The Daily Populous Saturday April 12nd, 2025 day edition
Authored by thedailybeast.com and submitted by Tuxcali1

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stunned FDA staff Friday with a 40-minute tirade featuring a disability slur, “deep state” conspiracy theories, and accusations they are shills for the industries they regulate.

During his bonkers rant to employees at the Food and Drug Administration, Kennedy, an anti-vaccine crusader and Trump appointee, dropped the slur “r----ded” when referring to Wassaic State School, a former institution for people with developmental disabilities that once included the word in its name.

He repeated the school’s former name—including the slur—while discussing rising autism diagnoses, according to Politico.

“Because of my family’s commitment to these issues, I spent 200 hours at Wassaic home for the r----ded when I was in high school,” he reportedly said to the shock of FDA employees, several of whom walked out, according to Politico. “So I was seeing people with intellectual disabilities all the time. I never saw anybody with autism.”

An HHS spokesperson told the Daily Beast that Kennedy was not using the word in a derogatory way.

As the nation’s top health official, Kennedy has offered only tepid support for vaccines even as the country grapples with the largest measles outbreak in more than 30 years. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

His comment arrives as right-wing politicians, comedians, and influencers have started throwing around the slur in a bid to drag it back into mainstream use. Joe Rogan on Thursday celebrated its return as “one of the great culture victories” of the Donald Trump era.

The 71-year-old Kennedy scion, who is estranged from much of his famous family, also leaned into MAGA’s favorite conspiracy, claiming “the Deep State is real.”

“It’s not, you know, just George Soros and Bill Gates and a bunch of nefarious individuals sitting together in a room and plotting the, you know, the destruction of humanity,” said Kennedy, pushing the conspiracy theory that a shadowy network of liberal elites and bureaucrats is working behind the scenes to undermine President Donald Trump and the MAGA agenda.

Kennedy with Donald Trump after his swearing in ceremony in the Oval Office in February. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Getty Images

According to Politico, Kennedy largely sidestepped talking about the recent mass firings at the FDA, choosing instead to riff on infamous mind control experiments conducted by the CIA in the 1960s, in what appeared to be a bizarre attempt to encourage employees to stay committed to their mission of protecting public health.

He reportedly invoked the Milgram experiment, a study intended to measure people’s willingness to obey an authority figure even if it meant inflicting pain on others by administering electric shocks.

Kennedy announced in March that 10,000 HHS workers would be laid off as part of Trump’s cost-cutting crusade, including 3,500 employees at the FDA. Days later, Kennedy admitted that 20 percent of those fired would need to be rehired, though he claimed that “was always the plan.”

In a statement to the Daily Beast, the HHS spokesperson said Kennedy is “telling the truth that many Americans already know.”

“For too long, the FDA has been captured by the very industries it is supposed to regulate. Calling this out and encouraging radical transparency is not controversial—it’s leadership. The Secretary stands by his call for integrity, accountability, and whistleblower protection, and he will continue pushing for a culture at HHS that serves the public, not corporate interests or internal politics. The era of rubber-stamping and silence is over.”

Right_Ostrich4015 on April 12nd, 2025 at 02:51 UTC »

The hilarious thing is, if anyone is the fucking deep state, it’s RFK Jr.

Waste_Priority_3663 on April 12nd, 2025 at 02:42 UTC »

He’s going to find “evidence” that vaccines are causing autism.

It’s just a shit show.

Sad_Confection5902 on April 12nd, 2025 at 02:40 UTC »

No matter how much of government you control, apparently there’s still a magical “deep state” to blame everything on.

At this point, the deep state they’re talking about is literally just “legislation” and “the rule of law”. They’re just upset they can’t do whatever they want without process or procedure.