U.S. president-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday that he’ll nominate anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, putting him in charge of a massive agency that oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research, and the social safety net programs Medicare and Medicaid.
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social site, announcing the appointment.
He said Kennedy would “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Kennedy, a 70-year-old former Democrat who ran as an Independent in this year’s presidential race, abandoned his bid after striking a deal to endorse Trump, with a promise to have a role in health policy in the administration.
He and Trump have since become good friends, with Kennedy frequently receiving loud applause at Trump’s rallies.
The expected appointment was first reported by Politico on Thursday. It adds to a flurry of announcements from Trump this week about his cabinet nominees and raises questions about whether some will be confirmed by the Senate.
A longtime vaccine skeptic, Kennedy is an attorney who has over several decades built a loyal following of people who admire his lawsuits against major pesticide and pharmaceutical companies. He has pushed for tighter regulations around ingredients in foods.
With the Trump campaign, he worked to shore up support among young mothers in particular, with his message of making food healthier in the U.S., promising to model regulations imposed in Europe. In a nod to Trump’s original campaign slogan, he named the effort “Make America Healthy Again.”
It remains unclear how that will square with Trump’s history of deregulation of big industries, including food. Trump pushed for fewer inspections of the meat industry, for example.
Questions about confirmation viability
Kennedy’s stance on vaccines has also made him a controversial figure among Democrats and some Republicans, raising questions about his ability to get confirmed, even in a Republican-controlled Senate. Kennedy has espoused misinformation around the safety of vaccines, including pushing a totally discredited theory that childhood vaccines cause autism.
Kennedy is a member of the famous political family that saw three brothers serve in the U.S. Senate: He’s the son of the late Robert “Bobby” Kennedy, a senator who also served as the attorney general in the administration of his brother, President John F. Kennedy.
John F. Kennedy, a former senator himself, was assassinated in November 1963. His brother Bobby was also assassinated in June 1968. Their surviving brother, Edward “Ted” Kennedy, was a longtime senator until his death in 2009.
The 78-year-old Trump will return to the White House in January, following his win at the polls on Nov. 5. The president-elect will be back in Washington after spending four years out of the Oval Office.
He’s the second person to win non-consecutive terms in the White House and the first to do so in more than a century.
Upon taking office for the second time, Trump will also become the first convicted felon to hold the White House.
