The German government rejected claims by U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that Berlin prosecuted doctors and patients for refusing Covid-19 vaccinations or mask mandates. “The statements made by the U.S. Secretary of Health are completely unfounded, factually incorrect, and must be rejected,” German Health Minister Nina Warken said in a statement late Saturday. “I can happily explain this to him personally,” she said. “At no time during the coronavirus pandemic was there any obligation for doctors to carry out vaccines against Covid-19,” Warken added. “Anyone who did not wish to offer vaccines for medical, ethical or personal reasons were not criminally liable and did not have to fear penalties,” she said. Warken added that “criminal prosecution took place only in cases of fraud and forgery of documents, such as the issuing of false vaccine certificates” or exemption certificates for masks.  “Doctors [in Germany] decide independently and autonomously on the treatment of patients,” the minister stressed, adding that “patients are also free to decide which treatment they wish to receive.” Kennedy said in a video post on Saturday that he had written to Warken after receiving reports that Germany was restricting “people’s abilities to act on their own convictions” in medical decisions. He claimed that “more than a thousand German physicians and thousands of their patients” faced prosecution for issuing exemptions from mask-wearing or Covid-19 vaccination requirements during the pandemic. Kennedy did not provide specific examples or identify the reports he cited, but he said Germany was “targeting physicians who put their patients first” and was “punishing citizens for making their own medical choices.” He accused Berlin of undermining the doctor–patient relationship and replacing it with “a dangerous system that makes physicians enforcers of state policies.” Former German Health Minister Karl Lauterbach also pushed back on the claims, telling Kennedy on X to “take care of health problems in his own country.”

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Wer regiert die Welt – und was treibt sie an? In unserem regelmäßigen Machthaber-Spezial geht es um die mächtigsten und umstrittensten Politikerinnen und Politiker unserer Zeit. Wir zeigen, wie sie denken, entscheiden – und was das für uns bedeutet. Eine Politikerin oder Politiker, ein Blick hinter die Kulissen der Macht. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. ⁠Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren.⁠ Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: ⁠@gordon.repinski⁠ | X: ⁠@GordonRepinski⁠. Legal Notice (Belgium) POLITICO SRL Forme sociale: Société à Responsabilité Limitée Siège social: Rue De La Loi 62, 1040 Bruxelles Numéro d’entreprise: 0526.900.436 RPM Bruxelles info@politico.eu www.politico.eu

Over the weekend, Covid cautious individuals shared clips on social media of Jon Stewart punching down on people who are masking, who are presumably doing so to protect themselves from Covid, the flu, and other infectious diseases that are spreading across the United States. On the December 11 episode of the podcast The Weekly Show with Jon Stewart, guest Tim Miller of The Bulwark said there have to be at least two people at fellow guest Jon Favreau’s workplace wearing masks because it’s a progressive organization. Stewart responded, “There’s always two, and you always say, ‘Oh, are you sick?’ And they go, ‘Uh, I don’t want to talk about it.'” > Disappointed to see Jon Stewart & co joke about masking in public. I do it for > my medically fragile daughter (Batten Disease). People not masking properly > led to her getting pneumonia, which led to her being on life support, which > led to me getting price quotes on her cremation just in case. > > [image or embed] > > — Philip Palermo (@palermo.bsky.social) December 28, 2025 at 7:31 PM First of all, asking people why they are masking is invasive behavior. No one randomly owes you information about their health, their loved one’s health, or, understandably, just wanting to avoid Covid, which is the only way to prevent Long Covid. As I’ve also previously reported, disabled people in New York’s Nassau County have reported being harassed after the county passed a mask ban. Cancer patients have also told their stories of being questioned about why they’re masking. Even before the start of the Covid pandemic, populations including cancer patients and organ transplant recipients have been encouraged to mask by healthcare professionals. “Sad that Jon Stewart and friends have become just more white liberals who enjoy punching down at marginalized people who are just doing our best to survive,” Karistina Lafae, a disabled author and essayist, told me. “Those of us who have Long COVID, who have watched family and friends die of COVID, we are being mocked for taking common-sense precautions against illness and further disability.” Research also shows that Long Covid is very much a working-class problem. A study looking at people in Spain found that workers who had close contact with colleagues at their job, did not mask, and took public transit to and from work are more likely to have Long Covid, thus also highlighting Covid as an occupational problem. The United States Census Bureau also reported in 2023 that Black and Latino adults were more likely to report experiencing Long Covid symptoms than white people. Some people have also pointed out the hypocrisy of his work supporting 9/11 first responders and how he is talking about masking now. Epidemiologist Gabrielle A. Perry posted on BlueSky that Stewart has “some absolute fucking NERVE to be making fun of Long COVID survivors and people still masking” when “he’s seen UP CLOSE the government deny healthcare and resources for 9/11 survivors who breathed in toxic air and are suffering decades later.” > Jon Stewart has some absolute fucking NERVE to be making fun of Long COVID > survivors and people still masking on his piece of shit podcast when he’s seen > UP CLOSE the government deny healthcare and resources for 9/11 survivors who > breathed in toxic air and are suffering decades later. What a psycho > > — Gabrielle A. Perry, MPH (@geauxgabrielle.bsky.social) December 27, 2025 at > 5:29 AM Justine Barron worked a few blocks from the World Trade Center in 2001. “On top of exposure that day, I was exposed for a year and developed extremely severe breathing and skin issues, as well as immune dysfunction,” Barron told me. Barron acquired Long Covid in 2020, and her doctors believe that her 9/11 related conditions made her more susceptible to developing Long Covid. Barron is part of a 25-year World Trade Center Health Commission study, including hundreds of thousands of participants. “More recently, there have been questions related to Covid and Long Covid indicating that the commission is also aware of this connection,” Barron said. “My point is that you can’t be supportive of the 9/11 responders without also being supportive of Long Covid. Both environmental harms cause similar issues in people, and there are many of us that are double victims.”

