Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been in the news a lot recently, mostly for his crackpot views on everything from vaccines and chemtrails to racial bioweapons and the origins of AIDS. Outside of the political fringe Kennedy has few, if any, defenders. One of them, disgraced former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, devoted a 20-minute Twitter vlog to attacking his critics.

In the sixth installment of his Tucker on Twitter show, titled “Bobby Kennedy is winning,” Carlson excoriated the media for its negative treatment of Kennedy, and Dr. Peter Hotez for refusing to debate him on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

Tucker claimed that there has “never been a candidate for president the media hated more than Robert F. Kennedy Jr.,” and that coverage of Donald Trump was a “gentle scalp massage by comparison” when he announced his run in 2015. Carlson read off negative headlines about Kennedy, mostly focused on his anti-vaccine views.

“That’s been the tone of the media coverage around Bobby Kennedy Jr. for the past 18 years, since July of 2005. That’s the moment Kennedy published a magazine article suggesting there might be a link between the rise in diagnosed autism cases and the ever-expanding schedule of mandatory childhood vaccines,” Carlson said, referring to an article Kennedy penned called “Deadly Immunity” which was published in Rolling Stone and Salon.

Carlson claimed that the piece had been retracted after the “pharma lobby rolled out the most ferocious public relations campaign in memory.”

What Carlson left out, of course, was that the “Deadly Immunity” article was not retracted until 2011 — six years after it was published. Moreover, its retraction came a year after the Lancet study it relied on — the one which purported to show a link between the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism — was fully retracted.

A piece for Salon explaining the retraction noted that the piece underwent five corrections that “went far in undermining Kennedy’s exposé” before the article was pulled entirely.

Carlson ignored this factual background, and instead stated that, “No one in the national media bothered to explain why autism diagnoses had skyrocketed. If it wasn’t the vaccines, and maybe it wasn’t, then what was it? To this day there has not been a convincing explanation. Instead reporters just attack Bobby Kennedy.”

There may be a variety of factors at play when it comes to the rise in autism diagnoses, including environmental factors, better screening processes, and greater awareness of autism.

Carlson also lashed out at Dr. Peter Hotez for refusing a debate with Kennedy that would have been moderated by conspiracy-peddling entertainer Joe Rogan. “Hotez will never debate Bobby Kennedy Jr. but it doesn’t matter,” Carlson said. “Kennedy’s already won. He’s more honest than Dr. Peter Hotez and that’s obvious to anyone who’s paying attention.”

Carlson cited polling data favorable to Kennedy’s campaign, and said that “after almost 20 years of being silenced, Bobby Kennedy Jr. is being heard.” He also falsely stated that no one has proven “either way” if Kennedy’s “theories” on vaccines are wrong. (Again, the study suggesting a link between vaccines and autism was fully retracted over a decade ago.)

Carlson then attacked “America’s medical establishment” for having “beclowned itself.” “Its official positions on vaccines, psychiatric drugs, puberty blockers, reassignment surgeries — a long list of other politically fashionable priorities — have no connection whatsoever to legitimate science,” Carlson declared. “It’s all effectively witchcraft.”