on the US Senate hearing that perfectly illustrates the magnitude of the American crisis, referring to RFK Jr.: I saw a decent, humble, caring guy. I think he’s trying to do the right thing. When George Stephanopoulos challenged him on RFK Jr. being “humble,” Priebus responded: Yeah, I think he is. And you know what? He’s trying to balance the benefits of the Covid shot versus some of the admitted risks that the CDC has put on him. Christie jumped in, and said to Priebus: I’m very confused by you this morning. So I want to know: you think Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the best man to be leading public health?! Answer the question! Priebus: It’s not my decision! It’s the president’s decision! Christie concluded with the obvious point about RFK Jr.: You’re supporting the decision … You just called him a humble, qualified man! So you think he’s the best person to lead public health in this country? He’s a joke! He’s a foolish man and he’s a joke! In the end, I would have asked a different question than the one Christie asked Priebus, although I think Christie would appreciate mine as both a fellow New Jerseyan and University of Delaware Blue Hen. I would have looked Reince Priebus in the eye and asked: What the f#@k is wrong with you? What is your malfunction? What has made you so dishonest, afraid and cowed? At any rate, it is always good to see Chris Christie when he lines up in the right batter’s box. I wonder if he’s changed his mind about me from the time he published his book, “Let Me Finish,” which celebrated Trump. He described me as being a singular example of an overwrought Trump hysteric, and an exemplar of the exaggerated rhetoric used by the “Never Trump” movement to describe his close friend of many years, Donald. There’s a word for what I was about Trump, and a word for what he was about Trump: ‘right’ and ‘wrong.’ It’s a concept that’s really helpful in understanding the science of vaccines — and everything happening around us. The Warning with Steve Schmidt is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.