Trump Picks RFK Jr. as Secretary of Health and Human Services

(Left) President-elect Donald Trump. (Right) Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Trump on Nov. 14 nominated Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be his Health and Human Services secretary. Saul Loebolivier Touron/AFP via Getty Images

President-elect Donald Trump on Nov. 14 said he is “thrilled to announce” Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), in a statement on social media.

“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 wrote on X as part of his announcement.

“HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country.”

The HHS, created in 1979, oversees 13 separate agencies. The most well-known are the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Kennedy thanked Trump for the appointment in a statement on X, saying, “We have a generational opportunity to bring together the greatest minds in science, medicine, industry, and government to put an end to the chronic disease epidemic.”

Kennedy said he looks forward to “working with more than 80,000 employees at HHS to free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture so they can pursue their mission to make Americans once again the healthiest people on Earth.”

“Together we will clean up corruption, stop the revolving door between industry and government, and return our health agencies to their rich tradition of gold-standard, evidence-based science. I will provide Americans with transparency and access to all the data so they can make informed choices for themselves and their families,” he added.

The president-elect later on Thursday flagged his expectations for Kennedy as HHS secretary.

“We want you to come up with things and ideas and what you’ve been talking about for a long time,” Trump said at a gala for the America First Policy Institute at the Mar-a-Lago in Florida.

“And I think you’re going to do some unbelievable thing—nobody’s going to be able to do it like you.”

On Oct. 25, Kennedy wrote on X: “FDA’s war on public health is about to end. This includes its 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 advances human health and can’t be patented by Pharma.

“If you work for the FDA and are part of this corrupt system, I have two messages for you: 1. Preserve your records, and 2. Pack your bags.”

The post requires Senate confirmation in a chamber that is projected to have a 53–47 Republican majority, come January 2025.

HHS is currently led by Secretary Xavier Becerra, formerly a member of the House of Representatives and California’s attorney general.

Before the official announcement, when rumors circulated that Kennedy would be named HHS secretary, investors began selling off pharmaceutical stocks. In late trading on Nov. 14, the stock price of Moderna (Nasdaq: MRNA) dropped by 6 percent, while Novavax (Nasdaq: NVAX) and BioNTech (Nasdaq: BNTX) each fell by 7 percent and Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) saw a 3 percent decline.

Kennedy’s selection drew praise from some Republican lawmakers.

In a post on X, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) said Kennedy is “a brilliant, courageous truth-teller whose unwavering commitment to transparency will make America a healthier nation.”

Johnson is known for his hearings on Capitol Hill that highlighted patients with vaccine injuries related to the COVID-19 vaccines.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) wrote, “Finally, someone to detox the place after the Fauci era,” in reference to former NIH director Dr. Anthony Fauci. Kennedy and Paul have both been outspoken critics of Fauci’s track record with vaccines and the public health response to COVID-19.

Meanwhile, some public health officials and congressional Democrats criticized the selection.

Dr. Peter Lurie, president of the public health watchdog group Center for Science in the Public Interest, said in a statement that Kennedy “is not remotely qualified for the role and should be nowhere near the science-based agencies that safeguard our nutrition, food safety, and health.”

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) posted on X that Kennedy is “Dangerous. Unqualified. Unserious.” Markey sits on the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.

Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.) called Kennedy a conspiracy theorist and suggested that “he will destroy our public health infrastructure and our vaccine distribution systems.”

“This is going to cost lives,” Garcia wrote.

Presidential Campaign

Kennedy, 70, launched his presidential campaign in April 2023 as a candidate in the Democratic primary. In October that year, he announced he would run as an independent, citing the Democratic National Committee’s attempt to “rig” the primary and not allow competition against President Joe Biden.

Fighting chronic disease, improving children’s health, and addressing corporate capture of government agencies were vital parts of Kennedy’s campaign platform.

When Kennedy suspended his presidential campaign and backed Trump in August, he told The Epoch Times that it was a “heart-wrenching decision” and a necessary step toward achieving his mission of saving Americans from the chronic disease epidemic.

“I prayed to God every day for the past 19 years that America’s health crisis would be solved for the next generation. That is a major reason why I ran for president,” Kennedy said.

“President Trump wants to leave as his legacy healthy children and a healthier country. Those are deep interests we share.”

On stage with Trump in August, Kennedy said, “If I’m given the chance to fix the chronic disease crisis and reform our food production, I promise that within two years, we will watch the chronic disease burden lift dramatically.”

During a rally at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Oct. 27, Trump proclaimed about Kennedy: “I’m going to let him go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on the medicines.”

In his victory speech in the early hours of Nov. 6, Trump said Kennedy is “going to help make America healthy again.”

“He’s a great guy, and he really means that he wants to do some things, and we’re going to let him go do it,” Trump said.

Reform Ideas

In recent days, Kennedy has said he will eliminate the nutrition departments of the FDA because they are not protecting children, and recommended to Trump that pharmaceutical advertising on television be banned.

He told The Epoch Times in September that he would revamp the NIH to focus on what’s causing autism, autoimmune diseases, and neurodevelopment diseases instead of developing drugs and serving as an incubator for pharmaceutical products.

A staunch advocate for regulating chemicals in food, Kennedy recently suggested that McDonald’s should use tallow fat instead of seed oils to make its French fries healthier. He has chastised American food manufacturers for using ingredients like artificial dyes.

Kennedy has also said that if given the chance, he will dismiss the officials who lead those agencies and appoint replacements who will “turn them back into healing and public health agencies.”

On Nov. 6, Kennedy said that the FDA should be trimmed.

“There are entire departments, like the nutrition department at the FDA ... that have to go—that are not doing their job. They’re not protecting our kids,” Kennedy told MSNBC.

Fighting “corporate capture of government agencies” and ending the chronic disease epidemic are related, Kennedy said on Sept. 30 at Rescue the Republic, a day-long rally that brought 6,500 supporters of the Make America Healthy Again movement to the National Mall in Washington.

“We enriched these corporations and their captive agencies. And now, they want to go and commoditize all of the things we value in our lives,” Kennedy said.

He believes little will change until corporations stop controlling the FDA, CDC, and the Department of Agriculture.

“Their function is no longer to improve and protect the health of Americans,” he told the rallygoers. “Their function is to advance the mercantile and commercial interests of the pharmaceutical industry that has transformed them and the food industry that has transformed them into sock puppets.”

Children’s Health Defense

Kennedy, who is the son of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, is the founder of Children’s Health Defense (CHD). The 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, according to its website, works to end childhood health epidemics by “eliminating toxic exposure.”

The CHD website highlights potential problems linked to vaccines administered to children under the recommendation of the CDC. The organization questions whether that vaccine regimen is linked to widespread children’s health problems.

“I can get the corruption out of the agencies. I’ve been doing it for 40 years [as an attorney]. I’ve sued all those agencies,” Kennedy told The Epoch Times in September.

“I have a PhD in corporate corruption.”

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to add more reactions.