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Im Bundestag tagt die Corona-Enquete-Kommission – und gleich die erste öffentliche Sitzung nach der Sommerpause zeigt, wie tief die Gräben noch sind. Thema: Grundrechte und staatliche Eingriffe während der Pandemie. Zwischen Schutz und Freiheit, Eigenverantwortung und Vertrauen in die Wissenschaft wird heftig gestritten. Rixa Fürsen spricht mit Pauline von Pezold, die den Auftritt der AfD-Abgeordneten und ihrer Sachverständigen beobachtet hat. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es morgens um 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team bringen euch jeden Morgen auf den neuesten Stand in Sachen Politik — kompakt, europäisch, hintergründig. Und für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Unser Berlin Playbook-Newsletter liefert jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Hier gibt es alle Informationen und das kostenlose Playbook-Abo. Mehr von Berlin Playbook-Host und Executive Editor von POLITICO in Deutschland, Gordon Repinski, gibt es auch hier:   Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.

President Donald Trump said Sunday he won’t be in attendance at the Supreme Court this week for a pivotal legal showdown that could gut the tariff policy at the center of his economic agenda. Trump had flirted publicly with going to the oral arguments in the tariff case Wednesday, even though such a move by a sitting president would appear unprecedented. But as he returned to the White House from Florida on Sunday, he told reporters on Air Force One that he doesn’t plan to go. At about the same time, Trump posted a longer statement on Truth Social, slipping in confirmation he won’t be at the crucial high court session. “I will not be going to the Court on Wednesday in that I do not want to distract from the importance of this Decision,” Trump wrote. Still, the president doubled down on the case’s importance and his predictions of disaster if the high court forces him to abandon his most sweeping tariffs. “It will be, in my opinion, one of the most important and consequential Decisions ever made by the United States Supreme Court,” Trump wrote. “If we lose, our Country could be reduced to almost Third World status — Pray to God that that doesn’t happen!” The justices are set to weigh a pair of legal challenges to Trump’s use of emergency powers to impose tariffs on several countries by invoking a nearly 50-year-old law. No president before Trump has used the law, known as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, to impose tariffs, which have brought in tens of billions of dollars to the U.S. government. Trump’s decision came after at least one prominent Trump ally indicated it would be unwise for the president to attend. “I think it’s a mistake,” Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana told POLITICO last week. “I’m sure the president is interested in the arguments,” Kennedy added. “Some may interpret it as an attempt to put pressure on the justices, and I think if the justices receive it that way, I’m not saying they will or they won’t, but if they do perceive it that way, I think it will backfire.” Some Democrats also said the move Trump was mulling was likely to be counterproductive. “It is a fairly unsubtle effort to intimidate the Supreme Court. Parties have a right to attend Supreme Court arguments, but the president could listen to it in a variety of other ways, and I think it’s just an attempt to bully the court, and frankly, I think it will backfire,” said Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut. However, speaking to journalists last month, Trump said he felt obliged to go given the stakes. “It’s one of the most important decisions in the history of the Supreme Court and I might go there. I really believe I have an obligation to go there,” Trump said. The move would have given the president a first-hand view as the justices weigh whether to uphold his wide-ranging tariffs on dozens of U.S. trading partners — a policy Trump has made a signature of his second term. Since suffering a defeat at an appeals court earlier this year, Trump has used almost apocalyptic terms to warn about the impact of a similar ruling from the justices. In a social media post in August, the president suggested the U.S. would be left