Newly elected President Donald Trump’s supporters are returning to outrage over the nomination of Robert Kennedy Jr. to Secretary of Health and Human Services, by hinting that he would one day serve in a role in the Obama administration.
Kennedy, a noted vaccine skeptic who has promoted conspiracy theories in recent years, announced Thursday that Trump has chosen to help “make America great and healthy again.”
Critics have called the 70-year-old former Democrat dangerous, an unqualified extremist and unfit for the role as the Senate prepares to confirm his confirmation in the new year.
But Trump allies have pointed out that this member of the prominent political family was once considered years ago to serve in another Cabinet position under President Obama.
According to the old report from PoliticoPresident-elect Obama’s team in 2008 considered Kennedy to be administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, where he would have been tasked with enforcing clean air and water laws.
According to the report, Obama advisers “said the nomination would please both Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Edward M. Kennedy.”
Kennedy practiced environmental law throughout the 1980s and 1990s, but in an almost ironic twist, he ultimately never received a nomination.
President-elect Donald Trump has announced that he will nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has chosen to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, setting off alarms from health experts
Ultimately, it wasn’t the concerns of environmental experts that led Kennedy to join the Obama administration, as health experts are now raising concerns about his HHS nomination.
Ultimately, Obama believed that his controversial statements and his previous arrest for heroin in the 1980s made his Senate confirmation unlikely, expecting Republicans to block it.
Now that the tables have turned, it is a Republican president with a majority in the Republican Senate who sees Kennedy in a very different role.
While it seems unlikely that Republican senators will be willing to go against Trump despite health experts’ concerns about Kennedy’s record, his nomination for some health position in the administration was expected.
President-elect Trump hugged Kennedy during their first joint appearance in August. Trump has said he would let Kennedy, a known vaccine skeptic who promotes conspiracy theories, ‘go wild’ on health
Then-presidential candidate Obama with Senator Ted Kennedy in 2008. A Politico report that has recently resurfaced says that after Obama was first elected, RFK Jr. was considering heading the EPA, which “would please both Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Edward M. Kennedy. .’ Ultimately, Kennedy never got the nomination
Kennedy dropped his independent bid for the presidency and endorsed Trump in August. He has since hit the campaign trail for Trump, who has said he will let Kennedy “go wild” on health issues.
But health experts are sounding the alarm about some of Kennedy’s controversial positions, as he would wield significant power as HHS secretary.
Kennedy, who has no medical background but has founded a prominent anti-vaccine group, stated in a podcast interview this summer that “there is no vaccine that is safe and effective.”
He also told Fox News last summer, “I do believe autism comes from vaccines,” despite the Institute of Medicine concluding in a 2004 report that there is no link between autism and vaccination.
In 2015, Kennedy also equated the use of vaccines to the Holocaust during remarks at a film screening.
During a 2021 hearing, he declared that the coronavirus vaccine was the “deadliest vaccine ever.” Health officials say the vaccine has saved millions of lives and accuse him of spreading health misinformation.
Last month, Kennedy declared in a tweet that “the FDA’s war on public health is about to end.”
‘This includes the aggressive suppression of psychedelics, peptides, stem cells, raw milk, hyperbaric therapies, chelating compounds, ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, vitamins, clean foods, sunshine, exercise, nutraceuticals and anything else that promotes human health and cannot be patented . by Pharma,” he didn’t put an X.
Both the FDA and CDC strongly advise against consuming raw milk due to the danger it may contain dangerous bacteria, including Salmonella, E. coli and Listeria.
Kennedy also falsely linked antidepressants to mass shootings earlier this year and has questioned whether AIDS is caused by HIV despite established science.
He has also tapped into claims also spread by conspiracy theorists that chemicals in water cause gender identity confusion in children.