Howard Lutnick, a close ally of both Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., echoed the latter’s conspiracy theories about vaccines during an interview on CNN Wednesday.
Lutnick co-chairs Trump’s 2024 transition team, and Kennedy has said that Trump promised him “control” of the government’s health agencies in his administration—meaning Lutnick’s comments on The Source bear significant weight.
Lutnick described a recent conversation with Kennedy about vaccines, and claimed a link between the life-saving medicine and autism, even though the connection has been studied extensively and never been proven.
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“Why do you think vaccines are safe?” he asked anchor Kaitlan Collins incredulously after she said he wasn’t a doctor. “They’re not proven.”
“Vaccines are safe,” she said. “Kids get them and they’re fine.”
Lutnick resisted.
“We all know so many more people with autism than had when we were young. Oh, come on!” he protested. “The data is not out there,” he added later.
“Vaccines don’t cause autism,” Collins noted, “which is what RFK pushes, which is why people are concerned that he could get a job like [Secretary of Health and Human Services].”
Lutnick denied that Kennedy had any interest in a government position, instead claiming that all he wanted was more data on vaccines to investigate their efficacy.
“I think it’d be pretty cool to give me the data we’ll see what he comes up with,” Lutnick said. “It’s pretty fun.”
After being confronted about the dozens of leading scientific experts who have raised alarm bells about such an arrangement, Lutnick made a truly wild claim: that those scientists “were paid to say [RFK Jr.] pushes lies.”
He failed to offer any evidence to back the claim up.
