How the
Trump-Kennedy Alliance Is Pushing the Boundaries of Public Health
The
mutually beneficial relationship between President Trump and Robert F. Kennedy
Jr. is based on a striking alignment of some of their views.
By Zolan
Kanno-Youngs and Maggie Haberman
Zolan
Kanno-Youngs and Maggie Haberman cover the White House. They reported from
Washington.
Aug. 29,
2025
Before he
began his remarks on health care policy at a White House event earlier this
summer, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. first felt the need to praise
one of President Trump’s passion projects.
Mr.
Kennedy said that Mr. Trump’s new Oval Office décor had “transformed” a White
House that comparatively looked “drab” when his uncle, former President John F.
Kennedy, filled it. “Under your stewardship, it looks extraordinary today,” Mr.
Kennedy said as Mr. Trump nodded in approval. “So thank you, Mr. President.”
During a
three-hour cabinet meeting this week, it was Mr. Trump’s turn to support Mr.
Kennedy’s endeavors: researching any link between vaccines and autism, a theory
that many medical professionals and studies have debunked. “I know you’re
looking very strongly at different things, and I hope you can come out with
that as soon as possible,” Mr. Trump said.
The two
exchanges crystallized the mutually beneficial nature of the relationship
between the two men, an alliance driven by political calculation and a striking
alignment of some of their views. Their ties have empowered Mr. Kennedy to push
the boundaries of public health and science with the support of the president,
who in turn benefits from Mr. Kennedy’s coalition of followers opposed to
vaccines and health mandates.
It helps
that Mr. Trump has long been dazzled by the storied nature of the Kennedy name.
“As
someone who grew up during the Kennedy Camelot era, the idea of having a
Kennedy report to him makes him feel good,” said Chris Meekins, a deputy
assistant secretary for pandemic preparedness in the first Trump
administration. “R.F.K. will be given a long-enough leash — will be given enough discretion — until
there is a point when the political damage he’s doing to Republican efforts is
greater than the political benefit he’s bringing.”
The White
House has thrown its support behind Mr. Kennedy after he ousted the new
director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after less than a
month on the job, engulfing the agency in chaos and causing alarm among both
Democrats and Republicans in Congress.
“Secretary
Kennedy has been a crown jewel of this administration who’s working tirelessly
to improve public health for all Americans,” Stephen Miller, the White House
deputy chief of staff, told reporters on Friday.
After Mr.
Kennedy tried to fire the C.D.C. director and after she refused to accept the
dismissal, he went to the White House. Officials there, acting at Mr. Trump’s
direction, had the presidential personnel office fire her, according to two
people briefed on the matter. A third said Mr. Trump was not especially
exercised.
Still, it
remains to be seen whether public blowback against Mr. Kennedy’s planned
restrictions for access to the coronavirus vaccines will trouble a president
who views their development and distribution as a crowning achievement of his
first term.
But Mr.
Trump was also mindful during his campaign that many of his core voters — people he privately called the “radical
right” — were skeptical of the vaccine,
and he did not boast about it publicly as often as he used to.
The Food and Drug Administration earlier this
week authorized the vaccines for people 65 and older, who are known to be more
vulnerable to severe illness from Covid. But younger people would only be
eligible if they have at least one underlying medical condition that would put
them at risk for severe disease. Healthy children under 18 could still receive
the shots if a medical provider is consulted.
The new
policy means this fall will be the first season that Covid shots are not widely
recommended to most people and children.
In a
statement, Karoline Leavitt, the White House press secretary, said that
“President Trump has the utmost confidence and trust in Secretary Kennedy to
lead HHS, and he only wants the best, brightest, most MAHA-aligned people on
board,” referring to Mr. Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again slogan.
She added
that the president was aware of the new guidelines for the vaccines, a day
after she insisted they were not restrictions and claimed they did not affect
the availability of the shots for people who want them.
