Donald Trump nominates RFK Jr to lead health department
The president-elect announced:
I am thrilled to announce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). 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.
Kennedy has himself been one of the biggest disseminators of disinformation on the efficacy of vaccines and other health information. A 2019 study found that Kennedy’s organization was one of two groups funding the majority of Facebook ads spreading misinformation about vaccines.
Health and Human Services oversees crucial health-related agencies including the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“We have to deliver for the people, and we will,” the Republican House speaker, Mike Johnson, told Fox News last week. “President Trump wants to be aggressive. He wants to go big and we’re excited about that. We’re going to get to play offense.”
Trump’s selection of at least threeHouse Republicans to join his administration further complicates the math for Johnson. Trump had already tapped the New York representative Elise Stefanik to serve as ambassador to the United Nations and Mike Waltz, the Florida representative, to fill the role of national security adviser. On Wednesday, Trump announced he would also nominate Matt Gaetz, the Republican congressman of Florida, as his attorney general.
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Donald Trump’s decision to nominate the far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general has sent shockwaves through Washington, including the president-elect’s own party.
Trump on Wednesday announced Gaetz as his pick to be the nation’s chief law enforcement officer in the justice department, a role that directs the government’s legal positions on critical issues, including abortion, civil rights, and first amendment cases.
Republicans were puzzled over this nomination, expressing this move was not on their “bingo card”.
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Trump has nominated congressman Matt Gaetz to serve as attorney general, the country’s chief law officer.”,”caption”:”Donald Trump has nominated congressman Matt Gaetz to serve as attorney general, the country’s chief law officer.”,”credit”:”Photograph: Alex Brandon/AP”}},{“_type”:”model.dotcomrendering.pageElements.TextBlockElement”,”html”:”
“I don’t think it’s a serious nomination for the attorney general,” Republican senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, told NBC News. She added:
We need to have a serious attorney general. And I’m looking forward to the opportunity to consider somebody that is serious. This one was not on my bingo card.”
A rightwing firebrand, Gaetz was a thorn in the side of his fellow Republican and former House speaker Kevin McCarthy, eventually leading the successful charge to oust McCarthy from his role.
He was investigated by the justice department in a sex-trafficking case, though the department ultimately declined to bring charges. And was under investigation by the House ethics committee amid allegations of sexual misconduct, illicit drug use and other alleged ethical breaches.
Republicans have secured a majority in the US House of Representatives, extending their hold on the lower chamber and delivering a governing trifecta in Washington that could give Trump sweeping power to enact his legislative agenda.
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Trump also announced his nominee for director of national intelligence would be Tulsi Gabbard, who is a critic of Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and has questioned atrocities attributed to the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad. Gabbard has previously clashed with Marco Rubio, who Trump on Wednesday confirmed would be nominated as secretary of state. The new appointments followed Trump’s announcement of Peter Hegseth for defense in a move that stunned military officials, some of whom questioned whether Hegseth had the experience to manage a government department with a budget of more than $800bn.
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Republican senators chose South Dakota’s John Thune as their new leader, rejecting a challenge from Florida senator Rick Scott, who had the backing of key Maga figures Elon Musk and Tucker Carlson. Thune’s elevation comes after long-serving Mitch McConnell stood aside.
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Joe Biden met Trump at the White House, extending a courtesy to the president-elect that Biden was not offered in 2020 when Trump refused to acknowledge Biden’s election victory. Trump thanked Biden for welcoming him back to the Oval Office and said: “Politics is tough, and it’s [in] many cases not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today.”
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The president-elect met with House Republicans before going to the White House, and joked about seeking a third term, which would be constitutionally prohibited after his second term.
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Wednesday’s appointments leave a handful of roles to fill in Trump’s cabinet. Reuters reported billionaire banker and co-chair of Trump’s transition team Howard Lutnick had emerged as a serious contender against investor Scott Bessent for the role of Treasury secretary, the highest profile job without a name yet attached.
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The Democratic minority leader in the House, Hakeem Jeffries, said his colleagues had “over-performed the national political environment”, pre-empting the news that Republicans had retained the chamber. Elizabeth Warren argued Democrats should show they stand ready to “unrig this economy” as billionaires join the Trump administration. Warren was appearing at an event alongside fellow senator Bernie Sanders.
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Two Democratic state governors have launched an initiative aimed at “pushing back against increasing threats of autocracy and fortifying the institutions of democracy”. The Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, and the Colorado governor, Jared Polis, hope to form a non-partisan coalition with their new organisation, Governors Safeguarding Democracy.