destitute if his tariffs were deemed illegal. Such a ruling “would literally destroy the United States of America,” he wrote. The official request the administration made to the high court in September for urgent consideration of the case was only slightly more reserved. “The President and his Cabinet officials have determined … that the denial of tariff authority would expose our nation to trade retaliation without effective defenses and thrust America back to the brink of economic catastrophe,” Solicitor General D. John Sauer wrote. Historians and lawyers who practice regularly before the court said they were not aware of any prior occasion in which a sitting president attended oral arguments. Presidents do grace the Supreme Court’s ornate courtroom on occasion for the formal investiture of new justices and typically visit the building during events marking the death of a justice. Trump attended the official installation of two of his nominees to the court: Justices Neil Gorsuch, in 2017, and Brett Kavanaugh, in 2018. He also visited the court in 2020 for ceremonies related to the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg. (He did not attend the investiture of his third Supreme Court nominee, Justice Amy Coney Barrett. That event was delayed until 2021 due to the coronavirus pandemic, and Trump was out of office at the time.) “In general, the justices are very protective of their status and prerogatives and they really don’t like it when it looks like they’re being bullied,” said Washington University law professor Daniel Epps. Stephen Wermiel, a Supreme Court historian, said it would be “a very awkward situation for him to attend.” “If he is there to remind the justices how important the case is to him, that is extremely superfluous. They are quite aware of the importance of the case. If he is there as a form of jawboning, that is even more inappropriate,” he added. Trump has previously shown up to lower court proceedings where his attendance was not required. In January 2024, Trump flew from his Florida home to a Washington federal courthouse a few blocks from the Capitol to watch Sauer, then one of his personal attorneys, argue that Trump’s service as president immunized him from criminal prosecution. Special counsel Jack Smith, who had obtained the criminal indictment claiming Trump illegally conspired to overturn the 2020 presidential election, was also present. Whatever Trump’s intent in turning up that day — and breaking courtroom protocol by sitting at the counsel table with his lawyers — the D.C. Circuit judges didn’t back down. Despite the then-ex-president’s presence, all three judges, including a Republican appointee, rejected Trump’s immunity arguments. When Trump’s appeal of that decision went before the Supreme Court about two months later, Trump was sitting in a separate criminal trial in Manhattan on charges he illegally covered up hush money payments to a porn star. The former president asked to be excused from the trial to attend the immunity arguments at the high court, but the state court judge, Juan Merchan, declined. “Arguing before the Supreme Court is a big deal; I can understand why your client wants to be there,” Merchan said to Trump’s lawyers. “Your client is a criminal defendant in New York County Supreme Court. He’s required to be here.” Sauer, who argued the immunity case for Trump at the high court, had a strong, if unsupervised, outing. In a decision that broke largely along ideological lines, the high court declared Trump immune from criminal prosecution for some actions he took as president,effectively kneecapping Smith’s election-related prosecution. When Trump returned to office this year he named Sauer to his current post as the federal government’s top lawyer at the Supreme Court. He’s set to defend Trump’s tariff policy on Wednesday. Epps, who served as a law clerk to Justice Anthony Kennedy, said one factor Trump or his advisers might have considered is whether he would have the patience to endure what could be two or even three hours of arguments on rather dry legal topics. “I have no idea how he would conduct himself. … Do you think he could sit there respectfully while people are debating this?” Epps said. “He would presumably want to be on his phone … The whole thing sounds horribly, horribly awkward.”

