Business
Commentary: RFK Jr.'s views on autism show that anti-science myths are rampant at the agency he leads
A number of otherwise skeptical senators took at face value the pledge by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at Senate hearings in January to “follow the science” on issues related to the causes of disease in the U.S., helping him receive confirmation as secretary of Health and Human Services.
As he demonstrated last week at his very first news conference as the government’s top healthcare official, he was blowing smoke.
The topic was what he described as an “alarming … epidemic” of autism, supposedly documented by a new report by the Autism and Developmental Disabilities Monitoring Network of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
It’s not that the amount of autism in the population has changed, it’s that more people are getting the tools necessary to get a diagnosis.
— Autism Self Advocacy Network
His advice was to ignore what decades of scientific research have established as contributors to the reported increase in autism prevalence. These include genetic factors; the ever-broadening definition of autism itself, now known as autism spectrum disorder, or ASD; and vastly improved screening programs nationwide.
The inescapable conclusion is that Kennedy’s HHS is in the grip of a pseudoscience revolution in which misinformation and disinformation are ascendant. The cost to scientific research generally and to households caring for those with chronic conditions such as ASD is incalculable.
Kennedy’s words left much of the autism community aghast. At both his news conference and an accompanying HHS press release, “Kennedy repeated false claims that autism was a ‘preventable’ ‘epidemic’” and that the CDC report’s findings “could not be explained by improved access to screening,” stated the Autistic Self Advocacy Network. ASAN accused Kennedy of having “cherry-picked” data and having misinterpreted basic science.
“It’s not that the amount of autism in the population has changed,” the network’s statement said — “it’s that more people are getting the tools necessary to get a diagnosis.”
Observes Holden Thorp, the editor of Science, who disclosed last year that he was diagnosed with autism at the age of 53 (he’s now 60), “almost everything in the CDC report talked about better identification and better diagnosis being the source of the increase. … The main recommendation is to get people more access to services.”
I asked HHS to provide me with Kennedy’s response to these and other criticisms, but didn’t receive a response.
Kennedy’s words were so averse to understanding the truth about autism that they deserve to be set forth here in some detail. To a great extent, they’re refuted by the CDC report itself, which Kennedy referred to repeatedly at his news conference. The CDC estimated the rate of autism in the general population at about one in 31 children born in 2014. That’s a higher rate than was found even two years earlier.
But it doesn’t amount to an “epidemic” that is “running rampant,” as Kennedy said. He said “most cases now are severe,” which is untrue. In fact, the vast majority of new cases involve children without the intellectual disabilities often associated with stereotypical autistic behavior, such as sensitivities to touch and an absence of verbal skills. The prevalence of more severe cases has actually declined in recent years, according to a 2023 study from Rutgers.
Kennedy took special aim at what he called “the ideology that … the relentless autism prevalence increases are simply artifacts of better diagnoses, better recognition or changing diagnostic criteria.” He said “this epidemic denial has become a feature in the mainstream media and it’s based on an industry canard” perpetrated by “people who don’t want us to look at environmental exposures.”
Well, no. The contributions made by updated diagnostic standards and improved screening to changes in prevalence rates aren’t concoctions of the media, but findings from professional research — including the CDC report.
Kennedy scoffed at research that has established a genetic component to autism, even though such findings have been conclusive; he implied that spending on such studies is a waste of money because the research is a “dead end.”
He painted a dire picture of the lives of autistic people. “Autism destroys families,” he said. “These are kids who will never pay taxes, never hold a job, they’ll never play baseball, they’ll never write a poem, they’ll never go out on a date, many of them will never use a toilet unassisted.”
Kennedy’s fans played the “what he really meant to say” game on social media, arguing that he was referring only to the most seriously impaired. But that distinction wasn’t clearly made either in the HHS press release or at Kennedy’s news conference. Just to be plain, given Kennedy’s effort to shroud autistic people in stigma, many pay taxes. Many hold jobs. Many play baseball. Many write poetry, go on dates, don’t need help to use a toilet.
