At his rally Sunday at Madison Square Garden in New York City, former president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said that, if elected, he would allow welfare conspirator and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “to turn crazy about health.” Kennedy, a former Democrat and scion of the famous political family, initially ran as a third-party independent and potential spoiler candidate, and has spent the better part of two decades spreading conspiracy theories that would likely inform the policies of a Trump administration.
In August, Kennedy suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed Trump. (Both the Trump and Kennedy campaigns received support from billionaire donor Timothy Mellon). There were first indications that could have a place in a possible Trump administrationparticularly in some areas focused on health. Kennedy himself even created a derivative of Trump’s MAGA slogan with his own Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA. But Trump’s speech seems to indicate that Kennedy would indeed have a place in the cabinet, perhaps running Health and Human Services (HHS).
Since then, Kennedy has started the election campaign supporting Trump along with another former Democrat and conspiracy theorist, Tulsi Gabbard.
Kennedy has spent years spreading health misinformation and disinformation, particularly about vaccines. In 2014, Kennedy joined Children’s Health Defense (CHD) as a member of its board. CHD pushes debunked conspiracy theories linking conditions like autism to vaccines and other environmental factors. In 2021, Meta banned Kennedy’s Instagram account for spreading disinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine, and the Center to Combat Digital Hate (CCDH) named him as one of 12 people responsible for 65 percent of vaccine misinformation on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter. Thanks to the Covid-19 pandemic, Kennedy’s own profile, as well as that of CHD, began to rise. coronary heart disease raised more money in 2021 than ever before.
Meta reinstated Kennedy’s Instagram account last year when he announced his run for president, and it remains active, even though he is no longer running for office. CHD remains banned on Meta platforms. More recently, Kennedy has echoed baseless conspiracies that could undermine faith in the integrity of the 2024 election.
During his presidential campaign, Kennedy tried to distance itself from the anti-vaccine movement. Still, he continued to spread misinformation, such as falsely saying that the Biden administration had violated the Nuremberg Code by requiring vaccines. And his vision for making America healthy again is drastic. Last Friday, he aware on
The Department of Health and Human Services oversees 13 agencies, including the FDA and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). In an interview with NBC News While still running for president, Kennedy said he would destroy those agencies, which he said are now captured by corporations. It would also impose more testing on existing vaccines, which health experts told NBC would result in many children not being able to get vaccinated. (Trump, for his part, has reclaimed would withhold funding for schools that require vaccination). Kennedy’s plan would also include laying off NIH scientists who study infectious diseases, focusing instead on environmental factors and vaccines that he believes cause disease.
During his campaign, he held a health policy round table with doctors who promoted false Covid-19 treatments.
Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung told WIRED that “President Trump announced a Trump-Vance transition leadership group to begin the process of preparing for what comes after the election. But formal discussions about who will serve in a second Trump administration are (sic) premature.”