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Von den Bundesländern bis zur COP30 in Brasilien: Der Kanzler reist, verhandelt und kämpft um Vertrauen in die Wirtschaft. Im Gespräch mit Rasmus Buchsteiner geht es um steigende Krankenkassenbeiträge, drohenden Stellenabbau, den geplanten Stahl-Gipfel und die Frage, ob aus den vielen Runden endlich greifbare Ergebnisse werden. Im 200-Sekunden-Interview erklärt Franziska Hoppermann, Vorsitzende der Enquete-Kommission zur Corona-Aufarbeitung, wie die Arbeit des Bundestags Gerechtigkeit und Versöhnung schaffen soll. Sie spricht über die Rolle von Jens Spahn, wo die Corona-Kritiker bleiben und erste Lehren aus den Anhörungen. Und: Hans von der Burchard analysiert das erste Telefonat seit längerer Zeit zwischen Friedrich Merz und Benjamin Netanjahu. Es geht um humanitäre Hilfe für Gaza, diplomatische Spannungen – und darum, ob Deutschland wieder Einfluss im Nahost-Friedensprozess gewinnt. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es jeden Morgen ab 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team liefern Politik zum Hören – kompakt, international, hintergründig. Für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Der Berlin Playbook-Newsletter bietet jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Jetzt kostenlos abonnieren. Mehr von Host und POLITICO Executive Editor Gordon Repinski: Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.

BRUSSELS — An adviser to U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lauded Europe’s data on Covid-19 vaccines in front of European Parliament lawmakers on Wednesday. Robert W. Malone, one of RFK Jr.’s newly selected vaccine advisers to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said the United States can’t gather and analyze data as well as Europe does it, name-checking the Nordics and the U.K. especially for their systems. “One of the consequences is we can’t do, frankly, as good a job as you can do in epidemiology, which may be part of the reason why in some nation states, we’re getting better data on the Covid harms from Europe, the U.K., than we’re getting from the United States,” Malone said. That’s because, among other things, “we don’t have socialized medicine the same way you do, and we have barriers to ensure patient confidentiality,” he told right-wing MEPs gathered in the Parliament to launch the Make Europe Healthy Again (MEHA) movement with the Patriots for Europe group. Under RFK Jr., the U.S. has tried to reign in who can receive Covid-19 shots, which until recently were offered to everyone over 6 months of age at least once a year.   Europe diverged from American Covid-19 shot recommendations during the pandemic, restricting eligibility to those who would be at greatest risk from catching the virus as well as weighing the possible side effects. Younger men and teenagers, for example, appeared more susceptible to a rare heart condition after vaccination. RFK Jr., who has campaigned against the use of certain vaccines, has cited Europe’s approach to Covid-19 vaccination in his attempts to restrict who in the U.S. should receive it. He has also pushed for pregnant women to avoid using paracetamol (Tylenol), linking its use to increasing rates of autism in the U.S., under his Make America Health Again (MAHA) campaign.

PARIS — Ratings agency Fitch downgraded France’s credit rating just days after the country named yet another prime minister. The agency cited “the increased fragmentation and polarization of domestic politics” in lowering France’s rating to A+ from AA-. The outlook is stable, Fitch said. “Since the snap legislative elections in mid-2024, France has had three different governments,” the ratings agency wrote in its analysis published late Friday. “This instability weakens the political system’s capacity to deliver substantial fiscal consolidation and makes it unlikely that the headline fiscal deficit will be brought down to 3 percent of GDP by 2029, as targeted by the outgoing government,” Fitch said. The downgrade comes as France is going through a political crisis and is struggling to cut its massive public debt. On Tuesday, French President Emmanuel Macron appointed Sébastien Lecornu as prime minister after his predecessor, François Bayrou, was toppled a day earlier in a confidence vote over the €43.8 billion budget squeeze he proposed for next year. “We expect the run-up to the presidential election in 2027 will further limit the scope for fiscal consolidation in the near term and see a high likelihood that the political deadlock continues beyond the election,” the agency said. If Fitch’s downgrade is followed by the other major rating agencies, it could spell trouble for France. Moody’s and Standard & Poor’s will assess the country’s credit rating in October and November, respectively. The outgoing government has pledged to bring the country’s deficit down to 4.6 percent of gross domestic product next year and to bring it under 3 percent, as required by EU rules, by 2029. Financial institutions and auditors have repeatedly urged France to rein in its deficit, which skyrocketed after the coronavirus pandemic and the energy crisis. The country’s auditors and the outgoing prime minister have warned that, without major cuts, debt reimbursement will become France’s number one budget item next year, surpassing spending in education. But attempts to reduce government spending are facing a backlash from far-right and left-wing opposition. Bayrou’s plan included eliminating two public holidays, as well as freezing welfare payments including pensions and salaries of some government employees. New Prime Minister Lecornu has distanced himself from his predecessor as he tries to win the support of the center-left Socialists.

