The Trump campaign denied that former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. would be in charge of the Department of Human Health Services or the Department of Agriculture.
Howard Lutnick, Trump transition co-chairman, made the announcement during a Wednesday interview on CNN’s The Source despite both Trump and Kennedy making statements about the job appointments this week.
During the interview, Lutnick, who is in charge of helping staff the government if former President Donald Trump is reelected, said he spoke with Kennedy for over two hours about his plans to revise vaccination policies by acquiring data on them. Lutnick eagerly detailed Kennedy’s thought process, agreeing with his unfounded beliefs about vaccinations.
When asked if Kennedy would be given control of the HHS, Lutnick answered, “No, of course not. He’s not going to be the secretary, no. That’s not what he wants to do. He wants to help get data so he can prove things.”
“He says, ‘If I can’t prove them wrong, that’s fine, but if I can, I can save millions of American lives and make their lives better,’ and I think that’s pretty cool,” Lutnick added.
Kennedy’s unproven opinions on vaccinations are polarizing, but that hasn’t been a problem for Trump, who has held similar beliefs for years. More than two years before he won the presidency, Trump posted about “many such cases” where children get autism from vaccinations, a belief that has never been proven correct.
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The former president and Kennedy have discussed vaccination policies since Trump’s presidency in 2016. In 2017, Trump reportedly asked Kennedy to chair a commission under his administration to focus on vaccine safety and scientific integrity.
It’s not surprising Trump would reach out to Kennedy to oversee vaccinations once more, as the former independent presidential candidate dropped out of the race to endorse the GOP leader in August.
