Among all of President-elect Donald Trump’s most controversial Cabinet nominees, it’s remarkable that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has so far coasted through Capitol Hill on his way to his confirmation hearing.
Kennedy, whom Trump has nominated to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, has a reputational rap sheet that would make Matt Gaetz blush: his bizarre obsessions with animals (dead and alive), his claim to have been infected with brain worms, an allegation of sexual assault from a former babysitter, his promotion of conspiracy theories about the assassinations of his father and his uncle, and his diary of dozens of sexual conquests discovered by his second wife (who shortly afterward committed suicide). That’s all on top of the various positions that Kennedy—a heretofore lifetime Democrat and member of the famous first family of liberalism—has held at odds with the Republican senators whose votes he’ll need.
While some in the GOP are seeking to get reassurances that Kennedy will not upset policy goals of the pro-life community or the agricultural industry, there seemed to be little concern from Republican senators on Capitol Hill this week over his menu of junk-science remedies to “Make America Healthy Again.” Kennedy offers something for nearly everyone who has some level of skepticism about America’s institutions in the health, nutrition, and medical spheres: Going after the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, ridding the water supply of fluoride, questioning the safety of vaccines and the pandemic-era restrictions, targeting processed foods like pasteurized milk and “seed oils.”
And there is some evidence that a large number of Americans are receptive to some part of what Kennedy is selling.
Michael Warren is a senior editor at The Dispatch and is based in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining the company in 2023, he was an on-air reporter at CNN and a senior writer at the Weekly Standard. When Mike is not reporting, writing, editing, and podcasting, he is probably spending time with his wife and three sons.
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