RFK Jr will be Trump’s undoing – and it could get ugly very quickly

The health secretary may be even too much for Maga

cancel email WhatsApp link share Share bookmark Save

share cancel email WhatsApp link bookmark

When Donald Trump promised Robert F Kennedy Jr a plum role in his administration in return for his endorsement during the election campaign, it was a bold stroke that united Trump’s worship of good “genes” and dynasty – and was a gift for stealing away traditional Democratic voters.

Sure, RFK Jr was a well-known krank (meaning “sick” in German), but in the Maga world, who wasn’t? Trump appointed him health secretary and the next thing we knew, the vaccine denier was in charge of his own movement: Maha – or “Make America Healthy Again”.

Eight months into Kennedy’s appointment, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has been wracked by firings; anti-vaxxers have been appointed as leading health advisers; and $500m for mRNA vaccine research was cancelled. Even Trump admitted on Truth Social that the CDC has been “ripped apart”.

Reportedly, Trump has been fretting privately that he can’t take the credit for the biggest success of his first administration: Operation Warp Speed, the development and delivery of the Covid-19 vaccine.

Speaking for myself, I’ve rarely seen anybody look less healthy than Kennedy. The health secretary, 71, has the kind of perma-tanned leathery skin that went out of fashion when skin cancer came in; an ox neck; bulging veins that look fit to burst; and a rasping voice the result of a rare neurological condition, spasmodic dysphonia.

He is a former heroin addict who eats roadkill and had a parasitic worm in his brain in 2010, causing temporary memory loss. This week, he wheezed and heavy-breathed his way through a Senate inquiry into the turmoil at the CDC until an aide appeared to whisper to him to mute his mike.

Still, Kennedy recently proved he can do 100 push-ups and 50 pull-ups in under 10 minutes in a face-off with the defence secretary Pete Hegseth, so who am I to judge?

Trump himself was a vaccine sceptic before becoming taking office, so “Bobby”, as he calls him, would appear to be aligned with his values. Behind the scenes, however, a showdown is looming between Maha and Maga.

At a cabinet meeting last week, Trump claimed Operation Warp Speed was “one of the greatest achievements” ever, but – in a rare display of reticence – he has been afraid to tout it to his base. Desperately trying to straddle the divide, he posted on Truth Social that: “Many people think [the shots] are a miracle that saved Millions of lives. Others Disagree!”

Trump went on to call on drug manufacturers like Pfizer to prove the effectiveness of their vaccines (as if the well-attested scientific data could ever satisfy the tin-foil hatters) and demanded: “I want the answer and I want it NOW.”

Increasing the tension between Maga and Maha, Laura Loomer – the far-right Trump influencer who has criticised several White House aides – has been stirring the pot about Kennedy’s ambition to be president.

Speaking to Politico, she directly accused a top Kennedy aide of trying “to utilise her position to lay the groundwork for a 2028 RFK presidential run”. This claim was hotly denied by Kennedy as a “flat-out lie”.

However, his boiling ambition led him to break in 2024 with the Democratic party of his famous father, New York Senator Robert F Kennedy, and uncle President John F Kennedy.

A fascinating article in New York magazine recently laid bare the Kennedy clan’s fury that their legacy has been hijacked by “Bobby’s” vanity and hubris. Caroline Kennedy, JFK’s daughter, claimed during the election campaign that her father and “my Uncle Bobby, who gave their lives in public service to our country, and my Uncle Teddy, who devoted his long Senate career to the cause of improving health care, would be disgusted” by his behaviour.

But the sprawling Kennedy family is not what they were. Some of its members are as kooky as RFK Jr. The bigger problem for Trump is that vaccine denial is unpopular with many Americans, who fear it puts them at risk.

The CDC – under Kennedy – has stopped recommending Covid-19 vaccines for children and pregnant women and it is becoming difficult to obtain for anybody without a prescription.

The state of Florida has just dropped all vaccine mandates, including for schoolchildren, yet a poll by Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health found that nearly eight in 10 people (79 per cent) believed parents should be required to have their children vaccinated against common, preventable diseases like measles, mumps and rubella, before attending school – the norm, until now.

Republican senators roasted Kennedy in Congress this week, emboldened by rumours of a split with Trump. One critic, Bill Cassidy, cheekily suggested Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed, obliging the health secretary to agree “absolutely” – while simultaneously disputing its benefits.

Kennedy would never challenge Trump for the crown directly, but would feel less beholden to Vice-President JD Vance or a Trump nepo-baby. For now, it suits Trump to keep him in place – but things could turn ugly, very quickly.

Sarah Baxter is director of the Marie Colvin Center for International Reporting