In August, Trump said he would consider adding Kennedy to his administration’s second term if Kennedy ended his own run for president and endorsed Trump, which Kennedy did a few days later before joining Trump’s transition team.
Trump said during Sunday’s rally in New York that if he wins the election, he will let Kennedy “go wild on health … go wild on the medicines.”
In a video obtained by CNN, Kennedy told supporters he would prioritize his agenda for “making America healthy” under Trump.
“The key that I think I’m — you know, that President Trump has promised me is — is control of the public health agencies, which are HHS and its sub-agencies, CDC, FDA, NIH and a few others, and then also the USDA, which … 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,” CNN quoted Kennedy as saying in the video.
The Trump campaign would not confirm or deny Trump’s pledge, telling the New York Times that “formal discussions of who will serve in a second Trump Administration is premature.”
Kennedy has opposed vaccines for COVID-19, as well as other diseases that have killed countless children, such as measles, mumps and rubella, spreading misinformation that even played a role in a 2018 measles outbreak that killed 83 people in American Samoa.
“I can’t imagine anyone who would be more damaging to vaccines and the use of vaccines than RFK,” Dr. Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, told CNN.
On Twitter, Kennedy recently wrote that “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,” he continued. “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.”
NPR recently offered a comparison of healthcare policies from Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris, including Medicare drug price negotiations, the Affordable Care Act and abortion medication.