CLAIM: Pfizer was caught “funneling” $12 million to CNN host Anderson Cooper to promote COVID-19 vaccines.
AP’S ASSESSMENT: False. There is no evidence to support that claim, which is an outgrowth of comments made by anti-vaccine activist and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Kennedy’s campaign said his remarks were intended as a “rhetorical” comment about the pharmaceutical industry’s influence through advertising.
THE FACTS: As Kennedy mounts a longshot campaign for president, social media users are suggesting he revealed that Pfizer has directly paid Cooper millions of dollars to promote the company’s vaccines.
“BREAKING: Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. claims Pfizer funneled $12 million dollars to CNN anchor Anderson Cooper as part of a deal to promote mRNA COVID jabs to the American public,” one widely shared tweet reads.
An unreliable website with a history of spreading misinformation, meanwhile, published a headline reading: “Pfizer Caught Funnelling $12 Million to Anderson Cooper To Promote mRNA Jabs to Americans.”
But there is no factual support for that claim, which a CNN spokesperson called “completely false and fabricated.”
The allegation is an outgrowth of remarks that Kennedy has made in interviews, but his campaign now says were not intended to be taken literally.
Kennedy said during an October 2022 video interview with podcaster Brian Rose that “75% of advertising revenues now in the mainstream media are now coming from pharma and that ratio is even higher for the evening news.”
“Anderson Cooper has a $12 million a year annual salary,” he continued. “Well $10 million of that is coming from Pfizer. His boss is not CNN. His boss is Pfizer.”
Kennedy made similar comments in another 2022 interview with Dr. Drew Pinsky.
While social media users shared his remarks as literal — suggesting Pfizer actually provided Cooper with millions of dollars — Kennedy’s campaign said the Democrat’s words were “rhetorical.”
“This was a rhetorical comment, based on the huge proportion of television advertising revenue that comes from pharmaceutical companies,” the campaign said in a statement. “Since they contribute as much as 80% of TV ad revenue, close to $10 million of Mr. Anderson’s salary originates in Big Pharma. To use ‘Pfizer’ as a stand-in for ‘Big Pharma’ was a rhetorical flourish and not technically accurate.”
The campaign, when asked, did not provide a citation for the statistic on TV advertising revenue from the pharmaceutical industry, but instead noted that the industry spends billions on TV advertising — and argued that Pfizer advertising on CNN helps to fund Cooper’s salary.
CNN declined to comment on Cooper’s salary. The $12 million figure has been floated online without clear sourcing.
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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.
