Former independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy ,Jr., who is poised to step into a new role in the upcoming President-elect Donald Trump administration, said on Wednesday that "entire departments" within the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) "have to go" because they are not serving their intended purpose.
"In some categories … there are entire departments, like the nutrition department at the FDA … that have to go, that are not doing their job, they're not protecting our kids," Kennedy told MSNBC.
After initially running in the 2024 presidential race as a Democrat and then as an independent, Kennedy dropped out and endorsed then-GOP nominee Trump in August. It was widely reported at the time that Kennedy did so with the understanding that his endorsement carried with it the promise of a job if Trump won the election.
Trump clinched his reelection bid in the early hours of Wednesday morning in what is being hailed as the greatest political comeback in the history of American politics.
Kennedy said last week that Trump promised he would get an executive branch role if voters returned him to the Oval Office on Election Day.
"We don't know what I'm going to do," Kennedy told Fox News in a separate interview when asked if he is getting the job of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary. "I talked to the president about it yesterday, and he asked me what I wanted, and I said, 'We're developing a proposal now.' "
Installing Kennedy as HHS secretary would require Senate confirmation, and while Republicans seem to have locked down a majority in the upper chamber, it is unclear how smoothly the process to confirm Kennedy would go.
Speculation has abounded that the environmental lawyer would serve in a position that does not require confirmation by the Senate.
Howard Lutnick, who is the co-chair of the Trump-Vance transition team, told CNN in a recent interview that Kennedy is "not getting a job" as HHS secretary, which Lutnick said he does not want.
In that same interview, Lutnick said that Kennedy is seeking the federal data to prove vaccines should be taken off the market.
"He wants the data, so he can say, 'These things are unsafe,' " Lutnick said. "He says, 'If you give me the data, all I want is the data, and I'll take on the data and show that it's not safe. And then if you pull the product liability, the companies will yank these vaccines right off of the market.' "
During his MSNBC interview, Kennedy said he "can get the corruption out" of the health agencies and said that he would not be eliminating the agencies "as long as it requires congressional approval."