U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is being criticized and mocked for his latest take on mass shootings, suggesting that video games and psychiatric medicines could be to blame, despite numerous studies that largely show otherwise.

The Secretary, an attorney with no medical training who is widely regarded as a conspiracy theorist and anti-vaccine activist, appeared to dismiss existing research on the potential effects of video games and psychiatric medications—studies that have found no link to mass shooting violence.

“Oh, there are many, many things that happened in the 1990s that could explain these” mass shootings, Kennedy claimed.

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“One is the dependence on the psychiatric drugs, which is in our country, is unlike any other country in the world,” he alleged. Studies have shown that most teenaged mass shooters had not been prescribed psychiatric drugs.

Kennedy also said that “there could be connections with video games, with social media, a number of things, and we are looking at that at NIH.”

Video games, however, have been found not to have a causation effect on mass shootings.

Brady, the nonprofit working to prevent gun violence, responded to Kennedy, writing: “Access to guns is the problem. Not mental illness. Not SSRIs. Not video games. Not transgender communities. These are hateful and dangerously misguided distractions from the only real solution: gun reform.”

Secretary Kennedy, in his remarks, noted that “Switzerland has a comparable number of guns as we do, and the last mass shooting they had was 23 years ago. We’re having mass shootings every 23 hours.”

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Kennedy’s claim about Switzerland’s gun ownership is questionable, but reports have shown a large number of Swiss residents rely on guns for hunting, sport, and prior military service.

He also declared that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is now conducting studies “to look at the correlation and the connection, potential connection between over medicating our kids and this violence.”

Critics jumped on Kennedy’s remarks.

Journalist Jane Coaston mocked the Secretary, writing, “finally, we’re back at ‘video games did it,’ I love the 90s.”

“I am 28 years old,” wrote journalist Matthew Cardenas, “and have played games like Call of Duty, Halo and Gears of War since I was a teenager. Not once have the video games motivated me to commit a mass shooting. This is such a lazy argument.”

“This is no different than asking a random person why shootings occur,” observed Robert E. Kelly, a professor of political science. “He’s obviously not read any work on the issue. He’s just grasping Trump’s refusal to choose people w/ topical expertise is maddening.”

Former defense journalist Kevin Baron blasted Kennedy, urging him to “just Google it.”

See the video and social media post below or at this link.

There “could be”? What a lazy and irresponsible thing for an HHS secretary to say. There is an actual answer to this question, studied extensively and objectively by many many many many qualified people.

Or, you could just Google it… https://t.co/suXzjuzyxH pic.twitter.com/7duXnxSbEa

— Kevin Baron (@DefenseBaron) September 9, 2025

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White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt addressed President Donald Trump’s controversial remarks about domestic violence, saying that domestic violence crimes are not crimes but “made-up” statistics to undermine his work.

Leavitt was asked, “what crimes was the president referring to?” when Trump said: “If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say, ‘This was a crime,’ see?”

She responded that the President “wasn’t referring to crimes.”

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“That’s exactly the point he was making,” she continued, “but the president is saying, and that is that these crimes will be made up and reported as a crime to undermine the great work that the federal task force is doing to reduce crime in Washington, D.C.”

“I think the president has every reason to believe that, given the efforts of many reporters in this room, who actively seek to undermine the president and what he’s doing in our nation’s capital,” Leavitt claimed.

“We all know that deep inside, you all agree with this,” she added, apparently referring to federal troops occupying Washington, D.C. “because you all live here, and I’m sure you are very grateful for the administration’s efforts to make the city, which we all reside in, much safer for ourselves and our families.”

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Trump’s full remarks included this statement:

“Things that take place in the home, they call crime, you know, they’ll do anything they can to find something,” he said on Monday at a meeting of his Religious Liberty Commission. “If a man has a little fight with the wife, they say, ‘This was a crime,’ see?”

Calling Trump’s comment “alarming,” HuffPost on Tuesday reported that Trump was “suggesting that officials in the city were unfairly manipulating crime statistics to make him look bad.”

On Monday, former U.S. Attorney Joyce Vance, now a professor of law and MSNBC/NBC News legal analyst, responded to the President’s comment:

“Domestic abuse is a crime. Marital assault and marital rape are both criminal conduct and anyone who commits them should be prosecuted. Full stop.”

Watch the video below or at this link.

Leavitt claims Trump “wasn’t referring to crimes” in his bizarre comments about domestic violence yesterday 🤔 pic.twitter.com/rKwQiLk9ui

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 9, 2025

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Speaker of the House Mike Johnson is under fire after urging Democrats to “yield” to President Donald Trump’s plan to deploy federal troops to major U.S. cities — a move he says is needed to fight crime, but that critics are condemning as an occupation or even an invasion.

“We need to confirm that the American people that they do not need to fear for their lives when they drive to the grocery store, or they pick up their son or daughter from school,” the Republican Speaker said at a press conference on Tuesday (video below).

“This is common sense, and I cannot, for the life of me, understand how the Democrats think this is some sort of winning political message,” he added, referring to opposition to deploying federal troops into cities as Trump did to Washington, D.C.

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“Yield, man,” Johnson exclaimed. “Let the troops come into your city and show how crime can be reduced.”

He insisted seeing soldiers on U.S. streets is “a morale boost for the country,” “safe,” and “right for everybody involved.”

But legal experts and critics blasted Johnson.

“Is Speaker Johnson unfamiliar with why we mounted a revolution against Britain?” asked Joy Powers, a radio host and producer for Milwaukee, Wisconsin’s NPR affiliate WUWM.

“Shreveport, which Johnson represents, has a total crime rate 144% higher than national average and 62% higher than Louisiana average,” wrote journalist Julie Roginsky. “Its violent crime rate is 138% higher than the national rate and 44% above Louisiana’s. Why isn’t the military invading Johnson’s district?”

Attorney Aaron Reichlin-Melnick remarked: “Speaking entirely as a citizen of this country — this isn’t about politics! It’s about the fundamental nature of our country and our system of government. For 250 years we agreed that the military should NOT be deployed domestically to do the job of civilian law enforcement!”

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Journalist Andrew Ryvkin wrote: “I was ten when we came to this country. We settled in Boston. I learned that in the 1700s, my newfound hometown wasn’t one to ‘yield, man’ and let hostile troops come into the city. It won’t be one to do so today, either. And I hope other cities will follow suit.”

“Bananas,” commented attorney Mark Ramos. “The Republican ethos was, at its core, one of conservative, limited domestic gov’t, and now a Republican Speaker is cheerleading a ‘Republican’ president forcing U.S. military into states for domestic law-enforcement (and for show!). Reagan would be as aghast as we are.”

Former Obama senior advisor Dan Pfeiffer pointed to a CBS News/YouGov poll that shows a strong majority of Americans oppose having National Guard troops deployed to their “local area.”

See that social media post and the video below or at this link.

The brains of these Republican yahoos are so pickled by Fox News agitprop that they have no idea what the rest of the country actually thinks. https://t.co/vMlEiVbqCO pic.twitter.com/t7y3HDlNVf

— Dan Pfeiffer (@danpfeiffer) September 9, 2025

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