Jake Tapper Calls Out Robert Kennedy Jr. On His 'Wild and False' Story About Working Together on Anti-Vaccine Exposé
June 23 2023, Published 4:14 p.m. ET
CNN anchor Jake Tapper slammed Robert Kennedy Jr. and accused the unlikely Democrat presidential candidate of telling a "wild and false" story about the journalist, RadarOnline.com has learned.
Tapper didn't hold back in the piece he authored for CNN, where he condemned the controversial anti-vaccine activist over recent claims he made during a podcast interview with Jordan Peterson. Kennedy is most known for spreading medical misinformation and leading the anti-childhood vaccine movement, which he falsely based on the unfounded claim that vaccines caused autism.
During the June 5 interview, Kennedy claimed he worked with Tapper in 2005 for an ABC News story.
Kennedy alleged that for "three weeks" the two collaborated on an "incredible documentary" that centered around a magazine article regarding his claim on vaccines and autism, which was ultimately killed by "corporate."
Kennedy's original article was also removed from Salon.com and Rolling Stone. It claimed that a preservative found in many childhood vaccines caused neurological disorders.
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"No and no," Tapper began his scathing public reply to Kennedy. The CNN anchor addressed Kennedy's claim that Tapper phoned him "the night before the piece was supposed to run," and broke the news that the story "just got killed by corporate."
"I didn’t say that in any way and the piece wasn’t killed," Tapper responded, as he insisted he told Kennedy that ABC News was "holding the story for a day."
Tapper also took great offense to being "misquoted" by Kennedy.
During his interview, Kennedy claimed Tapper told him, "All my career, I have never had a piece killed by corporate and I’m so mad."
Tapper denied any "corporate" involvement and explained, "I had been at ABC News for two years. I had had plenty of pieces killed."
"Not once did ‘corporate’ play a role in killing any of them," Tapper noted.
Tapper appeared to accuse Kennedy of embellishing their work together, downplaying the time and energy that went into the controversial piece.
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"Now in his retelling, a two-minute piece was an ‘incredible documentary,’ a few days of work was three weeks, one remote interview was me working intensely with him, and a piece that got delayed one day so we could interview some actual experts is a piece that got killed," Tapper wrote on CNN.
Tapper's piece eventually aired on June 22, 2005.
"Kennedy alleges a government cover-up, arguing the Centers for Disease Control, in collusion with the pharmaceutical industry, suppressed data about the dangers of Thimerosal," Tapper reported at the time.
Tapper's final cut included multiple medical studies on Thimerosal that revealed no link had been established between the preservative and autism.
