Whoopi Goldberg did not hold back on Monday, using the Season 29 premiere of “The View” to criticize Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. following what she described as his disastrous Senate hearing last week.
“They’re playing Russian roulette with the lives of children,” Goldberg said during a live segment that also examined Florida’s plans to end school vaccine mandates.
Early in the show, Goldberg showcased clips of Kennedy being questioned by lawmakers from both parties over his controversial vaccine policies. She highlighted his decision to cancel $500 million in mRNA vaccine contracts and his appointment of a vaccine-skeptic-heavy advisory committee.
“Any time you go to a school, it is a — who knows what’s in there? They sneeze, everybody gets sick. You think you’re dying, you know, but you’re not, you just got hit by kid stuff. We know that this happens,” Goldberg said.
She went on to explain why vaccine mandates exist in the first place:
“There are reasons that people put these mandates in place. Now, you want to get rid of all of them? You’re basically saying, ‘Let’s see what happens if your kid goes to school with other kids.’ And your grandparents, who are elderly, are in with your grandkids. So now, you’re saying, y’all don’t care.”
Goldberg has previously criticized Kennedy for his comments in February, when he described a measles outbreak in Texas as ‘not unusual’, warning that misinformation could result in deaths if people did not take precautions.
During the segment, Joy Behar pointed out that four GOP senators with medical degrees had voted to confirm Kennedy. Goldberg responded sharply, saying the senators had “all made a decision to follow a road that has a nine-million-foot drop.”
“These are things that you can control,” she said of getting children vaccinated.
“You can’t control a lot of stuff that’s happening, but these are the little things that you can take in hand and grab and say, ’I’m not putting up with this BS! I’m just not going to do it. This is on us, this is what we’re learning.’”
Goldberg concluded with a call to personal responsibility:
“Our government, I don’t know where they are. But I know where I am, you know where you are. And it is now our responsibility to take heed to what is going on in our lives.”
