Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has made it clear that if Donald Trump wins the election, he’ll join him in his administration.
Kennedy spoke about his plans for the Department of Health and Human Services and said that Trump would “fight like hell” to install him as secretary if he asked for the job.
Speaking on The Story With Martha MacCallum on Sunday, Kennedy even suggested that he’d have free rein to decide exactly what his role in the department would be.
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“Let me talk to you about your future position if Trump wins. He has said that he wants you to play a major role in ‘Make America Healthy Again’ and putting forward a lot of your policies,” MacCallum prompted.
“This is what Howard Lutnick said, who’s the head of the transition committee which you are part of, about what your role would be.”
MacCallum then played a clip of Lutnick during a CNN interview, in which he passionately responded “No, of course not“ when asked if Kennedy would ”be in charge of the HHS.“ Instead, Lutnick claimed that the department would simply share data with Kennedy.
“So is that accurate? Is it your understanding that you would not have an official role?” MacCallum asked.
“No, I don‘t think that’s right. The campaign has walked back some of Howard’s statements there. At this point, we are exploring a bunch of different structures,” Kennedy said.
“The Trump administration and the Trump team has been very, very accommodating to give me what I want. What I want to do is what President Trump asked me to do which is three things.
“One, to end the corruption and the corporate capture of these agencies so that they’re serving public health interests rather than the mercantile interests of the pharmaceutical companies. Number two, to restore the tradition in these agencies of gold standard empirically-based, evidence-based science in medicine that they had when I was a kid, that they were world-famous for and that they lost. Third, to end the chronic disease epidemic...”
After sharing some more numbers about the chronic disease crisis, Kennedy added, “He has asked me to have measurable results within two years.”
“My question is, how?” asked MacCallum.
“Why is Howard Lutnick saying you wouldn’t have a position? Is that in the closing hours that they think that might be a negative for some voters? What’s going on?”
Kennedy didn’t give details about how he plans to tackle his outlined health crises, but emphasized, “As I said, that is not true. The campaign has walked back those statements by Howard Lutnick and he himself has disavowed those statements.”
“So does that mean that you think you might be the HSS secretary if former president Trump wins?” MacCallum questioned.
“We don’t know what I’m going to do. I talked to the president about it yesterday and he asked me what I wanted and I said we are developing a proposal now. You know, I am not sure if that‘s going to be the most effective,” Kennedy said.
Despite his lack of a clear plan, however, he made it clear that there was a bed saved for him in the White House.
“I want to be in the White House and he has assured me that I am going to have that. I want to be in the position where I‘m most effective to end the chronic disease epidemic and I’m confident that if I wanted to do HHS secretary the president would fight like hell to make that happen,” he said.
