Dana Gets Bashed: Hoping to Expose Robert F. Kennedy Jr., CNN’s Dana Bash Instead Exposes the Failures of Journalism

CNN’s Dana Bash, host of “State of the Union,” interviewed RFK Jr. on Sunday to ridicule his beliefs. The interview backfired.

Last week was a brutal week for the legacy media, their Big Pharma advertisers, and the old guard public health establishment.

On July 29, the embodiment of science itself, Dr. Anthony Fauci, invoked the Fifth Amendment over 100 times as he was shredded by Republican Senators for Covid-era lies that were once promulgated as absolute truth by traditional media outlets.

Days before, Fauci’s diary was posted publicly in Senator Rand Paul’s Reading Room, exposing the stark differences between his public statements and his private thoughts, which he stupidly placed on a government-owned computer. A running theme in Fauci’s diary was his addiction to the media adoration he received.

Fauci bathed in his celebrity status, luxuriating in the attention as though it were a scented bubble bath.

Fauci’s statements became policies because the media went along with every word he uttered – even when they contradicted previous statements. What Fauci said became the official narrative.

But the dam began to break.

The MAHA Report helped spread the news that Stephen A. Smith had publicly apologized to basketball star Kyrie Irving for criticizing him for not taking the Covid vaccine.

The Fauci hearing triggered an explosion of outrage that has been simmering for years – outrage about the damage caused by the Covid lockdowns, non-scientific social distancing recommendations, masking orders, vaccine mandates, and Covid vaccine injuries.

And on Sunday, Dr. Ashish Jha, the man who replaced Fauci as President Biden’s Covid Czar, said he now believes that the Covid virus leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology – publicly disagreeing with Fauci’s claim that the virus jumped to humans from animals.

Dr. Ashish Jha

But where are more journalists questioning what they were told in the heat of the Covid battle? Thomas Jefferson famously believed in a free press as a safeguard to keep the government in check.

During the pandemic, legacy journalists lost their way; they forgot the vital role they must play to keep a democracy healthy. Ask tough questions? Question authority? Little of it.

Unfortunately, today many of the same journalists who refused to question Fauci, and other voices spreading his gospel, are still confused about their profession.

Enter CNN’s Dana Bash, host of “State of the Union,” whose staff made the decision to book Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Secretary of Health and Human Services, onto its Sunday, August 2 broadcast.

Perhaps the thinking was that Bash would spend her twenty plus minute segment attacking Kennedy with the usual talking points on his ‘anti-vax’ crusades, his ‘spreading conspiracy theories.’

Perhaps the idea was to take the most visible figure of the medical freedom movement and use him as a scapegoat, a patsy, to put the anti-official narrative – about the origins of the pandemic, vaccines, and more – back into an impenetrable box, a safe place where journalists don’t have to do the real work their profession requires.

Whatever the motivation, things did not go as planned.

Bash, with no hard facts to back her up, tried to land a punch on Kennedy, who barraged her with facts.

Dana got bashed.

For the dying official Covid narrative, and for CNN, the interview was a disaster.

Bash attempted to shift the blame for failed Covid policies from Fauci to President Trump. Kennedy explained that Trump wanted to open the country back up but Fauci’s public statements – trumpeted by the legacy media – influenced many governors to keep lockdowns in place.

Kennedy also noted Covid policies continued for eighteen months into the Biden administration.

Bash asked what Kennedy would do differently when the next pandemic occurs.

“Listen to the doctors on the front lines,” he said, explaining that there were therapeutics that were working but doctors who were saving lives were shut down. “We weren’t listening to them,” he said. “We were doing the opposite.”

If there is another pandemic, Kennedy said, “We need to protect our Constitutional rights.”

For Bash, apparently the notion of protecting people’s rights was not something that should be considered.

“What does that mean?” she asked.

“We began censoring people in violation of the First Amendment,” Kennedy responded. Bash went on: “You’re talking about rights; I’m talking about a potential public health crisis that is coming.”

For Bash and CNN, the Constitution applies only when unelected public health officials say so.

“Doctors who said, ‘you’re doing it wrong’ were marginalized and vilified,” Kennedy added.

Bash then stated, “I really want to move on.”

Kennedy dished back, “Because you were part of the problem.” He added, “It was absolute press malpractice…Your job is to maintain a fierce skepticism toward authority. And you weren’t doing that. You were beating up on people who were dissenting.”

As though she were a sales rep for a Big Pharma company, not a journalist, Bash pivoted to promoting Covid vaccines.

Kennedy cornered his opponent on the reckless Covid vaccine recommendations for children and called Bash out when she could not cite the studies she based her claims on. Bash said she spoke to ‘scientists’ and ‘experts.’

Kennedy noted that legacy media sites ‘experts’ instead of doing the research and reading the actual science.

The interview became more heated when Bash said, “The president wants you to probe the link between autism and vaccines?”

“He certainly does,” Kennedy replied.

Bash read from her prepared script printed on pretty blue paper: “Have you talked to him about medical research that has studied this for twenty-five years and found no link between vaccines and autism? And this is my question here, because I don’t want to litigate that…why not study what could cause autism which scientists believe starts with fetal brain development…why not study whether there are environmental factors that go into a predisposed genetic situation?”

Kennedy responded that studies to determine environmental causes of autism are being done. “That’s one of the ways we found the link between perinatal Tylenol use and autism onset.”

Kennedy said Bash was wrong when she asserted that the issue has been studied. “And you’re rolling your eyes, Dana,” he said.

”I am because I don’t want you to use our air to say this,” Bash answered.

Pause.

“Use our air”?

What would Jefferson say?

Perhaps: “Your attempt to suppress real debate, Dana, is a blow to democracy.”

Returning to her pretty blue script, Bash read a statement prepared by the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Kennedy pointed out that the Institute of Medicine said none of the eight vaccines administered in the first 6 months of life have ever been studied for a relationship to autism.

Bash called these words “categorically untrue.”

Kennedy responded, “You’re sounding like a parrot…Trust the experts like you trusted Fauci… now you’re rolling out the experts again to talk about something that you have no personal knowledge of…You’re getting the best science from someone who is lying to you.”

It was a remarkable moment.

Bash didn’t want to debate Kennedy, she wanted to ridicule him.

It backfired.

The great Covid reckoning has begun.

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