Transcript
Nicole Wallace (0:01)
Sources tell NBC News that the President elect Donald Trump is expected to pick Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. To be the Secretary of Health and Human Services. Trump had previously promised RFK a quote, big role after RFK abandoned his independent bid for president and endorsed Donald Trump. The New York Times describes him like this, as a, quote, environmental lawyer who has no medical or public health degrees and has promoted anti vaccine conspiracies for years and end quote. Regarding the Food and Drug Administration, the agency that is responsible for the safety of our prescriptions, vaccines, cosmetics, our food, even veterinary medicine, an agency that would be under his purview. RFK has said that, quote, entire departments have to go. Let's bring into our breaking news coverage former Obama White House policy director, MSNBC medical contributor, Dr. Kavita Patel. Dr. Patel, your first reaction?
Dr. Kavita Patel (1:01)
Oh my God. I mean, those of us who have spent our lifetime, kind of decades working in and around in hhs. I'm not kidding, Nicole. My text are flying off the chain. Both Democrats and Republicans saying, this can't be real. Someone must have gotten this wrong. This can't be possible. And now the second underlying chain. There's some silver linings. The second thought I had is he can't get confirmed, can he? But I'm just listening to you talk about the DNI and all these other roles that require some sort of White House or confirmation or some combination. And here we are. It is really hard to believe there are career staff texting me saying this was just the push they needed to try to get out. They were already on the fence and worried. We're not just going to see this incredible kind of integration of ideology that has no science behind it. But Nicole, we're going to see probably the best of the best career staff leave, leaving these agencies potentially hollow that he would oversee.
Darren Beattie (1:59)
What are your issues specifically with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. As HHS Secretary, we understand he's completely and totally unqualified as it relates to protecting the health, the safety and the well being of the American people. We have a lot of challenges emerging from the pandemic. We need serious folks with a serious background and serious expertise. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Is of course, none of the above.
Nicole Wallace (2:27)
Just for people that aren't familiar with how HHS interacts with the medical community and people's lives, just take us through a little bit of that, if you will.
Stephen K. Bannon (2:36)
Yeah.
Dr. Kavita Patel (2:36)
So the Secretary of Health and Human Services, as you mentioned, has a purview over many agencies that touch our lives. You just touched on a couple of them. Food and Drug Administration, the cdc, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. You may kind of know these letters as we've talked about all vaccines and things during COVID but it touches everything. It touches our food supply chain. I'll give you an example. When we had a supply chain shortage of baby formulas. This hits a lot of people at home because none of the shelves could keep the formula stock that the HHS secretary kind of pulled it all together and worked with other departments to try to make sure that we could get Americans formula just to feed their children. Add into that just all the research. Think of the National Institutes of Health, Nicole. That's also under HHS research on drug development. And I actually pulled up just to remind myself a tweet from RFK Jr. When he was running for president where he says that if he were president, I guess, thank goodness he's not, he'd stop research on drug development and infectious diseases for eight years. And I think he was proud of that. So anything that you do in the medical community, and let me tell you where it hits home during COVID you and I have talked about the Medical Reserve Corps and the Public Health Service Agency, all the people who actually help to facilitate getting vaccines across the country, getting Covid tests across the country, that's under HHS as well. So anything from a safety net clinic to the medicines that you trust are safe, that is now potentially going to be under this environmental lawyer with no training whatsoever and very dangerous views.
