Failed independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed that Donald Trump has promised him “control of the public health agencies” if the latter is elected, a move that would put a prominent anti-vaccine figure in the position of top health official in the United States.
At a virtual event Monday, Kennedy told his supporters that Trump has vowed to give him control of both the U.S. Agriculture Department and the Department of Health and Human Services and the agencies under its purview, which include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.
That, Kennedy said, “is key to making America healthy because we’ve got to get off of seed oils, and we’ve got to get off of pesticide-intensive agriculture.”
It’s unclear what Kennedy means by “control” over HHS and the USDA, which fall under separate Cabinet positions, both of which require Senate confirmation. Trump’s campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told MSNBC on Wednesday that discussions about who will serve in a second Trump administration are “premature.” Karoline Leavitt, the campaign’s national press secretary, said Trump, if elected, will work with “passionate voices like RFK Jr. to Make America Healthy Again,” adding that Trump would establish a commission to investigate the causes of chronic illnesses.
For months now, Trump has teased a role for Kennedy in his prospective Cabinet. At his rally in Madison Square Garden on Sunday, Trump said he would let Kennedy “go wild” on health policy, a comment that has alarmed public health officials, including Trump’s own former surgeon general.
That one of the most high-profile medical conspiracy theorists in the country may be elevated to one of the most powerful public health positions in government is unnerving. Kennedy is known for peddling junk science to demonize vaccines and has claimed without evidence that public health agencies are rife with corruption. He has said that “Wi-Fi radiation” could be causing autism, food allergies and chronic illnesses. He has blamed mass shootings on anti-depressants, questioned whether HIV causes AIDS, and said that chemicals in the water supply have led more minors to identify as transgender. Kennedy has also claimed that Covid is “ethnically targeted” in a way that gives Jewish and Chinese people greater immunity to the disease.
When he was running for president as a Democrat last year, Kennedy told NBC News that he wanted to gut public health agencies and stack them with like-minded people. He has said that the NIH should stop studying infectious diseases like measles and focus instead on chronic diseases like diabetes.