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Abbreviated Pundit Roundup: Republican Senators lose faith in RFK Jr (and how could they not?) [1]

['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']

Date: 2025-09-08

Washington Post:

Why some Republicans are newly worried about RFK Jr. GOP senators say his moves on vaccines are risky for public health. They also may be bad politics. Seven months after they voted to confirm longtime anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as the nation’s health secretary, some Republican senators are having second thoughts. “I’m a doctor. Vaccines work,” Sen. John Barrasso (Wyoming), the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, told Kennedy at a hearing Thursday on Capitol Hill. “Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.” Barrasso’s warning, which Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) and Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) echoed at Thursday’s hearing, was the latest and perhaps most significant sign of growing GOP doubts about the merits — and political wisdom — of Kennedy’s agenda.

There’s no evidence GOP Senators care about public health (if they did, they never would have confirmed this dangerous fanatic), but they do care about the politics of it. Parents vote.

x ACOG Continues Recommending COVID-19 Vaccine During Pregnancy https://t.co/1zoXitCHD7 — DrDemetre (@dr_demetre) September 8, 2025

Washington Post:

RFK Jr. says anyone who wants a covid shot can get one. Not these Americans. Pharmacies and doctors are struggling to adjust to a new regulatory environment for updated coronavirus vaccines that are no longer broadly recommended. Confusion is rippling through the health care system as pharmacies and doctors try to adjust to providing a vaccine that is no longer broadly recommended. Americans’ experiences vary widely, from easily booking appointments to having to cross state lines to access the shots, according to more than 3,200 submissions to The Washington Post’s request for readers to share their experiences. Chain pharmacy locations in some parts of the country have yet to stock the shots or are turning away patients seeking the updated vaccines manufactured to protect people from the worst effects of new strains of the coronavirus. In some states, they require prescriptions, a step that has largely not been required since vaccines became widely available in early 2021.

Connecticut is good. Other states, not so much.

x Trump approval on the issues



Border security and immigration

Disapprove 53% (+1)

Approve 47% (-1)

—

Deportations and immigration

Disapprove 57%

Approve 43%

(No previous poll)

—

Inflation and the cost of living

Disapprove 61% (no change)

Approve 39% (no change)

—

Trade and… https://t.co/Lz08Swlxsh — Politics & Poll Tracker 📡 (@PollTracker2024) September 7, 2025

Trump is an unpopular president. With unpopular policies.

Jonathan Cohn/The Bulwark:

RFK Jr.’s Dangerous Rewriting of the COVID Pandemic The health secretary had some whoppers during his hearing last week—but one in particular caught our eye. But the Kennedy claim that really stuck with me was an argument he made in his opening statement, as a pre-emptive response to questions about the firing of Monarez and the subsequent resignation of four senior CDC scientists: CDC failed that responsibility miserably during COVID when its disastrous and nonsensical policies destroyed small businesses, violated civil liberties, closed our schools, caused generational damage in doing so, masked infants with no science and heightened economic inequality. And yet all those oppressive and unscientific interventions failed to do anything about the disease itself. America is home to 4.2 percent of the world’s population, yet we had nearly 20 percent of the COVID deaths. We literally did worse than any country in the world. This argument, which echoed a Wall Street Journal opinion article under Kennedy’s byline that appeared on Tuesday, had more basis in reality than much of what he said on Thursday. Although the U.S. COVID death rate wasn’t literally the worst in the world, it was one of the worst among both economically advanced countries and those in which the disease was most widespread. And while it was primarily federal, state, and local officials who gave the orders on the masks, business suspensions, and school closings that Kennedy decried, it’s certainly true that the CDC recommended many of these steps either directly or by implication—and that the agency’s overall record during the pandemic includes some decisions that look like bad calls in retrospect. But Kennedy’s linking of the two—his suggesting that CDC actions increased the death toll—makes no sense whatsoever. And it’s important to understand why, because Kennedy isn’t using this argument simply to justify the firings and other changes he’s making to the agency. He’s also using it to justify policy changes that will leave us more vulnerable—and more likely to die—the next time we face a threat like COVID.

Jerusalem Demas/The Argument:

Liberals don’t have to lose on immigration “Moderating” on immigration doesn't mean abandoning it Immigrants, for the most part, are deeply grateful to be in the United States, and almost by definition are willing to make deep sacrifices to come here. They risk life and limb, cultural exclusion, even the possibility that their children will not know their language or culture. Immigrants have already accepted that there are risks on the road to becoming an American. It’s a fact that I think my fellow liberals often lose sight of when instead it should be central to how we think about solving the politics of the issue. Without immigration, America is destined for economic decline. The problem is the backlash to Biden’s border chaos helped re-elect Donald Trump, seemingly with the mandate to pursue widespread deportations. However, after witnessing the brutality of what a mass deportation campaign actually looks like, Americans have decided that while it may have sounded good in theory, they don’t actually like the praxis.

x Tapper: Before you made your decision to lift vaccine mandates, did you do any data analysis?



Florida Surgeon General Ladapo: "Absolutely not. There's a conflation of the science and what is the right and wrong thing to do...I don't need to do an analysis on that."



Tapper: "So… pic.twitter.com/InGST19LS0 — The Bulwark (@BulwarkOnline) September 7, 2025

Julie K Brown/Miami Herald:

Miami Herald, New York Times seek to unseal records on Jeffrey Epstein’s estate The records — written by a court-designated special master overseeing probate of his estate — could reveal how his co-executors are distributing the sex trafficker’s fortune and, more significantly, provide insight into how Epstein acquired his money, which has long been a mystery. Epstein’s primary residence was Little St. James, his private island off St. Thomas and where for years he operated a group of shell companies that enabled him to obtain over $300 million in tax breaks in the USVI.

x A president so popular that…. pic.twitter.com/W10GAdWFdb — Molly Jong-Fast (@MollyJongFast) September 7, 2025

Jeff Tiedrich/everyone is entitled to my opinion:

decrepit draft dodger declares war on Chicago Donny’s gonna make an apocalypse ... in his pants remember those glorious days when Donny disappeared from public view for a whole week, leaving us to speculate that maybe, at long last, he’d been grimly reaped? that was fun, wasn’t it? but it wasn’t just fun, it was peaceful. America got to catch its breath and actually relax for a change. no such luck this weekend, my friends. the Mad King’s firehose of fucknuttery has been turned back on — all the way to eleven — and it’s blasting right in our faces at point-blank range. lucky us.

Washington Post:

Virginia governor’s race hits high gear as referendum on Trump Democrat Spanberger enjoys polling and financial advantage, while Republican Earle-Sears is diving deep into her party’s playbook of vilifying liberal transgender policies. With Labor Day past and early voting just two weeks away, the Virginia governor’s race has shifted into high gear as a referendum on Trumpism. Democrat Abigail Spanberger is running against a faltering economy that she blames on the White House, while Republican Winsome Earle-Sears is diving deep into her party’s playbook of vilifying liberal transgender policies.

Did I mention that Trump is unpopular? As for Earle-Sears, think Ed Gillespie and caravans.

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