Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the erstwhile presidential candidate and anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist now backing Donald Trump, said the former president offered him "control" of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other agencies if he returns to the White House.
Kennedy, whose views on COVID-19 earned him rebuke from his own family members, made the claim during a livestream to supporters that was obtained by CNN.
“The key that I think I’m ― you know, that President Trump has promised me is ― is control of the public health agencies, which are HHS and its sub-agencies, CDC, FDA, NIH and a few others, and then also the USDA, which is ― which, you know, is key to making America healthy. Because we’ve got to get off of seed oils, and we’ve got to get off of pesticide intensive agriculture,” he reportedly said.
Trump seemed to confirm the claim at his rally in Madison Square Garden on Sunday, telling supporters that he would let Kennedy "go wild on medicines." While no formal policy sheet has laid out how exactly he would "go wild," Kennedy's past statements could provide a hint.
During the height of the COVID pandemic, he pushed the conspiracy theory that the disease was "ethnically targeted" to infect Caucasians and Black people while “people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” He also compared the CDC's health mandates to prevent the spread of COVID-19 to the policies of Nazi Germany, and falsely claimed that he had evidence showing the COVID-19 vaccine “is the deadliest vaccine ever made.”