Put it all together, and Kennedy’s performance raises urgent questions about whether he understands autism at all or is just using it as a stalking horse to promote his assertion that “environmental toxins” are the root of chronic diseases.
Kennedy’s erroneous ideas about autism aren’t new. He has long favored the long-debunked claim that autism is related to childhood vaccinations. He didn’t specifically mention vaccines during his appearance, but more than once he claimed that “someone is putting environmental toxins into … our medicines.”
What medicines have most children received by their second birthday, when autism is commonly diagnosed? Vaccines, that’s what.
Kennedy seemed impervious to the findings of scientific researchers. That was the conclusion of Peter Hotez, a leading vaccine expert whose daughter Rachel is autistic. In 2017, the National Institutes of Health asked Hotez to meet with Kennedy to move him off the hobbyhorse of a vaccine-autism link. “I couldn’t engage him,” Hotez told me. “But he was so deeply dug in about vaccines that he wasn’t interested in listening.”
What’s behind the rise in autism rates? Contrary to RFK Jr.’s claim, it’s mostly among milder cases without intellectual disability (blue line), not among severely disabled autistic people (green line), where rates are actually dropping.
(American Academic of Pediatrics)
His encounter with Kennedy was what prompted Hotez to write his 2018 book “Vaccines Did Not Cause Rachel’s Autism.”
The truth is that researchers have made great strides in unearthing the causes and characteristics of autism. They’ve identified some genetic anomalies that lead to a predisposition to the spectrum.
Scientists at the University of North Carolina, Stanford and UC Davis have found unusual prenatal growth patterns in the brain that appear to correlate with ASD diagnoses in early childhood, though it’s unclear what triggers that growth. Some have found evidence of environmental factors, chiefly experienced by women in pregnancy, though some question whether any such factors can be primary determinants of ASD.
Kennedy would have been well-advised to spend more time reading his own agency’s report before citing it at his news conference. That’s because it refuted much of what he claimed.
To begin with, the report took a more nuanced view of autism than the horrific picture he painted of autism sufferers. Throughout, it refers to ASD — “autism spectrum disorder” — rather than painting it as “autism” with a single broad brush, as he did. The report explicitly states that the change in reported prevalence of ASD “can reflect differing practices in ASD evaluation and identification,” as well as differences in the availability of services for autistic people and their families.
Among other factors, the report states that ASD diagnoses among Black, Hispanic and other ethnic groups have increased because those “previously underserved groups” have received “increased access to … identification services” in recent years. That has certainly contributed to the apparent increase in ASD prevalence overall.
Until about 10 years ago, the report notes, the highest prevalence of ASD was found among white children and those from wealthier neighborhoods, plainly those with both the incentive to track their children’s intellectual development and the best resources to obtain services. (Access to health insurance covering autism diagnosis and treatment also correlated with prevalence rates, the CDC found.) Black, Hispanic and other ethnic groups have been catching up.
The report further documented how reported rates of ASD are related to differing approaches to screening and diagnostic services among states and local communities. The reported ASD rate was 9.7 per 1,000 children in Texas, but 53.1 in California.
Why would it be so high in California? The report notes that California has trained local pediatricians to screen and refer children for assessment as early as possible — at an average of 36 months, compared with the Texas average of nearly 70 months — which “could result in higher identification of ASD, especially at early ages.” California, moreover, has established “regional centers throughout the state that provide evaluations and service coordination for persons with disabilities and their families.”
What is Kennedy’s endgame here? He portrays himself as a seeker of scientific truth, but throughout his news conference he denigrated scientists for purportedly ignoring what he said were clear signals of an autism epidemic rendering “thousands of profoundly disabled children somehow invisible.” In doing so, he overlooked decades of fruitful research efforts aimed at uncovering the causes and nature of autism.
He left the impression that research into genetic or prenatal causes will get short shrift in grants from the National Institutes of Health, which comes under his jurisdiction. Instead, he’ll favor studies aimed at identifying specific environmental toxins, although their significance is unclear. He has already indicated that he plans to revive research tying vaccines to autism, though that connection consistently has been disproved.
