Trump names vaccine skeptic RFK Jr. to head health dept

Donald Trump on Thursday tapped anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his secretary of health in the latest provocative nomination from the incoming Republican president.

Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that he was "thrilled" to name Kennedy.

Moving quickly since his election last week, Trump has embarked on a campaign of political shock and awe as he rolls out an administration designed to upend -- and in some cases literally dismantle -- the US government.

Several of Trump's choices for top jobs -- including a TV news anchor at the helm of the Pentagon and an ally embroiled in sexual misconduct allegations for attorney general -- have unnerved the Washington establishment.

Trump also announced Thursday that his personal attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who defended him at trial this year over hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, would serve as deputy attorneys general.

Kennedy, a scion of the famous political family who is popularly known as RFK Jr., is a longtime environmental campaigner who abandoned a fringe bid for the presidency to endorse Trump against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

Trump has said he wants Kennedy to "go wild" in changing health care.

Kennedy, 70, who has posted shirtless photos to boast of his weight-lifting prowess, argues that fundamental change is needed to the way Americans eat, exercise and use medicines.

If approved by the Senate, which Trump's Republican Party controls, he will take over the Health and Human Services Department, a mammoth institution with a budget of close to $2 trillion.

In his statement, Trump said Kennedy will "Make America Great and Healthy Again!"

The 78-year-old president-elect echoed many of Kennedy's talking points, saying "Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation."

"Mr Kennedy will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic," Trump said.

The nomination will meet serious opposition, given Kennedy's history of promoting medical conspiracy theories -- including the disproven claim that childhood vaccines cause autism -- and saying that the Covid-19 vaccine was deadly.

- Brain worm -

He is also burdened by a string of colorful and even bizarre stories from his personal life.

These include his statement that a parasitic worm once entered his "brain and ate a portion of it and then died."

An admission this year that he was behind the long unsolved mystery of a dead bear dumped in New York's Central Park a decade ago raised eyebrows, as did subsequent revelations that the married politician was in a sexting relationship with a well-known journalist.

Trump has yet to select treasury and commerce chiefs to enact tax and trade policy. He has also not revealed his pick for education -- a department he wants to abolish.

Trump's first recruitments -- including secretary of state for Florida Senator Marco Rubio, a traditional conservative on foreign policy -- drew praise.

But then Trump dismayed Democrats and even some in the Republican Party as he appeared to put preference for personal loyalty above expertise or suitability.

A major shock was naming Matt Gaetz -- a flamethrower of the Republican far right in Congress who was drawn into a years-long criminal probe into sex trafficking -- as future attorney general.

Gaetz denies wrongdoing and has never faced charges but was still being investigated by the House Ethics Committee.

That decision followed Trump's nomination of former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard -- who met Syria's president Bashar al-Assad and echoes Russian President Vladimir Putin's talking points -- to take charge of the nation's most sensitive secrets as director of national intelligence.

Trump recruited Pete Hegseth -- a combat veteran who has no experience running large organizations but is a host on Trump's favorite Fox News network -- as defense secretary.

- Clearing the deck -

Trump and his aides have vowed that much of his second term will be about clearing the deck of federal officials who acted as a restraining influence on his populist, right-wing agenda during his first term.

Gaetz's appointment would hand Trump, whose election likely means being freed from a string of serious criminal investigations, the advantage of a fierce partisan at the top of the Justice Department.

Trump has repeatedly threatened to go after a variety of political opponents.

Although Republicans expect to have a three-seat majority in the incoming Senate, Gaetz is widely disliked and will struggle to win confirmation.

Gabbard's nomination has also sparked uproar, given her statements favorable to US adversary Russia, including her suggestion that Moscow's invasion of Ukraine was the result of "legitimate security concerns."