

NOBODYāS COMPLETELY SURPRISED by this weekās news, right? No one ever thought that a Trump 2.0 cabinet would be a klatch of normies.
Still: Sheesh.
And Thursday afternoon brought the news that Trump wants Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the secretary of health and human services.
I admit that when I wrote about the likely rogueās gallery of a new Trump administration in September and devoted an entry to RFK Jr.āwho had told Tucker Carlson he would be ādeeply involvedā in choosing people to would run the health-related agenciesāI didnāt think he would get an actual cabinet post. I figured heād be named a āhealth czarāāalthough even without real powers, he might still do real damage.
Then, at the Madison Square Garden rally, Trump promised to let Kennedy āgo wildā on health. And it looks like heās keeping his word.
Letās recap why this is scary.
RFK Jr. has been a kook for many years. Before his MAGA incarnation, he was a left-wing loon who, among other things, wanted climate change skeptics tried for crimes against humanity. (He has refused to retract that position even as he has become a free-speech hero to the right.) One particular form of crazy heās been pushing for yearsāabout twenty yearsāis the debunked link between autism and childhood vaccination and its supposed coverup by the evil establishment.
RFK Jr.ās vaccine skepticism is deadlyāas in, it has literally already been linked to some deaths. In 2018 in Samoa, two infants died after receiving measles shotsādue to nursing error, it turned out. Misplaced outrage sparked a Samoan anti-vaccination movement. RFK Jr. visited Samoa in June 2019, meeting with the anti-vaxers there. Itās hardly surprising that by November 2019, the island nation saw a widespread measles outbreak, with thousands infected and more than eighty dead by the end of the year, mostly children. When the Samoan government instituted a mandatory vaccination effort to try to contain the outbreak, RFK Jr. and his anti-vax nonprofit, Childrenās Health Defense, sought to sabotage the vaccination effort.
Now imagine what a guy like this could do with real power.
The secretary of health and human services leads the huge government department that includes the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institutes of Health, and other health-related agencies.
RFK Jr. and his fans claim that he has been unfairly maligned by the media and that heās not anti-vaccine but rather just pro-āsafe vaccines.ā (Among those making this claim: tech tycoon-turned-MAGA crusader and conspiracy theorist Bill Ackman.) But thatās a ājust asking questionsā red herring. In a podcast last year where he purported to rebut the supposed slanders, RFK stated point blank that āthere is no vaccine that is both safe and effectiveā and claimed that the polio vaccine caused rampant deadly cancers.
And his medical loopiness extends a lot further. During his presidential campaign, RFK Jr. said that if elected, he would promptly direct the NIH to āgive drug development and infectious disease a break . . . for about eight yearsā and focus on chronic disease. He has questioned whether HIV causes AIDS. He has famously speculated that the coronavirus may have been designed to be āethnically targetedā against āCaucasians and black peopleā while sparing āAshkenazi Jews and Chinese.ā
The fact that RFK Jr. is right about a few things, such as the need to address childhood obesityāremember when the right practically called Michelle Obama a Nazi for her advocacy on this issue?ādoesnāt change how overall batshit he is. One might think that Senate Republicans would draw a line and join the Democrats in a resounding āNayāāespecially when so many of the nomineeās positions, like the rants against āBig Pharma,ā are classic far-left fare. His support for abortion rights is also causing dismay in some generally pro-Trump conservative quarters.
But, of course, this is the new Trumpified GOP where the president is king. Already, Senator-elect Jim Banks of Indiana is saying that āTrump won the popular vote,ā that āmandatory vaccines is a topic that a lot of American voters want us to tackle,ā and that RFK Jr. is āeminently more qualifiedā for the post than its current holder, Xavier Becerra. Will there be enough Senate Republicans with enough of a spine left to block the RFK Jr. nomination? Maybe. But donāt hold your breath.
Correction (November 15, 2024, 2:20 p.m. EST): An earlier version of this article misidentified the name of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.ās anti-vaccine nonprofit organization, Childrenās Health Defense.