Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is under bipartisan pressure about a “clear conflict of interest” he'd have as HHS secretary. Matt Walsh is pretending it doesn't exist.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and the WSJ editorial page agree that Kennedy has a conflict of interest in lawsuits against pharmaceutical companies. Daily Wire host Matt Walsh claims Warren is just a “shill for Big Pharma.”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

On January 30, the Wall Street Journal editorial page called out Kennedy’s “clear conflict of interest” in making money on lawsuits against drug companies while head of HHS, saying it should be “disqualifying”:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday to root out corruption between industry and government. Yet the man who wants to be the nation’s Secretary of Health and Human Services refused to rule out personally making money from lawsuits against drug makers. This ought to be disqualifying.

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Mr. Kennedy’s disclosures show that he has received more than $2.5 million from law firms that have sued drug and vaccine makers. He also has a financial stake in a pending lawsuit against human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine maker Merck. Mr. Kennedy’s trial-lawyer ties and financial interests in litigation against drug makers pose a clear conflict of interest.

Vox further examined Kennedy's conflict of interest coming out of the January 29 hearing, during which Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) questioned him:

But in painting Kennedy as a clown, those criticisms miss something important. Kennedy has not only gained a public following for his outlandish claims, he has also made a lot of money broadcasting them. And he could stand to make more from his anti-vaccine crusade as America’s top health official — the kind of brazen self-dealing that’s become all but normalized in Trump’s America.

As the New York Times reported last week, Kennedy has referred potential plaintiffs — people who say they have been injured by vaccines — to the law firm Wisner Baum, which is suing Merck over alleged harm related to the HPV vaccine. (He has also been involved in other cases for the firm.) Wisner Baum pays Kennedy for these referrals, in the vaccine case and other cases: He’s earned more than $2.5 million over the past two years, the Times reported. When the lawsuit concludes, if the vaccine manufacturer loses, Kennedy will get a financial reward.

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Warren then ran through the various ways Kennedy could influence the outcome of those lawsuits while serving as secretary of the US Department of Health and Human Services. He could publish anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, she said, “this time on US government letterhead.” He could appoint anti-vaccine scientists to federal vaccine panels and remove vaccines from the federally recommended schedule of childhood vaccines. He could even give FDA data, Warren said, to the law firm that sues the drug companies and compensates him for their wins.

Given another opportunity by Warren, Kennedy again declined to commit to removing his financial stake from the anti-vaccine litigation. Instead, a few minutes later, he claimed that he had been unfairly maligned as a conspiracy theorist because he opposed powerful corporate interests — the same kind of misdirection that has fueled his ascent toward the top of US health policy, while providing cover for his actual conflicts of interest.

Now, Daily Wire host Matt Walsh is dismissing the entire controversy about Kennedy making money suing Big Pharma as a plot by Big Pharma.

From the Januart 30, 2025, edition of The Daily Wire's The Matt Walsh Show

MATT WALSH (HOST): Now what's extraordinary about this moment is that Elizabeth Warren has built her entire career around the lie that she's a populist, or at least someone who's extremely skeptical of entrenched corporate power, particularly when it's held by banks.

But in this case, Warren is pretty much indistinguishable from a lawyer for Big Pharma. She's berating RFK Jr. because he took Big Pharma to court over the HPV vaccine. And even though he stated that he won't pursue any lawsuits while he's in government, it's not enough for her. She wants him to commit to renouncing lawsuits that he's already participated in or that he might pursue after leaving office, and he won't agree to that. I mean, she's getting emotional in her defense of the multi multi-billion dollar Big Pharma industry. 

And I'm not gonna speculate on Warren's motivations. You can point to various campaign contributions she's received from the pharmaceutical industry, as many people already have. Actually, on second thought, I am speculating that Elizabeth Warren is a bought and paid for shill for Big Pharma. Not speculating, but actually outright accusing her of it. But still, the truth is this is a much larger problem than Elizabeth Warren.