Comedian Bill Maher on Friday echoed calls for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to resign.
“It’s just – he’s got to go,” Maher told viewers during the Friday episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
Maher labeled Kennedy as “nutty” following a series of dismissals involving senior advisers and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez.
Intense criticism regarding Kennedy’s leadership emerged after his Thursday appearance before the Senate Committee on Finance. During this session, he sidestepped inquiries about fatalities associated with the COVID-19 pandemic and disseminated misinformation about vaccine access.
His nephew, former Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), commented that his uncle used the opportunity to “dismiss science, mislead the public, sideline experts, and sow confusion.”
“Robert Kennedy Jr. poses a threat to the health and well-being of every American. A United States Secretary of Health and Human Services is responsible for safeguarding the nation’s public health,” he elaborated in a Friday statement on X.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s sister Kerry Kennedy also chimed in, urging her brother to resign over poor public health advice.
“Medical decisions should be entrusted to trained and licensed professionals, not to ineffectual and misguided leaders. The erosion of essential institutions, such as the NIH [National Institutes of Health] and the CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], will result in the loss of innocent lives. Consequently, children, mothers, fathers, and those you cherish are at unprecedented risk,” she stated in a post on X.
Maher said at first he was “sympathetic” towards the secretary and his “Make America Healthy Again Agenda.”
However, the comedian remarked on Friday, “He’s just too nutty. He simply doesn’t listen. I mean, he just is. And nothing ever—I call it ‘pendulumism’—nothing ever stays in the center.”
“The knives are out for Bobby Kennedy, and I gotta say, I’m with the knives,” Maher added.
Despite concerns, President Trump told reporters that Kennedy’s “got a different take, and we want to listen to all of those takes.”
“But it’s not your standard talk, I would say. And that has to do with medical and vaccines. But if you look at what’s going on in the world with health, and look at this country also with regard to health, I like the fact that he’s different,” he added.
