From the Fringe to Fox

On Capitol Hill this week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. found himself under fire. The notorious anti-vaccine activist turned Health and Human Services secretary was grilled in a tense Senate Finance Committee hearing, where lawmakers from both parties accused him of peddling falsehoods about vaccines and undermining public health. At one point he exaggerated the number of childhood immunizations, downplayed Covid’s death toll, and suggested health officials were deliberately misleading the public.

That spectacle offered a snapshot of how far once-fringe claims have traveled. For years, Kennedy was considered a crank on the margins, hawking anti-vaccine conspiracy theories in wellness circles and on the talk-radio fringe. Now he is running the country’s health department. His views aren’t just tolerated, they are being injected directly into the bloodstream of government policy. And it didn’t get there by accident. Right-wing media has been the vehicle.

MAGA Media, and Fox News in particular, has worked to launder Kennedy’s reputation, presenting him as a truth-teller up against entrenched bureaucrats and a sinister Big Pharma. The network has downplayed or ignored his most radical moves, like slashing vaccine funding and dismantling expert advisory panels. When it does highlight his views, it often frames them as reasonable skepticism. In prime time this week, Jesse Watters wondered aloud, “Why does a baby get 18 shots… now it’s 18. Why does a kid have 76 shots before they are old enough to vote? We never used to get that many.” His comments came as a chyron declared: “THE ‘EXPERTS’ GOT IT ALL WRONG.”

Naturally, the 76 figure was false, but Watters didn’t stop there with his praise of RFK: “Kennedy knows more about this stuff than any of these senators,” he added. Greg Gutfeld used “The Five” to rail against childhood immunization requirements. “My kid doesn’t need this, and yet they tell you that it’s required or suggested and if you say no they make you feel guilty?” he said, pointing specifically to the hepatitis B vaccine. The framing—that vaccines are optional lifestyle choices forced on innocent parents—is classic anti-vax rhetoric, stripped of any reference to the overwhelming scientific consensus about their safety.

Meanwhile, Sean Hannity praised Florida’s disastrous decision to end school vaccine mandates, describing them as “draconian” before launching into a lengthy monologue casting doubt on the safety of shots and claiming government officials misled the public about the effectiveness of the Covid vaccine. (Never mind that Fox staffers received the vaccine themselves and cheered Donald Trump’s Operation Warp Speed effort.)

We didn’t get here overnight. Tucker Carlson spent years suggesting public health officials were lying about vaccine safety. Laura Ingraham mocked CDC scientists and elevated dubious Covid cures. Even Steve Doocy, once a rare voice on Fox urging viewers to get vaccinated, has said little on the issue lately. Online, pro-MAGA podcasters including Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson and others offered Kennedy hours to package his views as “alternative” rather than dangerous. Clips from those interviews spread on TikTok and X, giving him an even larger reach.

But what’s striking is how the messaging has evolved. In 2021, Fox hosts and other right-wing media figures justified their skepticism as a Covid-specific issue. Hosts leaned on the idea that the vaccine was new, “experimental,” and pushed too quickly. Now, the doubt has metastasized. It’s no longer about one vaccine. It’s about all vaccines—shots that have been tested, proven, and relied on for decades run some sort of risk, in their telling. The rhetoric has been rebranded as “medical freedom” and “choice,” slogans that sound appealing but carry dangerous implications. Undermining confidence in vaccines threatens herd immunity, endangers the most vulnerable, and risks the return of diseases once kept firmly in check.

That belief is now reshaping vaccine policy. Kennedy’s agency has rolled back CDC recommendations to children and pregnant women, dismantled the immunization advisory panel, and canceled vaccine contracts. Florida’s surgeon general has gone further, moving to abolish school vaccine mandates altogether, likening them to “slavery.” Once a fringe obsession, these extreme views are now government policy. That transformation didn’t happen on its own. It happened because some of the loudest voices in MAGA Media decided to elevate the message and give it legitimacy.

The relentless attacks on experts, government institutions, and the press have primed audiences for this moment. By turning scientists into villains and framing public health guidance as oppression, MAGA Media influencers and outlets like Fox have cultivated a deep reservoir of distrust. Now, when Kennedy and others sow doubt about vaccines, that skepticism finds fertile ground. The erosion of trust in vaccines and established medical science post-Covid isn’t accidental, it’s the product of years of deliberate messaging designed to undermine facts for political and commercial gain. And it’s brought us to this crisis point, where preventable disease is resurging and millions have been convinced not to believe it.