A former secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday suggested that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been nominated for “the wrong Cabinet post” after how President Donald Trump’s pick for her old job performed in his confirmation hearing.
“He doesn’t understand this Cabinet post very well and the positions that he has are terrifying,” said Kathleen Sebelius in an interview with MSNBC host Joy Reid.
Sebelius, who served under Barack Obama and oversaw the Affordable Care Act’s implementation, has previously called Kennedy’s history of peddling false claims about vaccines “totally disqualifying for anyone” seeking the post and warned that his possible HHS leadership is a matter of “life or death.”
On Wednesday, she told Reid that Kennedy demonstrated that “he has very strong opinions about a lot things he knows very little about” in the hearing.
“That doesn’t stop him from announcing him opinions as fact. It doesn’t stop him from making recommendations that are widely disputed by scientific evidence,” Sebelius said.
She continued, “And that makes him very, very dangerous in the position as the major health minister of the United States.”
Kennedy made false statements to senators on Wednesday including those related to Medicaid as well as Medicare and was pressed over anti-vaccine clothing sold by an organization he started.
Sebelius declared that Kennedy has made “his fame and his fortune on being a vaccine denier” by repeatedly saying there’s no “safe and effective vaccine.”
She added that while Kennedy has withdrawn his name from his old organization, Children’s Health Defense, it’s suing vaccine makers and he’s making referral fees from those lawsuits.
She went on to warn of a growing number of adults who are questioning and withholding vaccines from their children which could subject people to diseases that have “long” been abolished in America.
“So this is not just about individual parents making individual choices, it’s about us as society looking at potential new cases of polio, potential new cases of whooping cough, disease, measles outbreaks that we haven’t seen in a very long time,” Sebelius said.
She continued, “Largely due to, I think, misinformation, disinformation promoted by his organization since 2016.”
Later in the interview, Sebelius slammed Kennedy for not answering “basic” questions about Medicare and Medicaid, knocked his understanding of the ACA and questioned his focus on food/food supplements while pushing for the HHS post.