David Lim and Amanda Friedman at Politico:
Sen. Markwayne Mullin accused fired CDC Director Susan Monarez of lying about the circumstances leading to her dismissal at a hearing Wednesday — and that he had a recording to prove it.
Soon thereafter, the Oklahoma Republican told reporters he was mistaken, according to the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee’s chair, Bill Cassidy (R-La.). Cassidy called on the Department of Health and Human Services to release the recording if it had one, prompting HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon to say there wasn’t one. “This was incorrectly stated at the hearing. There is no recording,” Nixon said.
It's not the first time that Mullin stumbled while trying to defend the indefensible.
On 9/4, Dominick Mastrangelo reported at The Hill:CNN host Kasie Hunt and Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) got into a heated debate over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s stances on vaccines, autism and several other issues that the Health and Human Services secretary defended during a congressional hearing Thursday.
“Do you believe Kennedy is right on vaccines?” Hunt asked Mullin of the longtime vaccine skeptic during an in-studio appearance on the network.
“When you start looking at statistics … what is it … today 1 in 10 kids [is autistic],” Mullin said. [not even close]
“But why are you linking that to vaccines?” Hunt interjected.
“I’m not, I’m saying, why wouldn’t we look at it,” the senator responded. “What’s changed?”
\“We have looked at it … there have been studies, the studies show there is no connection between the MMR [measles, mumps and rubella] vaccine and autism,” the cable news host shot back.
“There are several things that go into every vaccine,” Mullin insisted. “Look at how many shots we are giving our kids.” [nonsense]