Perhaps most disturbing is that Kennedy showed almost no awareness of the diversity of ASD — and the contribution that it has made to humanity. “Some neurodivergent people are meticulously observant and are able to connect seemingly disparate concepts — assets in the world of science,” Thorp wrote in connection with his own diagnosis. “Neurodiversity scholars and advocates have stressed that autistic thinkers are responsible for many innovations and advances across human history.”
There’s reason to fear that Kennedy’s quest for a cause or even a cure for autism will shoulder aside other research more important for those with ASD. As Emily Hotez, Rachel Hotez’s older sister and a leading autism researcher at UCLA, noted in an article she co-wrote after the CDC report’s release, the effort to identify autism’s cause has overlooked “something far more urgent: improving the lives of autistic people and their families, here and now.”
The Na’vi won the battle of the box office this weekend, as “Avatar: Fire and Ash” hauled in a hefty $88 million in the U.S. and Canada during its opening weekend.
The third installment of the Disney-owned 20th Century Studios’ “Avatar” franchise brought in an estimated total of $345 million globally, with about $257 million of that coming from international audiences. The movie reportedly has a budget of at least $350 million.
Box office analysts had expected a big international response to the most recent film, particularly since its predecessor “Avatar: The Way of Water” had strong showings in markets like Germany, France and China.
In China, the film opened to an estimated $57.6 million, marking the second highest 2025 opening for a U.S. film in the country since Disney’s “Zootopia 2” a few weeks ago. (That film went on to gross more than $271.7 million in China on its way to a global box office total of $1.1 billion.)
The strong response in China is another sign that certain movies can still do well in the country, which was once seen as a key force multiplier for big blockbusters and animated family films but has in recent years cooled to American movies due to geopolitics and the rise of its domestic film industry.
Angel Studio’s animated biblical tale “David” came in second at the box office this weekend, with an estimated domestic gross of $22 million. Lionsgate thriller “The Housemaid,” Paramount Animation and Nickelodeon Movies’ “The Spongebob Movie: Search for Squarepants” and “Zootopia 2” rounded out the top five.
The weekend’s haul likely comes as a relief to theater owners, who have weathered a roller coaster year.
After a difficult first three months, the spring brought hits like “A Minecraft Movie” and “Sinners” before the summer ended mostly flat. A sleepy fall brought panic to the exhibition business until closer to the Thanksgiving holiday, when “Wicked: For Good” and “Zootopia 2” drew in audiences.
Dear Liz: When I retired, I had a small 401(k) with about $12,000 in it. Instead of rolling that money into an IRA, I took a distribution and paid taxes on it. I had no immediate need for the remaining funds, so eventually I opened a new IRA account and deposited the money.
I now realize I should have put it in a Roth IRA so I wouldn’t face double taxation on the money. This is the stupidest thing I’ve done in recent memory. Is there any legal mechanism I can use to get that money out and into a Roth without paying taxes the second time?
Answer: You made a mistake, but probably not the one you think.
You can’t contribute to an IRA — or a Roth IRA, for that matter — if you don’t have earned income. So if you’ve fully retired, you should contact your IRA administrator and let them know you need to withdraw your “excess contribution” as well as any earnings the contribution has made.
If you contributed this year, you have until your tax filing deadline — typically April 15, 2026 — to remove the funds without penalty. If you contributed in a previous year, you’ll typically face a 6% excise tax for each year the money remained in your account.
Now, a warning about financial mistakes: They tend to become more common as we age. That can be incredibly unsettling, especially to do-it-yourselfers used to handling finances competently on their own. Retirement is a good time to start implementing some guardrails to protect ourselves and our money.
Hiring a tax pro would be a good first step. Anything to do with a retirement fund should be run past this pro first to make sure you’re following the tax rules.
Dear Liz: In response to a reader who asked about creating a will, you suggested options for low-cost online resources. That is great! But, I would encourage you to remind readers to designate beneficiaries on accounts and assets where that option is available.
