RFK's opposition to the COVID-19 "vaccine" has made him a controversial figure for many in the party of his legendary family, but Trump hopes Kennedy will get through the Senate and become the secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services. He made the announcement last week.
“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,” the president-elect wrote.
“Mr. Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic,” Trump added.
Among the agencies and programs governed by Health and Human Services are the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Medicare, Medicaid and more.
Kennedy and abortion
Kennedy has been somewhat of a moving target on the issue of life, though he’s consistently sided with some level of abortion. In May, Kennedy told podcaster and former ESPN personality Sage Steele that he favored “full-term” abortion rights.
A week later he backtracked in a social media post saying that “abortion should be unrestricted” but only “until the baby is viable outside the womb.”
He’s taken life positions that have irked both sides.
“I think where he is on abortion is open for questioning. As a person who is pro-life, I don’t want there to be any question,” Meg Kilgannon, the Family Research Council’s senior fellow for education studies, said on Washington Watch Friday.
But a wavering HHS secretary, she argues, at least provides some measure of hope on the abortion question.
“As a pro-Life conservative I would prefer a pro-life person in this position, but I think there is a lot of common ground with this pick that we obviously need to pray about and hope for really, really good results should he make it through the confirmation process,” Kilgannon told show host Jody Hice.
A life-long position
If Kennedy was confusing on the abortion issue during the campaign, that has been far from the case for most of his political career, David Closson, FRC’s director for its Center for Biblical Worldview, told Hice.
According to Closson, Kennedy has been pro-abortion “for decades.” The FRC spokesman called on pro-life senators in confirmation hearings to probe and get Kennedy’s abortion views stated clearly for the record.
Closson said Trump, in spite of changes to the GOP platform that weakened the party’s stance on life, ran a “pretty pro-life campaign.”
“I do hope that senators will do their constitutional duty and get RFK on the record saying that he’s doing this to serve the president,” Closson said.
Closson praised other Trump picks such as Marco Rubio for Secretary of State, Mike Huckabee for Ambassador to Israel and Mike Waltz for National Security Advisor.
Voters delivered Trump a clear mandate, but Christians have a responsibility to show why that mandate was delivered, Closson said.
Christians, he explained, have the chance to say to Trump that he is “in power in part because tens of millions of Christians – even though they were told they weren't being faithful, even though they were told that this wasn't loving their neighbor – voted for the incoming administration. [So] there’s a deference the administration should show to the millions of Christians who supported them in the campaign.”
Kennedy has been straight-forward in his intention to reshape agencies within HHS, Fox News has reported.
"In some categories, their entire departments, like the nutrition department in the FDA, they have to go. They’re not doing their job. They’re not protecting our kids. Why do we have Froot Loops in this country that have 18 or 19 ingredients, and you go to Canada and it’s got two or three?" RFK asked.
Kennedy's 'connectedness'
According to Kilgannon, more than $2 trillion in federal funds passes through HHS. And she says while Kennedy is portrayed mostly as a vaccine opponent, that portrayal cuts both ways. His concerns help him connect with many Americans, she said.
“A lot of that spending is not discretionary spending. A lot of that spending is entitlements, is healthcare for American citizens and, under the Biden administration, for illegal immigrants. We have a lot to unpack with that, and it’s a lot to oversee, but there are a lot of pressing health concerns facing Americans, and that’s why the 'Let’s Make America Healthy Again' part of the Donald Trump campaign, which was of course the RFK Jr., part of that, was so resonant with so many people,” she said.
Much of that resonation came from suburban female Trump voters, Kilgannon said, in spite of pre-election polling data that suggested that demographic would be a problem for Trump.
Kilgannon said Trump did “pretty well” with suburban women, and his support from RFK Jr., played a role in that.
“A lot of people were surprised in unpacking who voted for Donald Trump that he did pretty well with suburban women, all things considered, and I think that maybe RFK Jr., deserves some of the credit for that because of the concerns that he raises,” she said.
Kennedy character issues
Still, some have questioned Kennedy’s character. The 2015 book "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and the Dark Side of the Dream" by Jerry Oppenheimer, claimed that Kennedy proposed to his second wife, Mary Richardson, while still married to his first wife, Emily Black.
Kennedy vehemently denied the allegations, writing on his website that the book was “a fictional inventory of unsubstantiated rumors and outright invention,” according to People Magazine.
Kennedy wrote that Oppenheimer never spoke with him or with members of his family, and that the book was composed of “unattributed quotes and scurrilous rumors from the most unreliable frontiers of the Internet.”
He married his third and current wife, actress Cheryl Hines, in 2014.
The New York Times in 2022 reported that Kennedy continues to attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings.
“That will all be litigated by the press and by the Senate as he goes through the confirmation process. It’s certainly not something that’s going to be a surprise to anyone. This again is something that we need to pray about. We’re not asking him to be our pastor – we’re asking him to run the Department of Health and Human Services,” Kilgannon emphasized.
