NEW YORK — President-elect Donald Trump announced Thursday he will nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
“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 Thursday in a post on his Truth Social site announcing the appointment. Kennedy, he said, would “end the Chronic Disease epidemic” and “Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
Trump said Kennedy would target drugs, food additives and chemicals.
As one of the most prominent anti-vaccine activists in the world, Kennedy’s nomination immediately alarmed some public health officials.
Dr. Mandy Cohen, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, told The Associated Press, “I don’t want to go backwards and see children or adults suffer or lose their lives to remind us that vaccines work, and so I am concerned.”
Trump also announced Thursday that he has chosen Doug Collins, a former congressman from Georgia, to run the Department of Veterans Affairs. Collins is a chaplain in the U.S. Air Force Reserve Command.
The Republican served in Congress from 2013 to 2021, and he helped defend Trump during his first impeachment process.
Later on Thursday, Trump said he was nominating North Dakota Gov.
Doug Burgum to lead the Department of the Interior. After ending his own presidential campaign in December 2023, Burgum endorsed Trump and became an outspoken supporter, appearing on TV news shows and at rallies and other events.
Trump also announced Thursday that he will nominate Jay Clayton, who served as chairman of the U.S.
Securities and Exchange Commission during his first term, to serve as U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.
From Dem to team Trump
Kennedy hails from one of the nation’s most storied political families and is the son of the late Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy.
He first challenged President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination last year. He then ran as an independent but abandoned his bid this summer after striking a deal to endorse Trump in exchange for a promise to serve in a health policy role during a second Trump administration.
He and the president-elect have since become good friends. The two campaigned together extensively during the race’s final stretch, and Trump made clear he intended to give Kennedy a major public health role.
“I’m going to let him go wild on health,” Trump said at a rally last month.
During the campaign, Kennedy told NewsNation that Trump had asked him to “reorganize” agencies including the CDC, the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration.
Kennedy has pushed against processed foods and the use of herbicides like Roundup weed killer. He has long criticized the large commercial farms and animal feeding operations that dominate the industry.
But he is perhaps best known for his criticism of childhood vaccines.
Again and again, Kennedy has made his opposition to vaccines clear. In July, he said in a podcast interview that “there’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” and told FOX News that he still believes in the long-ago debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism.
In a 2021 podcast he urged people to “resist” CDC guidelines that advise when kids should receive routine vaccinations.
Repeated scientific studies in the U.S. and abroad have found no link between vaccines and autism. Vaccines have been proven safe and effective in laboratory testing and in real world use in hundreds of millions of people over decades. The World Health Organization credits childhood vaccines with preventing as many as 5 million deaths a year.
Process ahead
Kennedy’s stance on vaccines raises question about his ability to get confirmed, even in a GOP-controlled Senate.
The Department of Health and Human Services oversees everything from drug, vaccine and food safety to medical research, Medicare and Medicaid.
Incoming Senate Majority Leader John Thune would not comment on Trump’s pick of Kennedy or any other potential nominee. “I’m not going to make any judgments about any of these folks at this point,” he said.
But Republican Sen. Josh Hawley, R-MO, praised the pick, posting on X: “Bad day for Big Pharma! Robert- KennedyJr.”
Several Democrats quickly condemned the selection.
Washington Sen. Patty Murray, the No. 3 Democrat, said that Kennedy’s confirmation would be “nothing short of a disaster for the health of millions of families.”
But not every Democrat recoiled from the news. Colorado Gov.
Jared Polis said he was “excited” for Kennedy to lead HHS. Polis said he wants to see Kennedy take on “big pharma” and hopes he will “lean into personal choice” on vaccines.