While they should still have a will, many readers may not know that they can add beneficiaries to brokerage, checking, and savings accounts (in addition to IRA and retirement accounts) so that their assets will pass directly to the designated beneficiaries and not have to go through probate with the extra hassle, time and expense.
For those without a trust, designating beneficiaries may be the easiest way to pass on many of their assets. In California (and some other states), even houses may pass without probate with a transfer-on-death deed. Many readers may not know about the option to add beneficiaries, and you would do your readers a service by educating them about it.
Answer: Anyone adding beneficiaries to accounts needs to be aware of some major potential drawbacks.
A big one involves settling the estate. If all available funds are transferred directly to beneficiaries, the person settling the estate may not have enough cash to do their job.
Beneficiary designations can also result in unintentionally unequal distributions if there’s more than one heir, and complications if the beneficiaries die first or aren’t changed appropriately as life circumstances change.
That’s not to say that beneficiary designations are the wrong choice, but they’re certainly not a one-size-fits-all option.
Dear Liz: Your recent column about advanced directives said that people could get a free version at PrepareForYourCare.org. I found there is a charge. Is this for all online directives?
Answer: Prepare is a free site supported by donations, grants and licensing agreements. If you were asked to pay, you either clicked the donate button or weren’t on the correct site.
Liz Weston, Certified Financial Planner, is a personal finance columnist. Questions may be sent to her at 3940 Laurel Canyon, No. 238, Studio City, CA 91604, or by using the “Contact” form at asklizweston.com.
To understand how Mr. Trump has achieved this omnipresence, The New York Times reviewed the first 329 days of his second term, finding at least one instance each day when he attracted the public’s attention to himself and his actions.
The review encompassed more than 250 media appearances, more than 320 official appearances, and more than 5,000 Truth Social posts or reposts. The analysis shows that while Mr. Trump has lagged his predecessors in his number of official appearances, he has pursued a raft of innovative methods to force himself into the public consciousness on a daily, and sometimes even hourly, basis.
The battery of activity started from the moment he was inaugurated, when he traveled from the Capitol Building to the Capital One Arena to publicly sign a flurry of executive orders.
Since then, he has stayed in the public eye in part by doing things no president has ever done. High-stakes Oval Office meetings, like his negotiations with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine, are held on-camera and broadcast live on global news networks. His Q.-and-A. sessions with reporters frequently last an hour or more.
He regularly airs his opinions – on social media, in discursive asides at rallies – about idiosyncratic subjects that range widely across the zeitgeist, from Sydney Sweeney’s sexy denim ads to the redesigned logo of the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain to the mysterious fate of the aviator Amelia Earhart, who vanished over the Pacific Ocean in 1937.
And his engagement with the news media has soared well beyond the start of his first administration.
Through Dec. 14, Mr. Trump took reporters’ questions on 449 occasions, compared with 223 during the same period of his first term. On average, Mr. Trump has interacted with journalists roughly twice a day, doubling his rate from 2017, according to Martha Joynt Kumar, a Towson University political scientist who tracks presidential press interactions. Mr. Trump limits which news outlets can ask questions at small events, but in sheer volume, he is the most media-accessible modern president, and far outpaces his predecessor, Joseph R. Biden Jr.
“Reporters will be in my office asking me for the president’s reaction to a breaking news story,” Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said in an interview. “And I’ll just say to them, ‘I don’t know, why don’t you ask him yourself in 30 minutes?’”
President Trump’s media appearances have soared this year, more than doubling both the Biden administration’s and those of his own first term.
Finding the Cameras
Many of his public moments go viral online, like his diatribe about restoring the name of the Washington Redskins, or the A.I.-generated video meme he posted of himself dribbling a soccer ball with Cristiano Ronaldo in the Oval Office. They take on a life of their own, rippling across social media and dissected and amplified by influencers and mass media platforms alike.
The result is a president whose not-so-inner monologue is injected into our daily lives in myriad ways, when we are watching TV on the weekends or idly scrolling the web – a Greek chorus for our national narrative.
“He’s the most ubiquitous president ever,” said Douglas Brinkley, the presidential historian.
The media strategy aligns with his political strategy.