Vinay Prasad, the FDA Director of the Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, has been critical of the Covid vaccine, to put it lightly. Not only that, he has a history of minimizing mask wearing, an effective tool in limiting the spread of infectious diseases. He also compared Covid public health measures to Nazi Germany. Prasad was temporarily ousted from his position in July following a social media push from Laura Loomer, but was back before mid-August. In May, Prasad and FDA Commissioner Martin A. Makary wrote a piece in the New England Journal of Medicine urging limitations for the Covid vaccine, arguing that, “U.S. policy has sometimes been justified by arguing that the American people are not sophisticated enough to understand age-and risk-based recommendations.” Despite this argument, everyone is at risk of developing Long Covid, and getting the Covid vaccine could minimize the number of infections people get, in addition to wearing a mask. Prasad’s anti-vaccine push is now a reality. Pfizer’s vaccine for the 2025-2026 year is approved for people between the ages of 5 and 64 for people with qualifying pre-existing health conditions, and those over the age of 65. For Moderna, it’s for kids 6 months and older who have qualifying pre-existing health conditions and seniors. It also varies state by state whether people are able to self-attest to having a condition that could make them high risk for Covid complications, which can include depression, or if they would need a doctor’s note. Since coming back to the FDA, Prasad has also received special treatment. As the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday: > It isn’t clear, though, how much time he’ll spend at the FDA’s White Oak, > Maryland, headquarters. When he was ousted at the end of July, he said he > didn’t want to be a distraction and that the commute to the FDA from his home > in California had been too much.  > > > > Prasad had been spending roughly three days out of every two weeks at the > Maryland headquarters, documents reviewed by the Journal indicate, despite the > administration’s efforts to return federal workers to the office. The agency > had been footing the bill for his cross-country commute, the documents show. > Prasad didn’t respond to requests for comment, and HHS declined to comment on > his commute. There is nothing inherently wrong with working from home—it can be a lot more accessible for disabled people and caregivers. However, there is a certain level of irony to Prasad doing so while many workers are forced to come in sick with Covid during the current wave. Additionally, why does he get special treatment while federal workers are forced to come back into the office daily, including traumatized CDC workers? Just last year, Prasad himself criticized work from home on social media, something he is now doing. > Work from home is bad for everyone > Only a few people retain productivity > Intangible office connections are gone > Young people r further isolated and lonely > City centers decay pic.twitter.com/NZGZz0pgzU > > — Vinay Prasad MD MPH (@VPrasadMDMPH) March 14, 2024

Listen on * Spotify * Apple Music * Amazon Music Der ungeschwärzte Sudhof-Bericht bringt neue Details ans Licht: zu Verantwortung, Millionenzahlungen und politischen Versäumnissen. Jens Spahn gerät weiter unter Druck – und mit ihm auch Gesundheitsministerin Nina Warken, die politisch zwischen Aufklärung und Loyalität laviert. Jürgen Klöckner ordnet ein, wie groß die Angriffsflächen sind.  Im 200-Sekunden-Interview warnt CDU-Vordenker Andreas Rödder vor einem ideologischen „linken Diktat“ bei der anstehenden Verfassungsrichterwahl – und fordert einen klaren Kurs der Union zwischen AfD-Abgrenzung und Linken-Kritik. Und: Der neue Wehrdienst-Vorschlag von Boris Pistorius – freiwillig, aber verpflichtend genug? Rixa Fürsen über die Lage zwischen Personalmangel, Kasernen-Problemen und Zeitenwende-Rhetorik. Zum Schluss: Annalena Baerbock verabschiedet sich – leise, aber symbolisch aufgeladen. Sommerpause auf Berliner Art. Das Berlin Playbook als Podcast gibt es morgens um 5 Uhr. Gordon Repinski und das POLITICO-Team bringen euch jeden Morgen auf den neuesten Stand in Sachen Politik — kompakt, europäisch, hintergründig. Und für alle Hauptstadt-Profis: Unser Berlin Playbook-Newsletter liefert jeden Morgen die wichtigsten Themen und Einordnungen. Hier gibt es alle Informationen und das kostenlose Playbook-Abo. Mehr von Berlin Playbook-Host und Executive Editor von POLITICO in Deutschland, Gordon Repinski, gibt es auch hier:   Instagram: @gordon.repinski | X: @GordonRepinski.