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Dan Scavino, who on Tuesday suggested Australia’s ambassador to the US, Kevin Rudd, was running out of time, has been named as assistant to the president and deputy chief of staff. Scavino’s provocative post on X has continued to fuel Australian anxieties over its relationship with the incoming president, whom Rudd in 2021 described as “a village idiot” and “not a leading intellectual force”.
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Key events
Maanvi Singh
More now on Robert F Kennedy Junior, Trump’s nominee to oversee key US health agencies:
Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit anti-vaccine group he led until becoming a presidential candidate, flooded American Samoa with vaccine misinformation ahead of a devastating measles outbreak there in 2019.
The position to lead the US health department needs Senate approval. If approved, experts say vaccines will be “the first issue on the table”.
Dr Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said even if public policies remain unchanged, should authorities with the imprimatur of the federal government speak out against vaccines, “that discourages people who might otherwise be vaccinated, and at that point that’s as bad as not having a vaccine at all”.
The effects are not theoretical. As recently as last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention(CDC) released a report that found fewer than one in six healthcare workers had received updated Covid-19 vaccines in the 2023-24 respiratory virus season, and under half had received flu shots.
Childhood vaccinations have also dipped since the pandemic. Vaccination hesitancy and misinformation were both cited as major reasons by researchers.
“We forget what this country was like 50 years ago – how many children died every year from polio, pertussis [whooping cough], measles,” said Osterholm. “We’re going to see the return of diseases we have controlled for decades.”
RFK Jr has also recommended removing fluoride from drinking water, although fluoride levels are mandated by state and local governments.
Trump to nominate Dean John Sauer as solicitor general
Trump has announced another pick for his administration: Dean John Sauer as solicitor general. Sauer was Missouri solicitor general from 2017 to 2023. Sauer has also worked on Trump’s legal team before, arguing his presidential immunity case.
From the New York Times: “As Missouri’s solicitor general, Mr Sauer took part in a last-ditch effort to keep Mr. Trump in power after his defeat in the 2020 election, filing a motion on behalf of his state and five others in support of an attempt by Texas to have the supreme court toss out the results of the vote count in several key swing states.
“He also joined in an unsuccessful bid with Texas in asking the supreme court to stop the Biden administration from rescinding a Trump-era immigration program that forces certain asylum seekers arriving at the southern border to await approval in Mexico.”
In a statement, Trump said:
I am pleased to announce that Dean John Sauer will serve as Solicitor General of the United States in my Administration. John is a deeply accomplished, masterful appellate attorney, who clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia in the United States Supreme Court, served as Solicitor General of Missouri for six years, and has extensive experience practicing before the US Supreme Court and other Appellate Courts.
Most recently, John was the lead counsel representing me in the Supreme Court in Trump v. United States, winning a Historic Victory on Presidential Immunity, which was key to defeating the unConstitutional campaign of Lawfare against me and the entire MAGA Movement. John was a Rhodes Scholar, graduated from Duke University, Oxford University and is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Harvard Law School. John will be a great Champion for us as we Make America Great Again!
Trump nominates former Georgia congressman Doug Collins as Secretary for Veterans Affairs
Trump is announcing another flurry of names for his administration, including in a statement sent out minutes ago, former Georgia congressman Doug Collins as Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Collins ran for Senate in 2020, finishing third in the primary. He also, per the Hill, “provided counsel to Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election as Trump sought to challenge Georgia’s election results.”
Trump’s statement reads:
I am pleased to announce my intent to nominate former Congressman Doug Collins, of Georgia, as The United States Secretary for Veterans Affairs (VA). Doug is a Veteran himself, who currently serves our Nation as a Chaplain in the United States Air Force Reserve Command, and fought for our Country in the Iraq War. We must take care of our brave men and women in uniform, and Doug will be a great advocate for our Active Duty Servicemembers, Veterans, and Military Families to ensure they have the support they need. Thank you, Doug, for your willingness to serve our Country in this very important role!
Trump names his own attorney, Todd Blanche, as deputy attorney general
Donald Trump has named his own lead attorney, Todd Blanche, as deputy attorney general, the second most senior position in the Department of Justice. Trump has nominated far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general.
In a statement, the president-elect said:
I am pleased to announce that Todd Blanche will serve as Deputy Attorney General in my Administration. Todd is an excellent attorney who will be a crucial leader in the Justice Department, fixing what has been a broken System of Justice for far too long. Todd prosecuted gangs and other federal crimes as a Chief in the Southern District of New York United States Attorney’s Office, clerked for two Federal Judges, and graduated with Honors from law school, while working full time at the SDNY. Todd is going to do a great job as we, Make America Great Again.
Today so far
Donald Trump has continued to nominate loyalists with dubious qualifications to his upcoming administration. The most significant nomination of the day of of Robert F Kennedy, Jr to lead the Health and Human Services department.
