RFK Jr.'s public health plans under Trump rattle critics

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could help reshape the country’s health care system if former President Trump wins the presidential election Tuesday, concerning skeptics who say his anti-vax posture is dangerous and may become mainstream.

Kennedy has been openly angling for a lead position in one of several public health agencies, hoping to make his “Make America Healthy Again” platform a reality, especially around immunizations. 

Kennedy allies and members of Trump’s close circle have started discussing a variety of places for the former independent candidate to have influence in a second Trump term, most recently around vaccine data, and are even floating workarounds to the confirmation process on Capitol Hill if he faces pushback.

“Bobby has laid it all out on the line and this won’t go unappreciated or unnoticed,” said one source familiar with the discussions about Kennedy’s political future. “Trump is serious about rewarding Bobby for his sacrifice, courage and leading his slice of the electorate back to MAGA.”

“Trump and some of his people are willing to exert political capital during a Senate confirmation battle if need be,” the pro-Kennedy source added.

Jason Miller, a senior adviser for Trump, told The Hill on Friday the former president has indeed indicated Kennedy will have a prominent place in Washington if he wins.  

“The only thing President Trump and his campaign team are focused on is winning on Nov. 5,” Miller said. “Everything after that is after that, and President Trump has made clear that Bobby Kennedy will play an important role.”

This week, co-chair of Trump’s transition team, Howard Lutnick, acknowledged in an interview with CNN that Kennedy would have a spot in a Trump administration that closely examines the safety of vaccines on the general population.

“He says, ‘If you give me the data, all I want is the data, and I’ll take on the data and show that it’s not safe,’” Lutnick said about Kennedy, who suggested certain shots would be taken off the market if he had more influence over the process. 

Lutnick, who said he talked to Kennedy for more than two hours, appeared to become more uncertain himself of the conventional orthodoxy around shots, posing a question back to interviewer Kaitlan Collins: “Why do you think vaccines are safe?”

It’s no secret that Kennedy’s endorsement of Trump, which came after he dropped out of the race, was a gamble, bet in part on a key position. Now, just days out from the election, Trump has been more open about wanting Kennedy in a role where he can put his health mindset to work.

Still, Trump has been evasive about a specific agency or position. During his controversial rally at Madison Square Garden, the former Republican president said he’s going to “let him go wild on the food,” referencing Kennedy, and “let him go wild on the medicines.” 

While Trump’s simplistic rhetoric left a lot of unanswered questions, his pledge was seen by allies as a nod to give Kennedy some influence over agencies like the Health and Human Services Department, Food and Drug Administration or Department of Agriculture. 

At an event in the swing state of Nevada, Trump fired off another broad goal for his former rival candidate, saying the 70-year-old may have even wider reach than just vaccines, including medical issues pertaining to women. 

“He’s going to work on health and women’s health,” Trump said.

Vice President Harris, who is essentially tied with Trump in all the key battlegrounds, retorted in a gaggle that Kennedy is “the exact last person in America who should be setting health care policy.”

The two septuagenarian men with vastly different approaches to personal health have been in contact, spitballing different ideas, since before Kennedy suspended his own bid for the White House.  

“I told Bobby, ‘I want you to take care of health, I want you to look at the food and the food supply and what we put on the food,” Trump said at the MSG rally.  

Some of Kennedy and Trump’s most visible supporters have joined together in the ending weeks of the campaign to message around a sharper health focus, forming a political action committee called MAHA PAC to fundraise and bring new attention to Kennedy’s vision for a more health conscious country.   

But many public health experts have expressed opposition and are growing increasingly alarmed at the prospect of Kennedy holding any kind of senior position with influence over the U.S. health system. 

Some have sought to draw attention to his more controversial claims around the science of vaccinations and an unverified link between children, autism and shots as well as his founding of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense. 

Jerome Adams, who served as U.S. surgeon general under the Trump administration, said there would be consequences if Kennedy's agenda hurt vaccine confidence and uptake.

“It will be hard for a potential Trump administration to focus on other priorities, or for Kennedy to make headway on overall American health, if government agencies are busy dealing with resource intensive and preventable measles and polio outbreaks,” Adams said in an email.

Another leading health expert, Georges Benjamin, who serves as executive director of the American Public Health Association, said people in the public listen to Kennedy, even if he has no credibility in the public health sector. Amplifying Kennedy’s voice could lead to distrust of scientific experts and undermine important messaging. 

“We’re going to have to spend an enormous amount of time correcting this bad information out to the public,” Benjamin said. “People won't know who to trust … not only can they undermine normal routine operations around things like vaccines, but what happens in emergency? You know, people won't know who to believe.”

Democrats, for their part, have tried to highlight Kennedy’s changing positions, including on abortion, which has become more in line with the right-wing view toward restricting access as the topic is likely to play a key role on Election Day.

They’re looking to group the conservative abortion posture with stricter vaccine access to show voters how potentially far-reaching his platform could be if Trump wins back the Oval Office. 

“RFK Jr.’s extremist anti-abortion and anti-vaccine ideas have no business guiding national health policy, but that’s what Donald Trump is promising if he wins,” said Britt Jacobich, a spokesperson for the progressive group MoveOn. 

Jacobich, like other Democratic operatives who have tried to minimize Kennedy’s standing throughout the cycle, said that giving him important responsibilities could have “deadly” effects on Americans’ lives. 

Kennedy became particularly critical about vaccines during the COVID-19 pandemic, when over 1.1 million people died, according to U.S. health records, and partisan fights broke out over things like mask requirements and vaccine mandates in the workplace and public. 

Democrats fear the higher Kennedy is positioned within Trump’s orbit, more controversy could follow, especially during unknown times of crisis.

 “Trump handing RFK Jr. the keys to important health care agencies would have deadly consequences for millions of Americans,” Jacobich said.

Nathaniel Weixel contributed.