Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is now on a shortlist proposed by some Trump allies to serve as the next head of the Department of Health and Human Services, multiple people close to the president-elect’s campaign say.
Hopes among Kennedy’s supporters that he could be nominated to lead the department have grown in recent days after Republicans strengthened their position. majority in the Senate.
Kennedy’s chances of clearing a Democratic-led Senate would have been low, given his long record of what the party called “anti-science, fringe public health positions” that challenged Trump’s opponents and a wide range of outraged health experts during the campaign.
That includes a comment that “there is no vaccine that is safe and effective” and his chairmanship of the group Children’s Health Defense, which has argued that “the parallel between rising disease rates and the increasing number of vaccines for children is difficult to ignore.” Doctors say such statements are misleading about the safety of vaccinations and threaten to undermine hard-won improvements in the US. vaccination rate against preventable diseases.
Kennedy himself was non-committal when asked publicly about the possibility that he could be chosen to lead HHS’ expansive umbrella of agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services and the Food and Drug Administration.
Before the election, Kennedy told Fox News that he was “confident that if I wanted to be HHS secretary, the president would fight like hell to make that happen,” but he also said he wasn’t sure if that would be ‘the most effective’. role for him.
In a CNN interview last month, Trump transition co-chair Howard Lutnick was asked whether Kennedy would be put in charge of HHS.
“Of course not,” he replied.
But two people close to the campaign say the election results played a big role in changing thinking about whether Kennedy could weather a steep and often painful Senate confirmation process that can leave nominees at a standstill.
Kennedy’s supporters argue that the election provides a mandate not only for Trump’s platform in general, but also for Kennedy and his “Make America Healthy Again” proposals to combat chronic diseases, citing the votes Kennedy may have in the advantage of Trump.
As an example: podcast host Joe Rogan initially voting support for Kennedy and his ideas before later supporting Trump.
“We haven’t decided exactly what that strategy will be, but that is a possibility,” Kennedy told NPR in an interview after the election when asked whether he would be appointed to a Senate-confirmed position.
As for whether Kennedy is now seriously competing for the role of HHS secretary, Karoline Leavitt, spokeswoman for the Trump-Vance transition, said in a statement that Americans re-elected Trump “by resounding margins because they trust his judgment and his support policies, including his promise. to make America whole again, together with respected leaders like RFK Jr.”
Other potential choices for HHS secretaries
However, Kennedy is not the only name put forward by Republicans for the top job at HHS.
Florida Governor Ron DeSantis introduced his top health official, state surgeon general, on Wednesday Dr. Joseph Ladapocould be a candidate. Below Ladapohas the state health department some warned against getting booster shots for COVID-19, citing claims that federal health authorities and outside experts criticized unproven or misleading.
Other names floated by Trump allies in Washington include former Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal and former Deputy HHS Secretary Eric Hargan, who supporters believe can be effective because he knows how to navigate the bureaucracy of the department must navigate.
But people close to the campaign say few Trump surrogates and supporters have spent as much time with the president-elect as Kennedy or plotted as ambitious an agenda.
The two spent hours flying together in the latter part of the campaign. Kennedy was also in Florida after the election, working with the president-elect’s highest ranks to weigh potential candidates to fill the government.
“He’s going to help make America healthy again. And he’s a great guy and he really means it. He wants to do some things, and we’re going to let him go there,” Trump said Wednesday morning after the election.
Trump has previously said he has been friends with Kennedy for a “long time” and that he would “let him go” on many of his policy priorities, except cutting fossil fuels.
“I’m going to let him go off on the health. I’m going to let him off on the food. I’m going to let him off on the meds. The only thing I don’t think I’m going to let him even get close to is the liquid gold that we have under our feet,” Trump said on October 27 in New York.
Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” platform
Kennedy’s nomination would come at a pivotal time for many of the issues he campaigned on that he says underlie “the chronic disease crisis.”
Kennedy has accused the FDA of “aggressively suppressing” a range of products, including psychedelics. MDMA failed to gain agency approval earlier this year – and raw milkavailable to civil servants discouraged amid the ongoing bird flu outbreak on dairy farms.
Other proposals include limiting pharmaceutical advertising and rewriting the laws that currently rely on paying fees to drug manufacturers to fund most FDA approvals. Ahead of the election, he warned FDA officials who are “part of this corrupt system” to “pack your bags.”
In the days leading up to the election, Kennedy said Trump had asked him to root out “the corruption and conflicts of interest” at agencies that oversee drugs and vaccines, pledging to “restore transparency” and stop “the cover-up of science’.
“He doesn’t want me to take vaccines away from people. If you want to take a vaccine, you should be able to take it. We believe in free choice in this country,” Kennedy said comments posted on November 2.
His call to stop water fluoridation comes as the Environmental Protection Agency now faces one court order to take action against the practice.
This statement was prompted in part by a study published by the NIH earlier this year that examined the risk that it could lower children’s IQ, and comes at a time when critics have called on the CDC to reconsider its statement in support of review fluoridation. The NIH study found that concentrations of fluoride in drinking water higher than recommended levels were associated with lower IQ in children, but more studies were needed on the effect of lower concentrations of fluoride.
But if he were to become secretary of HHS, some of Kennedy’s goals would fall outside his jurisdiction, such as the US Department of Agriculture. Other responsibilities under the broad HHS umbrella could consume much of Kennedy’s time, some allies worry, and distract from his priorities.
“Bobby is very action-oriented, brilliant, an excellent communicator, has great insight into detail and is a transformational leader. He is not, and neither are his skills, a bureaucrat-administrator,” said Dr. Robert Malone, the longtime Kennedy ally who was with him and Trump on election night.
Malone said he had spoken in recent weeks with many of the aides from some of the “at least four different HHS transition teams” under Trump, but not personally with Kennedy, about the future of the department.
He said he thought Kennedy would likely do better in a role in the White House, where he would serve as czar and could focus on specific issues in different departments.
“Make no mistake, what is being discussed is a major rethink of the entire federal health research and promotion and protection infrastructure. That includes very important reforms and changes in business practices,” said Malone.
