Senator-elect Jim Banks on Thursday defended Donald Trump nominating Robert F. Kennedy to lead the Health and Human Services Department, despite him railing against public health agencies and vaccines and saying they cause autism.
“I feel very comfortable with RFK Jr. having a significant seat at the table to lead big debates about this at a time when obesity is so high, when health care issues are so important," Banks said in an interview with CNN's Jake Tapper. “After serving on the House Education Committee for the past eight years, RFK is eminently better qualified and more prepared for Sec. [Xavier] Becerra, who sits in that role today, to carry out the agenda that the American people want.”
Trump announced Thursday that Kennedy, an environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist, and scion of the Democratic royalty Kennedy family, is his nominee to be secretary of Health and Human Services. In the 1980s and 1990s, Kennedy built a career in environmental law, winning major legal battles against corporate polluters. Since the 2000s, he has become an outspoken opponent of childhood vaccinations, frequently making claims without basis in evidence that contradict scientific and medical authorities.
