Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime conspiracy theorist and opponent of vaccines, now has the ear of President-elect Donald Trump to promote what he’s calling the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
It’s something of an unlikely alliance between the Kennedy family scion, once a celebrated environmental champion who called for prosecuting climate change deniers, and the returning Republican leader.
What they share, however, is a profound distrust of institutions. In the final stretch of the campaign, Trump announced that RFK Jr. would “have a big role in health care” if he won.
The announcement immediately raised alarm, given Kennedy’s reputation as a notorious vaccine skeptic.
Not long ago, though, Kennedy was a high-powered climate attorney and was even in the mix to become former president Barack Obama’s environment chief.
This makes him a complex figure, some experts say, who brings some valuable ideas to the table.
In recent days, he’s tried to reassure critics, telling NPR, “We’re not going to take vaccines away from anybody,” while adding, ominously, “We are going to make sure that Americans have good information.”
Kennedy has spent two decades promoting vaccine conspiracy theories, especially around Covid-19 shots — ironically, the very vaccines developed in record time under Trump’s first administration.
The nephew of the assassinated president John F. Kennedy, he was polling at around five percent of the popular vote before he withdrew to endorse Trump, to the dismay of his own family.