Dating back to his years as an outspoken real estate developer and reality TV star, Mr. Trump has relished being unavoidable for comment. But at age 79, he has been outdoing his younger self. And there is a logic to his logorrhea.
Mr. Trump’s allies often speak of the political benefits of flooding the zone: pursuing so many policies, ideas, and dramatic restructurings of the normal ways of governance as to overwhelm the system. “All pedal, no brake,” as Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s one-time adviser, has called it.
“We joke internally that he is our ultimate director of communications,” Ms. Leavitt said. “He has incredible media instincts, and he is the final decision maker on all policy, and he has been in a ‘flood the zone,’ ‘do as much as possible’ mindset since he walked into the Oval Office on Jan. 20.”
All presidents benefit from the awesome news-making powers of the office, with its agenda-setting influence over a dedicated global press corps. But Mr. Trump has outstripped his predecessors in whipsawing the public’s attention onto matters small and large – and limiting the level of scrutiny that any one shocking remark or policy proposal receives.
“People can really only focus on a handful of things a day,” said Bill Burton, a deputy White House press secretary under former President Barack Obama. “This attention flood is working for Trump because he is able to do an extraordinary amount of executive actions and very little of it can get attention.”
Or as Mr. Brinkley put it: “He plays to win the day, every day, around the clock.”
His commentary takes on a life of its own.
One of Mr. Trump’s political assets is his instinct for virality.
With a natural feel for the web, Mr. Trump has a knack for amplifying wacky memes and pop culture curios that can drive days of online discourse. Sometimes, coverage of his offhand remarks or late-night social media posts can crowd out the more significant, norm-shattering changes he is making to American governance.
Late one Friday night in May, the president posted an obviously A.I.-generated image of himself as the pope. It struck a nerve.
Mr. Trump had already courted controversy days earlier, after the death of Pope Francis on April 21.
“I’d like to be pope,” the president told reporters who asked about who should become the next pontiff. “That would be my number one choice.”
The comment disturbed some Catholics, who said the notion was crude and insensitive. That reaction seemed only to prompt Mr. Trump to double down, posting the A.I.-generated image to his Truth Social account days later. By the weekend it had become a cultural phenomenon, mocked on “Saturday Night Live” and called out by experts as an example of misleading A.I. content.
After Mr. Trump posts the A.I. image …
May 2
Trump posts A.I. image of himself as Pope
There is nothing clever or funny about this image, Mr. President. We just buried our beloved Pope Francis and the cardinals are about to enter a solemn conclave to elect a new successor of St. Peter. Do not mock us.
May 3
NYS Catholic Conference says “do not mock us”
May 3
“Saturday Night Live” covers fake image
May 3 Vatican asked about image, declines to comment
May 4
Cardinal Joseph Tobin of New Jersey criticizes image as “not good”
May 4
JD Vance defends Trump on X, calling it a joke … some Catholics were outraged, prompting a news cycle focused on the controversy …
5
Says “the Catholics loved it”
… before Mr. Trump suggested he had nothing to do with it.
Mr. Trump, who is not Catholic, had plenty of defenders, too. They said his commentary and the A.I. image were simply jokes, part of the president’s unique comedic style.
“As a general rule, I’m fine with people telling jokes and not fine with people starting stupid wars that kill thousands of my countrymen,” Vice President JD Vance, who is Catholic, wrote on X.
In his quest for attention, the president is often aided by a cottage industry of right-wing influencers and activists who are primed to syndicate, reinforce and defend whatever content he pushes out each day. For this conservative media ecosystem, Mr. Trump’s messaging and commentary are the raw fuel that drives clicks, shares and views.
On June 7, the president’s visit to a raucous U.F.C. fight – complete with a “Trump dance” entrance into the arena – generated an immediate spike in online interest, including about 50,000 posts on X. Five days later, when he promoted a “Trump gold card” visa, his announcement led to roughly 30,000 posts on X.
A barrage that distracts from bad news.
One pattern in Mr. Trump’s behavior: When his administration is faced with bad news, he launches a fusillade of distraction.
