Shapiro fires back at RFK Jr., Trump on measles: ‘Incompetence’

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) fired back against at President Trump’s Friday Oval Office comments calling him a “bad governor” that’s “close to incompetent” following four measles-related deaths in the state.

“Incompetence is letting measles, a disease that was declared eliminated in 2000, reemerge,” Shapiro wrote on social media Friday . “Incompetence is spending your time promoting outright lies instead of urging people to get a vaccination that would protect them against this deadly disease. Incompetence is denying the tragedy of four measles-associated deaths in Pennsylvania.”

The president’s diss came immediately after Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, accused Shapiro of refusing to cooperate with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to address Pennsylvania’s measles outbreak.

“Incompetence is standing right behind you, Mr. President,” he concluded, referring to Kennedy — who stood alongside other Trump administration officials while speaking to press in the Oval Office.

The Keystone State’s measles outbreak has been the focal point of an ongoing bitter political dispute between Shapiro and Kennedy.

Shapiro criticized Kennedy’s open questioning of whether the deaths in Pennsylvania were directly caused by measles. The secretary, in response, accused the Pennsylvania governor of politicizing the outbreak.

“He doesn’t believe that measles is an issue,” Shapiro said Wednesday. “When I spoke to him over the phone, he wanted to lecture me about natural measles, and in many ways, making excuses. “

Pennsylvania officials on Tuesday reported two additional measles-related deaths, bringing the total for the year to four. This is a record-setting year for measles in the U.S., as the number of cases is at a 35-year high, and there are more related deaths than any year since 1992.

The deaths have pushed Pennsylvania’s health department to start the process of requesting emergency assistance from the CDC. For the agency to provide assistance, however, it would need to publicly recognize the deaths.

The CDC does not currently report any measles deaths. In a note on its website dashboard tracking the disease outbreak, the CDC says the National Center for Health Statistics “does not currently have any death records from 2026 that indicate measles is the underlying cause.”

Kennedy has only acknowledged that one of the four people who died with measles-associated conditions passed away as a result of the disease itself. After the Lancaster County confirmed measles as the cause of death for one of the outbreak’s victims, a six-week-old child, the secretary said he “waited for the evidence” before attributing any case to the illness.

Though Kennedy also added that the infant had Amish lethal microcephaly, a rare terminal condition with a typical prognosis of six months from birth.

“They won’t even acknowledge these deaths on their dashboard, something that should have been an administrative process, because it doesn’t fit their phony narrative,” Shapiro added Wednesday. “I think RFK is doing great destruction in this country by stoking this vaccine skepticism.”

The Democratic governor added that the state would not accept federal assistance until the CDC acknowledged the deaths.

Kennedy shot back , saying, “The performance was a replay of the Democrats’ COVID playbook: fearmongering, misinformation, finger-pointing, and the weaponization of infectious disease fears for political gain.”