If confirmed, Kennedy – who has gained notoriety for being one of the most persistent and successful purveyors of misinformation about vaccines – would be in charge of the department that oversees the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kennedy joined forces with Trump and promised to “Make American Healthy Again” after dropping his own presidential bid. Public health experts warn that his involvement in the US health and medical infrastructure could have devastating consequences.
Trump also named Jay Clayton, his former SEC chair, to serve as US attorney for the southern district of New York. The court often handles high-profile financial fraud cases.
Two prominent senators have called for the House ethics committee to share with them its investigation into Matt Gaetz, who Donald Trump nominated to serve as attorney general in his administration. Gaetz resigned his seat in Congress shortly after, likely stopping the release of the report into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use, but the Democratic senator Dick Durbin and his Republican counterpart John Cornyn said the document should be shared with them, if Gaetz’s nomination is to proceed.
Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as House speaker last year in a putsch backed by Gaetz, said the ex-congressman “won’t get confirmed” as attorney general.
Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton said that before either is confirmed, the FBI should investigate both Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump nominated as director of national intelligence. She is known for her tolerant view of Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, both US adversaries.
Nikki Haley said she was never interested in serving in Trump’s cabinet. She was UN ambassador during his first term, but Trump recently said he would not bring her back into his government.
The Onion is buying conspiracy theory hub InfoWars in a bankruptcy auction, after its creator Alex Jones was hit with a massive defamation judgment from families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims.
Maya Yang
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are asking Americans who are “high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” and willing to work over 80 hours a week to join their new Department of Government Efficiency – at zero pay.
In a new X post on Thursday that doubled as a job announcement and another one of Musk’s trolling attempts, the account for the newly formed Doge wrote: “We don’t need more part-time idea generators. We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.”
The name of the department, which is not part of the federal government, harkens back to a meme of an expressive shiba inu dog.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants,” the statement added.
In a separate post, Musk chimed in on the callout, saying: “Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lots of enemies & compensation is zero.”
“What a great deal!” Musk, the richest man in the world, wrote with a laughing emoji. He has promised to reduce federal bureaucracy by a third and cut $2tn from US government spending, an endeavor he said “necessarily involves some temporary hardship”.
Donald Trump also named Jay Clayton, his former SEC chair, to serve as US attorney for the southern district of New York.
The court often handles high-profile financial fraud cases.
“I am pleased to announce that Jay Clayton, of New York, the Chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission during my first term, where he did an incredible job, is hereby nominated to be the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York,” Trump announced on his social media platform Truth Social.
Kennedy had attempted to win the White House himself during the 2024 presidential election but his bid never took off in the polls. After ending his attempt, he eventually endorsed Trump, who promised to put him into an influential position when it comes to health policy.
Kennedy became one of Trump’s top surrogates, which came as a surprise to some observers as he is the scion of a famous Democratic dynasty and has had a long history of environmental activism often in causes which Trump will likely do great damage to.
However, Kennedy has also become well-known for his anti-vaccine beliefs and embrace of other conspiracy theories around health and wellness issues.
His campaign was marked by at times bizarre scandals that ranged from part of his brain had been eaten by a worm to admitting to staging a dead bear corpse in Central Park as the victim of a hit-and-run accident.
Kennedy’s nomination to Trump’s government is likely to boost already strong fears that he is keen on appointing extremists and loyalists to his administration rather than experts and technocrats. It follows on jobs for hard-right Stephen Miller on the issue of immigration, Fox News star Pete Hegseth at the Department of Defense and scandal-plagued Maga loyalist Matt Gaetz as attorney general.
Who is RFK Jr, Trump’s nominee to lead health and human services?
The man that Donald Trump has nominated to oversee key US health agencies rose to national prominence as one of the most persistent and influential vaccine deniers in the country.
Kennedy, 70, backed Trump after ending his own third-party bid for president. He is the son of the former attorney general and presidential candidate Robert Kennedy and the nephew of president John F Kennedy.
Trained as an environmental lawyer, RFK Jr gained notoriety for spreading conspiracy theories and questioning scientific research – often positioning himself as someone who is better qualified than scientists to understand diseases and epidemiology.
He had amplified unfounded claims that vaccines are linked to autism in children, repeatedly questioned whether HIV causes Aids (it does) and falsely linked certain antidepressants to a rise in school shootings and the use of a certain herbicide to a rise in young people coming out as transgender.
A 2019 study found that Kennedy’s organization was one of the top two funders of anti-vaccine ads on Facebook. In 2021, the Center for Countering Digital Hate named him as one of the top 12 spreaders of online misinformation about the Covid-19 vaccine.