This can take the form of outlandish, out-of-left-field claims about political opponents. Or he might weigh in on a pop culture subject far afield from Washington politics – from the ratings of late-night hosts like Seth Meyers to the physical appearance of a megastar like Taylor Swift.
The events of July 2025 offer a case in point.
As the Jeffrey Epstein files returned to the news – along with speculation that Mr. Trump might appear in them – the president embarked on a breathtaking series of tangents. Mr. Trump claimed without evidence that former President Bill Clinton had bankrolled an effort by senior intelligence officials to frame him for a crime, mused about stripping the actress Rosie O’Donnell of her U.S. citizenship, and accused the singer Beyoncé of accepting millions of dollars to endorse his erstwhile rival, former Vice President Kamala Harris.
July 8
F.B.I. publishes memo about Epstein files On July 8, the F.B.I. said it would not declassify more Epstein files.
10
Claimed intelligence officials tried to frame him
10
Pushed to defund NPR and PBS
10 Directed ICE to arrest protesters
12
Threatened Rosie O’Donnell’s citizenship
15
Claimed Adam Schiff engaged in mortgage fraud Over the following days, Mr. Trump seemed to lash out in every direction.
On July 18, the Justice Department filed a request to unseal grand jury testimony about Mr. Epstein, again raising questions about Mr. Trump’s involvement. The president promptly lobbed insults at late-night talk show hosts, dismissed the Epstein affair as “fake news” and shared fresh claims about a supposed Obama administration plot to undermine him after the 2016 election.
July 18
Request filed to unseal grand jury testimony
On July 18, the Department of Justice filed a request — later denied — to unseal grand jury testimony.
20
Criticized Washington Commanders name
21
Called the “Russia hoax” the “crime of the century”
22
Called Epstein controversy “fake news”
22
Criticized Kimmel and Fallon
24 Criticized Federal Reserve chairman
Over the following days, Mr. Trump bounced from topic to topic.
On July 25, The Wall Street Journal published a major scoop: The paper had unearthed a risqué birthday letter that Mr. Trump had apparently written to Mr. Epstein in 2003. Mr. Trump responded with his attack on Beyoncé and revived his threat to revoke the broadcast licenses of TV networks. Then he announced the imminent construction of an enormous gilded ballroom at the White House, at a cost of $200 million. (He has since revised the cost upward to $400 million.)
Asked if there was a deliberate strategy to distract from negative news, Ms. Leavitt noted that every administration seeks to minimize unhelpful headlines.
“Yes, there have been times in which we’ve tried to do that, but also often it just happens naturally, because the president is willing to weigh in on so many subjects,” she said. “Sometimes it’s really not deliberate. It’s just him speaking his mind on whatever news cycle or news story is brought to him in that moment.”
He has added tricks to his arsenal.
Mr. Trump’s devotion to Truth Social mirrors the hair-trigger Twitter habit of his first term; on one recent December evening, he posted 158 times between 9 p.m. and midnight. And he has continued to appear on Fox News with certain preferred hosts.
But this year, he has added to his media arsenal by appearing in many more public spaces that fall outside of a president’s typical itinerary.
Mr. Trump has stopped by a Washington Commanders N.F.L. game, popped up in the New York Yankees locker room, attended the Ryder Cup golf tournament and the men’s tennis final at the U.S. Open, sat ringside at numerous U.F.C. fights, and traveled to the Daytona 500. He is the first sitting president to attend a Super Bowl. When FIFA staged the Club World Cup final in New Jersey, Mr. Trump not only attended, but joined the winning team onstage for the trophy ceremony.
The net effect is a sense of inescapability, that no corner of American life remains Trump-free – which itself amounts to a potent expression of presidential authority and command. “His power, in part,” said Mr. Burton, the former Obama aide, “comes from the attention that people give him, or that he forces on them.”
Can it ever be too much?
In the fall of 2009, President Barack Obama appeared on David Letterman’s talk show, gave interviews to CNBC and Men’s Health magazine, and made the rounds of all five major network Sunday shows. Washington was abuzz about whether he was overexposed.
