On Monday night, MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow brought on Ryan Grim, Washington Bureau Chief of the liberal Huffington Post, to discuss the fallout following Governor Chris Christie (R-N.J.) and Senator Rand Paul’s (R-Ky.) controversial comments on vaccines.
Speaking to Maddow, Grim strangely connected the libertarian Koch brothers to those who oppose vaccines, arguing that “the only kind of overlap here is the kind of anti- authority, anti-government, and anti-science bent that you see among a lot of the climate change deniers. You know, that was very much generated and fueled by the Koch brothers.”
The discussion began with Rachel Maddow wondering if “parents choice groups” are “politically potent and I guess politically partisan enough that Republican politicians are running for president will be wanting to court those groups?”
At first, Grim conceded that anti-vaccine is not a conservative/liberal issue before immediately dismissing his own argument in order to go after conservatives, and oddly enough the libertarian Koch brothers:
I think it actually is pretty difficult because the group of people -- their concerns don’t overlap a ton. A lot of them aren’t even voting in the Republican primary, for instance. You’ll find plenty of them either sitting it out completely because they don’t trust the government, period, or you’ll find them actually voting in Democratic primaries.
So, you know, the only kind of overlap here is the kind of anti-authority, anti-government, and anti-science bent that you see among a lot of the climate change deniers. You know, that was very much generated and fueled by the Koch brothers.
Grim never actually explained how he logically went from the anti-vaccine movement to “climate change deniers” and the Koch brothers but that didn’t stop the Huffington Post reporter from attacking the Koch brothers by lumping them in with the anti-vaccine crowd.
See relevant transcript below.
MSNBC’s The Rachel Maddow Show
February 2, 2015
RACHEL MADDOW: Joining us now is Ryan Grim, Washington bureau chief for “Huffington Post”. Ryan, it’s nice to see you. Thanks for being here.
RYAN GRIM: Thanks for having me.
MADDOW: So, when Governor Christie said today, parents should be able to choose whether or not to vaccinate their kids, who exactly is he appealing to or was this just a screw up?
GRIM: I think what he was doing there is -- I think he flashed back immediately to his last public health intervention, a complete debacle during the Ebola freak out, where he basically detained this New Jersey nurse for a matter of several weeks saying like, look, you have been to Africa. We’re not letting you out of here. She is like, I don’t have Ebola. So, you know, he completely stripped her of all civil liberties. He then, you know, was completely embarrassed at the way that unfolded.
So, now, I think he overreacted to his initial overreaction. So he’s thinking, okay, politically, how do I respond this time, and he started thinking about kind of the parent’s choice movement and these anti-vaxxers that are out there, and he wanted to throw them a little bone at the end there. He wasn’t prepared for the question. As you could tell, the way that his office came out a couple of hours later, and good for them, by the way, and came out and said, no, no, no, absolutely that’s not what the governor meant. Everybody should get the measles vaccine.
MADDOW: You reference parents choice groups and anti-vaccination activists. Are they a significant enough number? Are they politically potent and I guess politically partisan enough that Republican politicians are running for president will be wanting to court those groups?
GRIM: It’s a very diverse group. So, it would -- it would be hard if a politician actually sat down and made the disgustingly immoral calculations, okay, how am I going to win this small set of anti-vaccine people. Never mind it causes an outbreak. I think it actually is pretty difficult because the group of people -- their concerns don’t overlap a ton. A lot of them aren’t even voting in the Republican primary, for instance.
You’ll find plenty of them either sitting it out completely because they don’t trust the government, period, or you’ll find them actually voting in Democratic primaries. So, you know, the only kind of overlap here is the kind of anti-authority, anti-government, and anti-science bent that you see among a lot of the climate change deniers. You know, that was very much generated and fueled by the Koch brothers.
MADDOW: So, if that’s the -- if that’s the story in terms of chasing any potential political upside here, I mean, there’s also the downside here. What Rand Paul said today was much closer to Michele Bachmann ala 2011 than it was even to what Chris Christie said today. He really went out there further. It turns out he had been a long time member of a conspiracy theory group that is anti-vaccination, that also thinks that HIV doesn’t cause AIDS. I mean, does that potentially play poorly for him inside mainstream Republican politics? Looking back at 2011, I was surprised to see how poorly it played even for Michele Bachmann.
GRIM: It does. I think people are going to take, you know, politicians are going to take from today that they should probably stick to just climate change denialism. This gets much too complicated because everybody has -- not everybody but a lot of people have children. Everybody was a child at some point. Nobody wants to get measles, or mumps or rubella, things that we thought were completely gone, for absolutely no reason, or so that some kid can be on some bizarre organic diet that’s going to build up his immune system.
And, you know, it does play to Rand Paul’s deeper weaknesses, which are that he has a very consistent world view when it’s on the intellectual level. But the second that it’s applied to reality, it starts causing a lot of problems for him. You know, 90 to 95 percent of parents are vaccinating their kids. So, this is a vanishingly small number but it’s a dangerous number because it’s gone beyond the 0.3 percent that would be protected by herd immunity.
MADDOW: Ryan Grim, Washington bureau chief for “The Huffington Post” -- Ryan, thanks. Appreciate your being here.
GRIM: Thank you.