Fran Lawther
Senator-elect Jim Banks was asked on CNN whether he was concerned by RFK JR’s appointment based on his history of false claims on vaccines.
Banks, who will represent Indiana, replied: “Donald Trump won the popular vote.”
He added: “Mandatory vaccines is a topic that a lot of American voters want us to tackle”.
Fran Lawther
Republican senator Bill Cassidy, the incoming chairman of the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee, has welcomed RFK Jr’s appointment.
Cassidy, who represents Louisiana, has previously criticized Trump on issues such as his anti-migrant rhetoric. But in comments reported by Punchbowl News, Cassidy said today: “RFK Jr has championed issues like healthy foods and the need for greater transparency in our public health infrastructure. I look forward to learning more about his other policy positions and how they will support a conservative, pro-American agenda.”
FactCheck.org put together a sweeping article summarizing some of RFK Jr’s most harmful lies last year.
Here the site looked at the real-life consequences of Kennedy’s misinformation in American Samoa, which experienced a devastating measles outbreak in 2019:
In 2018, two infants in American Samoa died when nurses accidentally prepared the combined measles, mumps and rubella, or MMR, vaccine with expired muscle relaxant rather than water. The Samoan government temporarily suspended the vaccination program, and anti-vaccine advocates — including Kennedy and his nonprofit — flooded the area with misinformation. The vaccination rate dropped to a dangerously low level. The next year, when a traveler brought measles to the islands, the disease tore through the population, sickening more than 5,700 people and killing 83, most of them young children.
Jessica Glenza
Currently, the CDC makes recommendations about which vaccines people should get and when, including for children.
The CDC works in tandem with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which approves vaccines.
Project 2025, the conservative playbook written in part by Trump’s former director of the office of civil rights at HHS, proposes limiting the CDC’s ability to make policy recommendations, such as producing vaccine schedules.
“Their notion was: ‘Let the parents and doctors decide’ – the notion being that the parents and doctors are just as informed as the people sitting around making those decisions,” said Dr Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center and a doctor at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
Jessica Glenza
If RFK Jr is approved to head the health department, “the first issue on the table is vaccines,” said Dr Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
Even without changing public policy, Osterholm said, if authorities with the imprimatur of the federal government speak out against vaccines, “that discourages people who might otherwise be vaccinated, and at that point that’s as bad as not having a vaccine at all”.
The effects are not theoretical. As recently as last week, the CDC released a report that found fewer than one in six healthcare workers had received updated Covid-19 vaccines in the 2023-24 respiratory virus season, and fewer than half had received flu shots.
Childhood vaccinations have also dipped since the pandemic. In the US, for children born in 2020-21, the rates of children younger than two who had received all their vaccinations fell as the percentage who had received none grew. The largest declines were for children who received both flu shots (-7.8%). Vaccination hesitancy and misinformation both were cited as major reasons by researchers.
“We forget what this country was like 50 years ago – how many children died every year from polio, pertussis, measles,” said Osterholm. “We’re going to see the return of diseases we have controlled for decades and with that many additional severe illnesses in hospitals and deaths – and that’s just from the rhetoric, not even withdrawing vaccines.”
Donald Trump nominates RFK Jr to lead health department
The president-elect announced:
I am thrilled to announce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). 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.
Kennedy has himself been one of the biggest disseminators of disinformation on the efficacy of vaccines and other health information. A 2019 study found that Kennedy’s organization was one of two groups funding the majority of Facebook ads spreading misinformation about vaccines.
Health and Human Services oversees crucial health-related agencies including the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Centrist Democratic coalition urges ‘laser focus’ on economy
Lauren Gambino
Congresswoman Annie Kuster, chair of the centrist New Dems coalition, said a “common sense” message “laser focused” on voters’ concerns about the economy, public safety and border security helped fellow Democrats defy an anti-incumbent backlash that locked their party out of power in Washington.
“The New Dem message and approach to politics works in red, blue, purple, urban, suburban, coastal and rural districts alike,” Kuster said. “And as a result, we have effectively denied House Republicans a realistic governing majority.”
Kuster said New Dem-backed candidates flipped six seats – “the only ideological caucus to do so,” she noted, in a subtle jab at the progressive caucus – and defended 20 members in competitive re-election races.
Among them was Congressman Josh Harder, a California Democrat who held onto his seat in a district Donald Trump won,
“I significantly over-performed the top-of-ticket by focusing on the cost of living, on public safety and the values that really bring New Dems together,” he told reporters on Thursday.
As the party begins a period of post-election soul-searching, Harder said New Dems success offers a path out of the political wilderness.
“Hopefully over the next two years, you will see the New Dems as a larger driver of that national Democratic brand, especially in these competitive battleground seats,” he said. “So hopefully the baton is passed.”
