WASHINGTON: U.S. President elect Donald Trump on Thursday tapped anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his secretary of health in the latest nomination from the incoming Republican admnistation.
Trump during his campaign had given an indication that RFK J could be his choice for health department saying “Kennedy to go wild in changing health care.”
“We want you to come up with things and ideas and what you’ve been talking about for a long time and I think you’re going to do some unbelievable things,” Trump told Kennedy Jr. during an event at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday evening reports AFP.
Moving quickly since his election last week, Trump has embarked on a campaign of political shock and awe as he rolls out the administration.
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Several of Trump’s choices for top jobs — including a TV news anchor at the helm of the Pentagon and an ally embroiled in sexual misconduct allegations for attorney general.
Trump also announced Thursday his personal attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove.
Kennedy, a scion of the famous political family who is popularly known as RFK Jr., is a longtime environmental campaigner who abandoned a fringe bid for the presidency to endorse Trump against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
Vaccine scepticism
If approved by the Senate, which Trump’s Republican Party controls, 70-year-old Kennedy will take over the Health and Human Services Department, an institution with a budget of close to $2 trillion.
Trump and RFK Jr campaigned together promising to “Make America Healthy Again”.
In a statement explaining his choice, Trump echoed many of Kennedy’s talking points, saying “Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation.”
The nomination could meet opposition, given Kennedy’s history of a disproven claim that childhood vaccines cause autism — and saying that the Covid-19 vaccine was deadly.
