In the wake of Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), he’s been on a whirlwind media tour attempting to convince the public that he’s up for the job. But Kennedy’s empty resumé makes it clear that he is utterly unqualified to run HHS. He has no medical training or expertise, no legitimate background in health care or public health and he lacks any notable organizational leadership or managerial experience. Furthermore, he’s managed fewer people than the average Walmart customer service manager. As a man who “do[es] not believe that infectious disease is an enormous threat to human health” and holds blatantly racist and antisemitic views on public health, RFK Jr. has absolutely no place in the halls of power – let alone at the helm of the country’s largest civilian agency employing over 80,000 employees and regulating a sector accounting for nearly a fifth of the national economy.
Kennedy Is Inexperienced and Completely Unqualified To Lead The Nation’s Largest Civilian Agency. Kennedy is utterly unqualified for the role of HHS Secretary. He has no relevant experience for this position, has never worked in government, and has never directed a large organization of any kind – not to mention the fact that Kennedy has no medical expertise. He is not a doctor, he does not have a medical degree or even a substantial amount of medical-related coursework under his belt. His undergraduate degree focused on American history and literature, and his postgraduate studies were dedicated to legal studies. His legal work experience focused on environmental law, not public health law. Kenndy only began wading into public health when he began his conspiratorial anti-vaccine advocacy in the early 2000s.
Kennedy’s Only Organizational Leadership Experience Involved Fewer Than 10 Staff Members. Kennedy has no analogous leadership experience and is wholly unprepared to lead the nation’s largest civilian agency. He has less than a decade of experience in his only leadership role, which is leading the anti-vaccine advocacy group Children’s Health Defense. The group lists fewer than ten staff members – compared to more than 80,000 employees of HHS across a diverse array of sub-agencies and departments. HHS oversees health care for the 163 million Americans enrolled in ACA Marketplace plans, Basic Health plans, Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP – just under half of the U.S. population. The agency regulates the health care sector, which accounts for more than 17 percent of the U.S. economy. If Kennedy gets confirmed, American lives will be at risk.
Kennedy’s Top Priority? Pausing All Research On Drug Development And Gutting The FDA. At a June 2024 town hall meeting Kennedy said, “I’m going to go to NIH my first week and I’m going to call all the division heads and I’m going to call all the bureau chiefs and I’m going to say, we’re going to give drug development and infectious disease a break. A little break, a little bit of a break for about eight years.” Kennedy has made the National Institutes of Health (NIH), one of the world’s top medical research centers, a top target. These remarks echo what he told an anti-vaccine conference in November 2023, when he said, “I’m gonna say to NIH scientists, God bless you all. Thank you for [your] public service. We’re going to give infectious disease a break for about eight years.” Kennedy claims to have a list of 600 employees of the NIH that he plans to fire on day one. He wants to divert NIH funding away from drug research by devoting “half of research budgets” towards “alternative and holistic approaches to health.” Kennedy has also claimed that he will go after medical journals and redirect funding away from epidemiology, a practice that seeks to prevent and control the spread of disease.
Kennedy, Who “Do[es] Not Believe That Infectious Disease Is An Enormous Threat To Human Health,” Has Vowed To Defund The National Institutes of Health and Infectious Disease Research. At a 2023 roundtable, Kennedy said he does “not believe that infectious disease is an enormous threat to human health.” He claimed that “medical research on these diseases and vaccine research has created some of the worst plagues in our history” and baselessly asserted that vaccine research was responsible for the creation of HIV, the Spanish flu, Lyme, and RSV.
Just like the NIH, Kenndy has the FDA in his crosshairs. Kennedy has threatened to prosecute Dr. Anthony Fauci and claimed that he would eliminate “entire departments” and hundreds of employees at the FDA. During an event in October 2024, Kennedy also said he would fire every nutritional scientist at the FDA “on day 1,” claiming he would otherwise “ship them to a new HHS headquarters in Guam” if unable to fire them. He also wants to end fees for big pharmaceutical companies to send drugs to the FDA for approval – even though those fees pay for 75 percent of the agency’s budget. Before the 2024 election, Kennedy posted on social media, “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. 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.” Likewise, nominated HHS Deputy Secretary Jim O’Neill has been critical of the FDA, once reportedly calling for the agency to approve drugs based only on safety concerns and to later determine their efficacy.
Kennedy’s Silence on Medicare, Medicaid, and The ACA Demonstrates His Lack of Fitness To Oversee Health Care For Over 160 Million Americans. Despite being nominated to run HHS, Kennedy has failed to take any position on America’s largest health care institutions: Medicare, Medicaid, and the Affordable Care Act (ACA). HHS oversees health care for the 163 million Americans enrolled in ACA Marketplace plans, Basic Health plans, Medicare, Medicaid, and CHIP, or just under half of the U.S. population.
Kennedy’s Blatantly Racist and Antisemitic Views on Public Health Have No Place Leading HHS. Kennedy has a long history of racism and antisemitism. He has frequently met with and promoted antisemites ranging from disgraced musicians like rapper Ice Cube to fringe online broadcasters and virulent antisemites. At a July 2023 dinner, Kennedy proposed that the COVID-19 virus may have been ethnically targeted to spare Jewish and Chinese people: “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” After the speech went viral, neo-Nazis, holocaust deniers, and antisemites celebrated Kennedy’s conspiracy theory as “100% correct.” In November 2024, new reporting revealed that Kennedy embraced the possibility that the government manufactured the COVID-19 “plandemic,” declaring that the public health response was part of an “agenda that will enslave the entire human race.” Kennedy has also specifically targeted his anti-vaccine dogma at Black Americans. He pushed false claims about Black Americans supposedly being “particularly vulnerable to vaccine injuries including autism” during a 2017 measles outbreak devastating Minnesota’s Somali-American community. In a 2020 interview, Kennedy also asserted without evidence that “People with African blood react differently to vaccines than people with Caucasian blood. They’re much more sensitive.” During the COVID-19 pandemic, he also called the COVID-19 vaccine “a crime against humanity” and falsely claimed that it is the “deadliest vaccine ever made,” releasing a film promoting disproven claims about the dangers of vaccines and explicitly warning Black communities of “sinister” vaccination campaigns.
Brain Worms, Animal Carcasses, and Extramarital Affairs: Kennedy Is Unstable and Unfit to Hold Office. Kennedy has a long and well-documented history of erratic and bizarre behavior. In May 2024, Kennedy disclosed that in 2010 doctors found a dead parasitic worm in his brain, leading to brain fog and memory problems. In August 2024, Kennedy admitted to illegally nabbing roadkill, moving a bear cub’s carcass that was hit by a car in upstate New York to Central Park, and staging a bicycle accident. Federal law enforcement is also currently investigating RFK Jr. for cutting off the head of a dead whale and taking it home 20 years ago. Kennedy has a known history of extramarital affairs as well; this year alone, news broke of a sexting scandal with a reporter and four women came forward claiming to have been romantically involved with Kennedy.