Trump picks RFK Jr to guide Health and Human Services as they vow to make America wholesome | EUROtoday

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Donald Trump will nominate vaccine skeptic and conspiracy-spreader Robert F Kennedy Jr to guide America’s largest public well being physique, the Department of Health and Human Services, in keeping with stories.

Politico first reported the nomination on Thursday shortly adopted by CNN; it was not one thing that got here as a shock, as Trump’s personal press secretary Karoline Leavitt had referred to RFK Jr as certified and talked about him as somebody who would probably be nominated to hitch the incoming administration in a Fox News interview the identical day.

Of course, the top of Donald Trump’s White House transition staff — the person supposedly main the workers seek for the incoming president — had assured CNN as not too long ago as October 30 that RFK Jr would particularly not be nominated to guide HHS. But Thursday’s information can be in step with reporting from The Independent and different shops pointing to 1 actuality: the breakneck tempo at which these choices are being made by Trump himself, in some circumstances whereas his high workers usually are not a part of the dialog.

It additionally had considerably of a muted response on Capitol Hill, although that was solely probably because of the stream of controversial Cabinet nominees which Trump has named prior to now a number of days. Wednesday got here with the information that onetime sex-trafficking probe goal Matt Gaetz can be chosen to guide the division that when investigated him, a transfer that shocked even Trump’s personal loyal Republican allies in Congress.

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The onetime presidential candidate is prone to face unified resistance from Democrats within the Senate and will nicely choose up greater than a handful of GOP defections as nicely. Kennedy’s stances on vaccines, together with the Covid jabs produced by numerous pharmaceutical corporations underneath the primary Trump administration, have terrified public well being consultants who fear that as secretary Kennedy may endanger funding for improvement and distribution of vaccines that save the lives of tens of millions of individuals and have contributed to the eradication of lethal ailments within the US.

How many defections Kennedy will choose up is the actual query; Republicans are because of head into January with a majority of a number of votes, that means that Kennedy would want to lose extra than simply the GOP’s erstwhile centrists, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine. Other Republicans have signalled that they’re open to Kennedy’s nomination, in some circumstances complaining that Democratic nominees supposedly weren’t held to the identical requirements within the press.

“I don’t have any preconceived notions about it. I think we just ought to be open to doing our job,” John Cornyn, who narrowly misplaced the battle for majority chief on Wednesday, advised Politico.

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