RFK Jr.: The Reason Interview

"I've always been aligned with libertarians on most issues. I mean, there's tweaks that I have," Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. tells Reason's Nick Gillespie and Zach Weissmueller in a recent interview. "As an environmentalist, I don't think libertarianism works well in the commons, at least in any way that's practical."

When asked who he'd consider for secretary of state, he told Reason, "I love Tulsi Gabbard" because "she understands the importance of disentangling, of unraveling the empire and unraveling the war machine." On banning assault weapons, he said, "I'm not going to take away anybody's guns," but if a bipartisan bill to do so passed Congress, he'd sign it. He also discussed his desire to implement the "corporate death penalty" against any company "whose purpose is to injure the public interest" and responded to accusations that he subscribes to a "conspiracist mindset" for, among other things, portraying 5G and Wi-Fi as dangerous, claiming HIV is not the primary cause of AIDS, and saying chemicals in the drinking water are feminizing young boys.

Sources cited in this interview:

New England Journal of Medicine: measles vaccine study https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMcp1905181

Cochrane Library: meta-analysis of vaccine studies (no evidence of vaccine-autism link) https://www.cochranelibrary.com/cdsr/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD004407.pub5/full

Our World in Data: polio cases and deaths in the U.S., 1910–2019 https://ourworldindata.org/polio

Vaccine: "Vaccines are not associated with autism," 2014 meta-analysis of 1.25 million children
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24814559/

Associated Press: "US kindergarten vaccination rate dropped again, data shows" https://apnews.com/article/health-immunizations-children-measles-acba3eb975fdfcd41732ed87511387f2

Our World in Data (data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention): unvaccinated vs. vaccinated COVID-19 death rate https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status

RFK Jr. on lockdowns https://twitter.com/RobertKennedyJr/status/1244710538933870597?s=20