Trump plans to give Robert F. Kennedy Jr. a role in his administration, if he’s reelected.
Former President Donald Trump in a new interview did not rule out banning some vaccines if he wins the upcoming election.
“Well, I’m going to talk to him and talk to other people, and I’ll make a decision,” Trump told NBC over the weekend when asked if banning vaccines would be an option.
Trump was referring to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a lawyer who founded the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense.
“He’s a very talented guy and has strong views,” Trump said, adding that Kennedy would ”have a big role in the administration” if he wins.
Kennedy has criticized the vaccine approval process in the United States and raised concerns about how manufacturers are immune from many lawsuits under a 1986 law.
“Doctors basically are told that these are miracle technologies. They’ve saved millions, tens of millions, hundreds of millions of lives, but there is no science that supports that,” Kennedy told EpochTV’s “American Thought Leaders” in 2023. “There just simply is no science that supports that. There is a lot of science that supports the fact, the supposition that most of these vaccines, not all of them, but most of them, are causing more injuries and deaths than they are averting.”
Children’s Health Defense has also advocated against some vaccines that are available in the United States.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which sets the schedule for vaccines that are cleared by federal regulators with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, says vaccines have prevented countless cases of the diseases they target and saved millions of lives.
Kennedy was an independent presidential contender until August when he suspended his campaign and endorsed Trump.
Kennedy’s exact role in a potential second Trump administration remains undisclosed, but Howard Lutnick, the co-chair of Trump’s transition team, recently said that he did not think Kennedy would be picked as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration.
“He says, if you give me the data, all I want is the data and I’ll take the data and show that it’s not safe,” Lutnick said, when asked about concerns about Kennedy’s views on vaccines. “And then if you pull the product liability, the companies will yank these vaccines right off of the market. So that’s his point.”
Trump said at an October rally that he would let Kennedy “go wild on health” and “on the medicines.” After Kennedy said a Trump administration would immediately issue an advisory to remove fluoride from water, Trump also told NBC that the proposal “sounds okay to me” and “is possible.”
Kennedy said in a statement on Nov. 4, “I want to be in the position where I’m most effective to end the chronic disease epidemic.”
Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, said in a podcast released Sunday after the host brought up Kennedy having power in a Trump administration, “That’s why I’m working so hard, because I know the stakes.”