President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday that he will nominate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of the Health and Human Services Department.
If the Senate approves Kennedy, the former independent presidential candidate will lead a sprawling department responsible for the huge Medicare and Medicaid health coverage programs, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
HHS’s decisions on spending and policies have major effects on the U.S. health-care system and related businesses.
Kennedy, 70, is the son of Robert F. Kennedy, the late U.S. attorney general and Democratic senator from New York who was assassinated in 1968 by a gunman in Los Angeles as he ran for president. He is the nephew of former President John Kennedy who was assassinated in 1963.
Trump said in October that if elected he would let Kennedy “go wild on health.”
“I am thrilled to announce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services,” Trump wrote in a post on his Truth Social site Thursday.
“For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health,” Trump wrote.
“The Safety and Health of all Americans is the most important role of any Administration, and HHS will play a big role in helping ensure that everybody will be protected from harmful chemicals, pollutants, pesticides, pharmaceutical products, and food additives that have contributed to the overwhelming Health Crisis in this Country.”
Kennedy, in a post on X, thanked Trump and wrote, “I’m committed to advancing your vision to Make America Health Again.”
“We have a generational opportunity to bring together the greatest minds in science, medicine, industry, and government to put an end to the chronic disease epidemic,” Kennedy wrote. “I look forward to working with the more than 80,000 employees at HHS to free the agencies from the smothering cloud of corporate capture so they can pursue their mission to make Americans once again the healthiest people on Earth.”
Kennedy told NBC News in a recent interview that Trump has said he wants Kennedy to “clean up corruption” at federal health agencies, return those agencies to science-based policies and “make America healthy again.” Kennedy said that “there are entire departments, like the nutrition department at the FDA, that have to go.
Kennedy last week reportedly suggested he would fire 600 NIH workers and replace them.
His “Make America Healthy” website has been seeking suggestions from the public for more than 4,000 appointee posts across the federal government to be filled by Trump.
