Chris Pratt appears to be losing some fans for going on Bill Maher’s podcast Monday and saying he loves his cousin-in-law Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and has a great time with him at family dinners, so people should stop criticizing the infamous vaccine skeptic as a charlatan who is endangering public health.
The problem with Pratt’s remarks on Maher’s Club Random podcast is that his relative is a known purveyor of medical misinformation and, as Donald Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services, has worked to reduce the public’s access to vaccines and to undermine trust in his own employees, who include some of America’s top scientists.
“If you support RFK Jr., I can’t support you,” one self-described “mommy” wrote on Pratt’s latest Instagram post, promoting his new Amazon Prime series, “The Terminal List: Dark Wolf.” Someone else wrote, “I will never watch anything that you’re in or associated with. Never!”
Many more such comments filled Pratt’s Instagram feed:
“Peter Quill would hate you,” said another, referring to Pratt’s 2014 movie breakout role in “The Guardians of the Galaxy.” “PRO-RFK JR? Not my Starlord!” added another person.
Still another person, on a more serious note, wrote: “I was such a fan. I really wish you’d consider that your distant relative and our so called ‘President’ are so unbelievably dangerous as people, before you speak out in near defense and indifference to their atrocities. I’m agnostic myself, but I’d urge you to pray on this with an open heart and mind. Your reach is broad and anything other than distain for DT is a major oversight at best.”
Pratt’s political leanings have long been a source of curiosity among fans, though he has never publicly claimed a political affiliation, only a strong Christian faith, according to the Daily Beast. But the Marvel actor has again been accused of being a closet Trump supporter after he appeared on Maher’s show and defended some of Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again policies and work on behalf of the MAGA president.
The “Jurassic World” star is married to Katherine Schwarzenegger, the daughter of Kennedy’s first cousin Maria Shriver and Arnold Schwarzenegger. Pratt explained that he and Kennedy run into each other at family events, where they “play cards” or have dinner. But he admitted he’s not altogether familiar with what Kennedy has been up to. He said he doesn’t “pick his brain” about his work when they’re together. While Pratt shared that he doesn’t “agree with everything” Kennedy says, he declared: “I really get along with him well. I think he’s great. I think he’s funny. I love him.”
Pratt also said he agrees with Kennedy’s “overall view that what makes us sick is the toxicity.” He said that Kennedy seems to oversee “certain things” that “seem to be supported in a bipartisan way, like getting terrible, toxic stuff out of our kids’ food.
Pratt then derided a culture where a “great” person like Kennedy is mischaracterized because of the “nasty business” of politics. “In politics, you inherit enemies,” he said. “When you jump on the bandwagon with the most divisive president ever, it makes sense that you’re going to be made to look terrible.”
Pratt also despaired over people who are “so mired in hatred for the president” that they don’t want to see his administration succeed in any way, or Kennedy do a good job as Health and Human Services secretary. Pratt, however, acknowledged that he wasn’t that interested in learning whether any of the critical things said about his wife’s cousin are true.
“I’m not gonna pick his brain to find out exactly which of those things are true,” Pratt said. “I just kind of assume that none of them are, and for the most part, I wish him well, man.”
In response to such comments, someone wrote to Pratt on another Instagram post: “RFK Jr., despite being a “great guy” outside of politics, is doing dangerous things to our healthcare like promoting vague vaccine conspiracies. You make a lot of dense assumptions about a man you clearly know nothing about and what he’s doing within our government.”
Regarding Pratt’s point about RFK Jr.’s work against “toxicity,” it’s true that he has supported more regulations around infant formula and restricting dyes and additives in food, according to the Daily Beast.
But Kennedy also has undermined the public’s access to vaccines by canceling millions of dollars in mRNA Vaccine research, “despite overwhelming scientific consensus that vaccines are safe, effective and critical to preventing deadly disease outbreaks,” the Daily Beast also reported. Kennedy also was widely criticized for his response to the measles outbreak earlier this year, which cost the lives of two unvaccinated children, the Daily Beast said. He initially pushed for unproven methods of preventing infection, like ingesting Vitamin A, until he finally admitted that the MMR vaccine is “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles.”
Last week, NPR’s health policy correspondent Selena Simmons-Duffin furthermore reported on the many ways that Kennedy has undermined the scientific expertise of people who work at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, or the National Institutes of Health, which are administered by his department.
“About 20,000 staff are gone, and that includes rank-and-file employees as well as leadership and top scientists,” Simmons-Duffin reported. “It has been a chaotic process. .. And as he’s done all of this, Kennedy has disparaged HHS employees, blaming them for the American population’s relatively poor health.”