RFK Jr, known for his anti-vax views, says Trump promised him control of the CDC
Robert F Kennedy Jr claims Donald Trump has promised him “control” over multiple health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kennedy Jr told followers in a livestream on Monday that Trump would put him in charge of the Departments of Health and Agriculture if he wins a second term, adding that he would make his Make America Healthy Again agenda a priority.
In August, the 70 year-old suspended his independent campaign for president and backed the Republican billionaire. He previously made a run in the Democratic primary before switching to an independent bid.
“President Trump has promised me ... 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,” Kennedy Jr said. “Because we’ve got to get off of seed oils, and we’ve got to get off of pesticide-intensive agriculture.”
During his rally in Madison Square Garden on Sunday, Trump said he would allow Kennedy Jr to “go wild” on several issues connected to health, food, and medicine.
“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,” Trump said.
“The only thing I don’t think I’m going to let him even get near is the liquid gold that we have under our feet,” he added about oil.
After Kennedy Jr endorsed Trump in August, the former president said he would put Kennedy on a panel to look into the rise in chronic diseases.
Kennedy Jr is part of Trump’s transition team and has acted as a surrogate for the Republican nominee.
He has also been one of the top purveyors of anti-vaccine conspiracy theories, made false claims about the safety and efficacy of vaccines, and slammed US public health and agriculture policy during his campaign for the White House.
Last year, Kennedy Jr pushed a baseless conspiracy theory that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” against white and Black people, adding that the “people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
He subsequently added that he didn’t mean to suggest that the virus had been “deliberately engineered.”
At a rally against Covid-19 mandates in January 2022, Kennedy Jr compared US vaccine policies to the actions of an authoritarian state, suggesting that Anne Frank was in a better situation while hiding from the Nazis.
“Even in Hitler Germany (sic), you could, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland. You could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did,” Kennedy Jr said at the Lincoln Memorial at the time, according to CNN.
“I visited, in 1962, East Germany with my father and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped, so it was possible. Many died, true, but it was possible,” he added.
What Kennedy Jr failed to mention was that six million Jews, including Frank, were killed by the Nazis during the Holocaust. Frank, a teenager, hid in an attic in the Netherlands, not in Germany, before being apprehended and sent to a concentration camp, where she later died.