We are just 11 days into the second Trump administration and a lot of stuff has happened. Most of it is pretty bad: ICE raids around the country splitting up families, executive orders attacking the rights of the trans community and a (temporary) freeze on federal grants and loans which left millions without necessary services like Medicaid. But a lot of what’s happened has also been bad and weird.
On his first day in office, Trump signed an executive order stating that someone’s sex is determined at the moment of conception. But, at the moment of conception, all fetuses are female. So… is everyone in the United States female now? That question is yet to be answered. Since coming into office, Trump also claimed that he stopped $50 million dollars from being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas. Um, what? The AP says their is no evidence to this claim. It appears that Trump’s Office of Management of the Budget completely misread a report stating that in 2023, the U.S. Department of HHS and the CDC awarded a pediatric AIDS foundation $83 million for sexual health initiatives in Mozambique, including in its Gaza province. Oy. This all brings us to yesterday, when the first confirmation hearing took place for Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, the king of weird himself, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
But thankfully, the weirdest moment of the hearing was good weird, thanks to Jewish Senator Bernie Sanders.
Senator Sanders used his time to grill RFK Jr. on his beliefs that vaccines cause autism (as he told Fox News in 2023) and that they are dangerous. With the last moments of his time, he went full zayde mode, pulling out two blown-up photos of baby onesies currently for sale from an organization founded by RFK Jr. called The Children’s Health Defense. The tiny pieces of apparel read “Unvaxxed Unafraid” and “No Vax No Problem.” (Is now a bad time to share that our partner site Kveller sells very adorable onesies that do not espouse dangerous anti-vax sentiment?)
“Right now as I understand it, on their website they are selling what’s called onesies, these are little things, clothing for babies,” Sanders explained. “And they’re sold for 26 bucks a piece, by the way.”
“You say you are pro-vaccine,” Sanders said, referencing statements RFK Jr. made in the hearing, “But your organization is making money selling a child’s product to parents for 26 bucks which cast fundamental doubt on the usefulness of vaccines.”
“Are you supportive of this?” Bernie pressed RFK Jr. with his trademark fervor. “Are you supportive of these onesies?”
The whole thing is the most skillfully executed old Jewish man behavior I’ve ever seen in my life. I could cry.
Kennedy went on to claim that he had resigned from the board of the organization, had no power to stop them from selling the products and that he indeed is supportive of vaccines. Frankly, all of it rang hollow. But what didn’t ring hollow was Senator Bernie Sanders’ commitment to science and vaccines — and to using his curmudgeonly old Jewish man-ness for tikkun olam.
