RFK Jr. and the Art of Frank Conversation

Interview with Tucker Carlson presents a stark contrast to the platitudes and propaganda offered by most politicians.

Yesterday HHS Secretary Kennedy had a wide ranging, hour and a half conversation with Tucker Carlson in which he discussed many of the topics that we write about in this newsletter and in our forthcoming book, Vaccines: Mythology, Ideology, and Reality. I strongly recommend listening to the entire interview, which strikes me as unique among interviews with federal politicians.

Truly great conversationalists are rare because we humans are so inclined to talk about ourselves. I once researched (for a possible book) “the greatest conversationalists in history” and I found multiple references to Samuel Taylor Coleridge that suggested he was the Greatest Of All Time. The man could talk in a lively and witty way about any subject, and his interlocutors reported being fascinated and entertained the whole time.

Over the decades I’ve often gotten the impression that most of the people who aspire to holding public office haven’t really examined the world and don’t have any ideas and thoughts of their own. Parroting platitudes, propaganda, and packaged talking points thus comes naturally to them.

The American poet e.e. cummings parodied this in his poem, “next to of course god america i” in which a politician gives a speech praising the young men who died in the latest war.

why talk of beauty what could be more beaut-
iful than these heroic happy dead
who rushed like lions to the roaring slaughter
they did not stop to think they died instead
then shall the voice of liberty be mute?”

Listening to the secretary’s conversation with Carlson, I marveled at his gift for calm and candid conversation as he spoke about many subjects that were strictly taboo just a few months ago. It’s the sort of rare conversation that proves that emotionally dysregulated, hyper-partisan childishness does not have to dominate public discourse.

Within the medical freedom movement, there has been a fair amount of grumbling that Secretary Kennedy isn’t moving quickly enough, with enough sweeping executive power, and that he is hanging around with the wrong people.

I haven’t found these arguments plausible. Prior to just a few months ago, Kennedy had been ostracized and vilified by the Washington establishment and its media lackeys since 2005.

For him to return to Washington and become the Secretary of Health and Human Services, take on the most formidable organized crime cartel in history, and to have such a frank conversation with Tucker Carlson strikes me as verging on the miraculous.

It is also an extraordinary testament to his patience and tolerance with the insistent folly of Washington that he didn’t simply retire from public affairs years ago.

Bravo Secretary Kennedy.

Postscript: In our new book, Vaccines: Mythology, Ideology, and Reality, we explicate in detail many of the topics the secretary touches on in this interview. Please check out the book’s Amazon page and consider pre-ordering a copy today.