COVID Was the Tyrant's Best Hope. Let's Make It Their Last.

RFK Jr. tells CNN host that constitutional rights take priority over public health https://t.co/lk27Kx2m7H

— POLITICO (@politico) August 2, 2026

Here's more (emphasis added):

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. clashed with CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday, launching attacks against Anthony Fauci and arguing that protecting constitutional rights must take priority during future public health crises.

...

"I mean, I think we did virtually everything wrong the last time," Kennedy said, adding that the "primary obligation" in any future health crisis must be to "protect our constitutional rights."

"You're talking about rights, and I'm asking about a potential public health crisis that is coming," Bash replied.

"One of the mistakes we made in the last time was suppressing those rights," Kennedy said. "So people weren't being heard. Doctors who are saying you're doing it wrong were being marginalized and vilified."

Kennedy is right. The suppression of rights, especially First Amendment rights, was as blatant as it was egregious. The Biden administration admitted to colluding with social media companies to silence and censor anyone who questioned the origins of COVID, questioned the vaccine, or spoke out against the recommended courses of treatment. YouTube admitted it deleted numerous accounts for these offenses.

Governors across the country shut down our right to worship, arrested us for being outdoors alone, took away our ability to earn a living, and even thwarted our ability to protest the government for a redress of our grievances. All of that went out the window, of course, when George Floyd died and the experts who said my father's funeral was verboten to "flatten the curve" said public health took a back seat to racial protests.

But the undercurrent of COVID is now clear: it was absolutely a trial run to see what other rights the Left could curb in the name of "public health" or their "public emergencies." In the fall of 2024, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis declared a state of emergency ahead of Hurricane Milton and added a provision prohibiting local governments from suspending gun sales during natural disasters. This was done after the city of Okeechobee issued an order that prohibited gun sales. Gun rights groups were outraged; Okeechobee rescinded that order within hours.

DeSantis, however, read the room and made sure that the Second Amendment rights of Floridians wouldn't be curtailed on his watch, for any reason.

That wasn't the first time the anti-gun crowd tried it, either. In 2023, New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham declared gun violence a "public health emergency" just like COVID. Grisham used the order to ban open and concealed carry in the state for 30 days, and said her duty to the Constitution was "not absolute."

I thank Grisham for giving away the game. Just three short years after COVID, she tried to use the blanket "public health emergency" to strip New Mexico's citizens of their Constitutional rights.

This also goes beyond our Constitutional rights. Remember that the Left says education, healthcare, and housing are all "rights" too. Despite that, they shut down schools and harmed millions of children, including millions of special needs children who have the legal right to inclusive education that cannot be provided by remote learning. They also argued that the unvaccinated should not only be imprisoned in our homes and lose our jobs, but be denied healthcare, too.

So much for those rights, huh?

And they'll do it again if they get the chance.

All they have to do is declare gun violence or climate change or any other left-wing cause a "public health emergency," and use that as grounds to suspend our rights. Just for two weeks to "flatten the curve" or whatever other bulls**t metric they come up with.

It's not hard to imagine a world where a President AOC declares a hot summer a "public health emergency" and orders us not to drive our cars, disconnect our central air conditioning, or suspend air travel to "save the planet." Or they could declare "transphobia" a "public health emergency" and order the shuttering of churches on the grounds of "fomenting hate."

The possibilities abound.

That's why Dana Bash and Politico are so taken aback by RFK Jr. saying that our rights trump public health. They actually don't believe that. They actually believe they can declare whatever cause du jour they want an "emergency" and use that as grounds to attack the rights they so deeply despise. Biden himself agreed with Chinese commie leader Xi Jinping about the benefits of a dictatorship during a pandemic.

While they tell us President Trump is the tyrant and wannabe king, of course.

As I have said in the past, the Left's slavish devotion to Anthony Fauci even after we learned he was a liar has done more to damage public health than anything in the history of this nation.

Balking at the idea that our fundamental rights also supersede a public health emergency will only cement Americans' distrust of and opposition to public health in the future. And when a serious pandemic lands on our shores, the tyrants who wanted to destroy our nation over a cold will find themselves the targets of a massive resistance.

As they should. Because nothing—nothing—is more important than our Constitutional rights, and the tyrants need to get that message loud and clear.