It is not
the first time Mr. Trump, who promised to let Mr. Kennedy “go wild on health”
after receiving his endorsement on the campaign trail, has thrown his support
behind the health secretary’s upending of the federal public health
infrastructure.
Mr. Trump
gave Mr. Kennedy a freer hand than he did most cabinet secretaries to shape his
own department. The initial selection of Susan Monarez, the C.D.C. director Mr.
Trump fired this week, was Mr. Kennedy’s, two people briefed on the matter
said.
When Mr.
Kennedy canceled nearly $500 million of grants and contracts for developing
mRNA vaccines earlier this month, Mr. Trump reacted by saying his
administration was “onto other things.” And when a Kennedy ally leading the
F.D.A.’s vaccines division left his position after being attacked by right-wing
activist Laura Loomer, the Trump administration supported his return.
In Mr.
Kennedy, Mr. Trump has also found a loyal soldier willing to turn the
president’s long-held suspicions over vaccines into policy.
Some
associates of the president have said that they do not recall him voicing
opposition to childhood vaccines decades ago. But since at least 2014, Mr.
Trump has publicly questioned whether there is a link between vaccines and
autism. His skepticism was attractive to some voters at a time when a
government-skeptical wing of the Republican Party was growing after the fiscal
crisis in the late 2000s.
“With
autism being way up, what do we have to lose by having doctors give small dose
vaccines vs. big pump doses into those tiny bodies?” Mr. Trump posted on social
media in 2014. He repeated a version of that statement on a Republican primary
debate stage in 2015.
When Mr.
Kennedy told reporters in January 2017, days before Mr. Trump was sworn in and
after meeting with him at Trump Tower, that the incoming president was going to
appoint him to a panel to study vaccines, Mr. Trump’s advisers quickly shut
down the prospect. But Mr. Trump never let go of the idea that vaccines and
autism could be linked, even though he stopped bringing it up publicly.
During a
post-election news conference in December after he won a second term, Mr. Trump
again expressed enthusiasm for “brilliant people” like Mr. Kennedy who would
soon investigate any connection between vaccines and autism.
But the
briefing was also an example of the potential baggage that comes with the
health secretary. Mr. Trump was forced to respond to questions over the future
of the polio vaccine after The New York Times reported that a lawyer for Mr.
Kennedy petitioned federal regulators to withdraw the vaccine from the market.
The
petition prompted Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican of Kentucky and a polio
survivor, to warn that “efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures
are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous.”
“I think
you’re going to find that Bobby is much — he’s a very rational guy,” Mr. Trump
said in December. “I found him to be very rational.”
Members
of Congress have joined public health officials in expressing concern that the
opposite could be true.
After the
firing of Ms. Monarez, Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana and the
chair of the Senate health committee, called for a delay in an upcoming C.D.C.
vaccine advisory committee meeting, which was recently reconstituted by Mr.
Kennedy with new members who have questioned the safety of vaccines.
Mr.
Cassidy, a physician who publicly agonized over voting for Mr. Kennedy’s
nomination, also said that the recent “high-profile departures will require
oversight” by his panel.
Senator
Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic minority leader, called for Mr. Trump
to fire Mr. Kennedy “immediately.”
“RFK
Jr.’s stubborn, pigheaded, and conspiracy-based attacks on proven science are
going to make many more people sick and cause more deaths,” Mr. Schumer said in
a statement. “Americans are in greater danger every day Robert Kennedy Jr.
remains as H.H.S. Secretary.”
Mr.
Meekins, the health official from Mr. Trump’s first term, said the extent of
Mr. Kennedy’s impact on the health care system was still unclear.
“It’s the
same with hurricanes. No one cares about how effective the changes within FEMA
are until they need to be called on, and they’re not up to speed or not up to
it,” Mr. Meekins said. “That’s the challenge with public health. You don’t
appreciate the benefits of them until you fully need them.”
Zolan
Kanno-Youngs is a White House correspondent for The Times, covering President
Trump and his administration.
Maggie
Haberman is a White House correspondent for The Times, reporting on President
Trump.
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