That debate sounds quaint today. But the question of whether a president can be too visible remains open.
“The public is being desensitized” to Mr. Trump’s omnipresence, argued Mr. Brinkley, the historian. “It starts becoming blather. The enemy for Trump isn’t Democrats; it’s the public being bored with the show.”
Ms. Leavitt said that if there was a risk to his ubiquity, “President Trump would not be president right now.” She added: “He is a businessman who speaks his mind and tells it like it is, and sometimes people don’t like that. But obviously the vast majority of our country does, or else he wouldn’t be in this office.”
During Mr. Trump’s first term, the public eventually tired of his frenzied pace. And in some ways, Mr. Trump appears to be slowing down physically as he approaches his 80th birthday in June (which he will celebrate in part by staging a nationally broadcast U.F.C. fight on the White House lawn). He has appeared to doze at some Oval Office meetings, and he is holding fewer formal public events than he did at this point in 2017.
Still, Mr. Trump and his team have embraced the everywhere-all-at-once nature of modern media. Average Americans, busy with work and family, do not tune in for daytime news conferences or Cabinet meetings. And 6:30 p.m. newscasts and local newspapers are no longer the primary vessels by which Americans learn about their commander-in-chief.
Instead, politics now suffuses our lives as a kind of ambient noise – via TikTok videos, social media posts, YouTube talk shows and family Facebook messages – never fully separate from our leisure pursuits. “Right now the game is attention, in terms of what’s culturally breaking through,” Mr. Burton said. “The fact that so much message exists is the point.”
Mr. Trump has both propelled this merging of culture and politics, and continues to strategically exploit it. In December, he became the first president to personally host the Kennedy Center Honors, comparing himself onstage to Johnny Carson and musing that he would do a better job than Jimmy Kimmel.
“This is the greatest evening in the history of the Kennedy Center,” Mr. Trump told the crowd. “Not even a contest. There has never been anything like it.”
His performance will air in prime time on CBS on Dec. 23.
Photo and video sources: Graham Dickie/The New York Times; Doug Mills/The New York Times; Roll Call Factba.se; PBS; Mauro Pimentel/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images; Kenny Holston/The New York Times; The New York Times; Annabelle Gordon/Reuters; Eric Lee/The New York Times; Fox; Cheriss May for The New York Times; Wilfredo Lee/Associated Press; Margo Martin, via Storyful; Mark Abramson for The New York Times; Global News; Al Drago/Getty Images; Fox News; Dave Sanders for The New York Times; Pete Marovich for The New York Times; Ted Shaffrey/Associated Press … Show all
Trump announces Louisiana Governor as envoy to Greenland
This Town In Maine Is Full Of Islands, Charming Shops, And Delectable, Fresh Seafood – Explore
Maryland Lottery Pick 3, Pick 4 results for Dec. 21, 2025
Michigan Republicans may try to impeach Attorney General Dana Nessel
Three Mass. residents arrested in undercover operation targeting child sex trafficking
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
DHS responds after reports CISA chief allegedly failed polygraph for classified intel access
EU plans to raise €90 billion in joint debt for Ukraine — here’s how
Lawmakers threaten Attorney General Bondi with contempt over incomplete Epstein files
DNI Gabbard warns ‘Islamist ideology’ threatens Western freedom at AmFest
Algeria bill seeks to criminalise French colonial rule: What to know
-
Iowa1 week agoAddy Brown motivated to step up in Audi Crooks’ absence vs. UNI
-
Iowa1 week agoHow much snow did Iowa get? See Iowa’s latest snowfall totals
-
Maine6 days agoElementary-aged student killed in school bus crash in southern Maine
-
Maryland1 week agoFrigid temperatures to start the week in Maryland
-
South Dakota1 week agoNature: Snow in South Dakota
-
New Mexico5 days agoFamily clarifies why they believe missing New Mexico man is dead
-
Detroit, MI6 days ago‘Love being a pedo’: Metro Detroit doctor, attorney, therapist accused in web of child porn chats
-
Education1 week agoOpinion | America’s Military Needs a Culture Shift