Education Secretary Linda McMahon won’t rule out having Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. take over vaccines in public schools.
Noting that shuttering the Department of Education as the Trump administration intends would require redistributing its responsibilities, host Dana Bash asked whether Kennedy—a vaccine skeptic—could be tasked with overseeing state vaccination mandates.
“Would he be involved in vaccination of children at schools?” she asked.
McMahon responded by saying the question was outside the scope of the discussion.
Bash quickly shot back, “So that’s a ‘no.’”
“That’s not necessarily a ‘no,’” McMahon replied, pointing out that under the current rules, vaccine mandates for children entering public schools are enforced at the state rather than federal level.
The education secretary was nevertheless swift to voice her support for Kennedy’s credentials when it comes to protecting vulnerable children.
“Secretary Kennedy, with whom I’ve had conversations about that, has an absolute passion about looking at students with handicaps and disabilities, because he himself talks about how difficult it has been for him with the neurological aspect that he dealt with all through his life,” she said.
Kennedy suffers from a neurological condition known as spasmodic dysphonia, which causes the muscles of his voice box to spasm involuntarily, resulting in a strained voice and pain while speaking.
“[It] is painful for him when he speaks,” McMahon went on. “He understands children who are having to deal with that kind of handicap and need help. I think that would be a passion of his own heart.”
Kennedy has drawn rebuke for peddling junk science about the supposed health threats of inoculation against debilitating and deadly diseases, particularly in children.
One of the new health secretary’s chief claims, widely debunked in scientific studies, is that vaccinating children causes autism. He has also previously asserted the COVID-19 pandemic was engineered to target Caucasians and Black people and pushed misleading claims about the dangers of fluoride in drinking water.
