{"id":16660,"date":"2025-09-05T18:35:20","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T18:35:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/jared-polis-told-redditors-to-ask-him-anything-they-pounced-on-his-support-for-rfk-jr\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:59:55","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:59:55","slug":"jared-polis-told-redditors-to-ask-him-anything-they-pounced-on-his-support-for-rfk-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/jared-polis-told-redditors-to-ask-him-anything-they-pounced-on-his-support-for-rfk-jr\/","title":{"rendered":"Jared Polis told Redditors to ask him anything. They pounced on his support for RFK Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Colorado
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis speaks during the summer meeting of the National Governors Association at the Broadmoor Hotel in Colorado Springs. David Zalubowski\/The Associated Press<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

On Saturday, Gov. Jared Polis hopped onto Reddit <\/a>for what is known as an AMA \u2013 a wide-open \u201cask me anything\u201d Q&A where users can, well, ask him anything.<\/p>\n

They mostly asked about one thing.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy are you standing by your endorsement of RFK Jr.?\u201d one Redditor asked, referring to Polis\u2019 earlier comments<\/a> about Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/p>\n

\u201cAgreed. I\u2019d also like to know,\u201d another replied.<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, we deserve an answer to this question,\u201d wrote a third.<\/p>\n

What followed was an extraordinary and anarchic back-and-forth in which Polis responded no fewer than 32 times over several hours to questions or comments about Kennedy, many challenging Polis for expressing support for some of Kennedy\u2019s beliefs.<\/p>\n\n

Polis was at times testy and combative. At one point, he quoted a Chinese proverb to make a point. At another, he felt the need to all-caps clarify, \u201cI AM AGAINST EUGENICS.\u201d<\/p>\n

All together, it marked the most extensive remarks Polis has made about perhaps his most controversial stance during the second administration of President Donald Trump.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeveral people seem to think I am some kind of RFK fan-boy,\u201d he wrote. \u201cObviously the media just loves anything about that guy, and because my message is more nuanced it attracts a lot of attention. I am FOR anything he, or any HHS Secretary does to promote healthy nutrition and chronic disease prevention. I am AGAINST anything he or any HHS Secretary does that is based on pseudo-science, bad science, or casts aspersions on vaccinations.\u201d<\/p>\n

The uproar dates back to November, when Trump put forth Kennedy, who has a long history of attacking vaccines and supporting pseudo-scientific ideas, to lead the massive U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Polis wrote in a post on X that he was \u201cexcited\u201d by the prospect of Kennedy becoming the nation\u2019s top health official.<\/p>\n

\u201cI look forward to partnering with him to truly make America healthy again,\u201d Polis wrote.<\/p>\n

Since that time, Polis has refused to backtrack on those statements, which included support for Kennedy\u2019s stated goals of reducing pesticide use in agriculture, improving nutrition, reducing prescription drug costs and fighting against vaccine mandates. He took largely the same approach in his Reddit AMA.<\/p>\n

Polis responded to these questions by arguing that what he wrote wasn\u2019t an endorsement of Kennedy, that he had been critical of Kennedy\u2019s statements about vaccines and other areas of medical science, and that the media had made too big of a deal of it.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the way the media works is that I can say 9 things bad about RFK and one thing positive, and they cover the one nice thing I say. Every time,\u201d Polis wrote.<\/p>\n

Polis also repeated some of his earlier praise of Kennedy. For instance, he said he believes Kennedy is \u201cnot beholden to big pharma,\u201d and Polis said he remains opposed to vaccine mandates. (Though, during the COVID pandemic, Polis sent a letter to the state\u2019s Board of Health asking its members to adopt a vaccine mandate for health care workers.<\/a>)<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in bodily autonomy,\u201d Polis wrote. \u201cThe same reason I\u2019m against vaccine mandates is the reason I\u2019m strongly for easy access to the vaccines of your choice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Secretary
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr., appears before the Senate Finance Committee, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (Mark Schiefelbein\/The Associated Press)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

To comments from Reddit users who questioned why Polis would offer any support to Kennedy, given Polis\u2019 opposition to Kennedy\u2019s vaccine policies and other actions as HHS secretary, Polis urged civility and said he believes in finding ways to work together with people who hold opposing views. He said he\u2019s committed to working with Kennedy to benefit Colorado, while remaining critical when Kennedy does something he opposes.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou should be critical of him in a less polite way,\u201d a user going by the name makingtacosrightnow wrote.<\/p>\n

\u201cGuess my mama raised me too well,\u201d Polis responded.<\/p>\n

But Polis did at one point strike a more regretful note.<\/p>\n

A Redditor going by the name Duet_Yourself asked, \u201cWhy frame someone having a good point as deserving public recognition, rather than drawing a line between agreement on an issue and \u2018excitement\u2019 for the person?\u201d<\/p>\n

To that, Polis responded: \u201cYes I should be more careful in my words for sure.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Reddit AMA comes as polling data shows support among Colorado voters may be slipping for Polis, who is term limited come early 2027.<\/p>\n\n

In a statewide poll of 1,136 registered voters from July 30 to Aug. 12, 52% said they disapprove of the job Polis is doing while 41% said they approve and 7% said they had no opinion or were unsure. The Democratic governor\u2019s numbers were worst among Republicans, but 50% of unaffiliated voters and 24% of Democratic voters said they also disapproved of his job performance.<\/p>\n

The poll was conducted by Magellan Strategies, a conservative-leaning political firm based in Colorado. It had a 2.91 percentage point margin of error.<\/p>\n

In another Magellan poll conducted at the end of May into early June, 47% of registered voters said they had a favorable view of Polis while 47% said they had an unfavorable view of the governor.<\/p>\n

Asked why Polis decided to hold the Reddit AMA over the holiday weekend, the governor\u2019s office responded with this statement from Polis:<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe in having a strong online presence and like to engage with Coloradans on my official and personal platforms. I launched my campaign for governor on Reddit and this Reddit AMA was an example of the many kinds of engagement I have with Coloradans.\u201d<\/p>\n

Colorado Sun staff writer Jesse Paul contributed t<\/em>o this report.<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

a lengthy Q&A, Polis denied that he had endorsed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and criticized Kennedy\u2019s actions on vaccines <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":16661,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[233,28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-16660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16660"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16660\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20799,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16660\/revisions\/20799"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/16661"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16660"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=16660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}