Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F Kennedy Jr as US secretary of health and human services has prompted widespread criticisms towards Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist who has embraced a slew of other debunked health-related conspiracy theories.
In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump claimed that Americans have been “crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies” and that Kennedy will “will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
In response to Kennedy’s nomination, Public Citizen, a progressive nonprofit organization focusing on consumer advocacy, said: “Robert F Kennedy Jr is a clear and present danger to the nation’s health. He shouldn’t be allowed in the building at the department of health and human services (HHS), let alone be placed in charge of the nation’s public health agency.”
“Donald Trump’s bungling of public health policy during the Covid pandemic cost hundreds of thousands of lives. By appointing Kennedy as his secretary of HHS, Trump is courting another, policy-driven public health catastrophe,” the organization added.
Apu Akkad, an infectious disease physician at the University of Southern California, called the announcement a “scary day for public health”.
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Here are the key developments from the last few hours:
Donald Trump nominated Robert F Kennedy, Jr to lead the Health and Human Services department. If confirmed, Kennedy – who has gained notoriety for being one of the most persistent and successful purveyors of misinformation about vaccines – would be in charge of the department that oversees the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Kennedy joined forces with Trump and promised to “Make American Healthy Again” after dropping his own presidential bid. Public health experts warn that his involvement in the US health and medical infrastructure could have devastating consequences.
Trump’s nomination of RFK Jr as US secretary of health and human services prompted widespread criticisms towards Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist who has embraced a slew of other debunked health-related conspiracy theories.
Trump also named Jay Clayton, his former SEC chair, to serve as US attorney for the southern district of New York. The court often handles high-profile financial fraud cases.
Two prominent senators have called for the House ethics committee to share with them its investigation into Matt Gaetz, who Donald Trump nominated to serve as attorney general in his administration. Gaetz resigned his seat in Congress shortly after, likely stopping the release of the report into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use, but the Democratic senator Dick Durbin and his Republican counterpart John Cornyn said the document should be shared with them, if Gaetz’s nomination is to proceed.
Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as House speaker last year in a putsch backed by Gaetz, said the ex-congressman “won’t get confirmed” as attorney general.
Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton said that before either is confirmed, the FBI should investigate both Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump nominated as director of national intelligence. She is known for her tolerant view of Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, both US adversaries.
Nikki Haley said she was never interested in serving in Trump’s cabinet. She was UN ambassador during his first term, but Trump recently said he would not bring her back into his government.
The Onion is buying conspiracy theory hub InfoWars in a bankruptcy auction, after its creator Alex Jones was hit with a massive defamation judgment from families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims.
Social media platform Bluesky picked up more than 1 million new members on Thursday, continuing a surge to the platform as former X users leave the platform. Elon Musk reportedly met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, a day before Donald Trump named the SpaceX founder as one of the heads of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
Elon Musk reportedly met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, a day before Donald Trump named the SpaceX founder as one of the heads of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency. The meeting was a discussion of how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States, according to two Iranian officials who spoke with the New York Times. One of the Iranian officials said that the Tesla executive requested the meeting and that the ambassador picked the site.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are asking Americans who are “high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” and willing to work over 80 hours a week to join their new Department of Government Efficiency – at zero pay.
Trump announced Dean John Sauer as solicitor general. Sauer was Missouri solicitor general from 2017 to 2023. Sauer has also worked on Trump’s legal team before, arguing his presidential immunity case.
Trump announced his former Georgia congressman Doug Collins as Secretary of Veterans Affairs. Collins ran for Senate in 2020, finishing third in the primary. He also, per the Hill, “provided counsel to Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election as Trump sought to challenge Georgia’s election results.”
Trump named his own lead attorney, Todd Blanche, as deputy attorney general, the second most senior position in the Department of Justice. Trump has nominated far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general.
As Donald Trump secured victory in the US presidential election, an unexpected phenomenon began trending on social media: young American women declaring their commitment to “4B”, a fringe South Korean feminist movement advocating the rejection of marriage, childbirth, dating and sex.
The movement has sparked intense global interest, with millions of views on TikTok and viral X posts heralding it as a women’s rights revolution.
Yet within South Korea itself, the picture is more complex and in some places the feminist movement is under attack.
“I had never heard of 4B until recently”, says Lee Min-ji, an office worker in Seoul who was surprised at all the international attention. “I understand where all the anger comes from, but I don’t think avoiding all relationships with men is the solution”.
Park So-yeon, a publishing professional in Seoul, says she does not date because she is prioritising her professional life.
“Like me, most of my female friends are more focused on their careers than dating right now, but that’s not because of 4B, it’s just the reality of being a young professional in Korea,” she says.
Janelle Bynum will serve as Oregon’s first Black member of Congress after the Democrat flipped a US House seat from the Republicans.
Bynum, a state representative who was backed and supported by national Democrats, ousted Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer. The win was a boost for Democrats who won back the seat after Republicans flipped it red for the first time in roughly 25 years during the 2022 midterms.
“It’s not lost on me that I am one generation removed from segregation. It’s not lost on me that we’re making history. And I am proud to be the first, but not the last, Black member of Congress in Oregon,” Bynum said at a press conference last Friday.
“But it took all of us working together to flip this seat, and we delivered a win for Oregon. We believed in a vision and we didn’t take our feet off the gas until we accomplished our goals.”
Here are the best, worst and weirdest graphics from the US election:
Social media platform Bluesky picked up more than 1 million new members on Thursday, continuing a surge to the platform as former X users escape misinformation and offensive posts.
Including Thursday’s arrivals, Bluesky has seen an influx of 2.5m new accounts in the wake of the US election to reach more than 16 million users worldwide, the platform said.
Bluesky has also overtaken Meta’s Threads to reach number one in Apple’s app store and enjoyed its “highest traffic day ever” on Thursday, according to Bluesky developer Daniel Holmgren.
The site suffered a brief outage on Thursday, with some users reporting significant delays when trying to load feeds and notifications. Spokesperson Emily Liu said the outage was the result of an internet provider’s fiber cable being cut and not related to the surging demand, which Bluesky’s team was “prepared to meet”.
Social media researcher Axel Bruns told the Guardian earlier this week the platform offered an alternative to X, formerly Twitter, including a more effective system for blocking or suspending problematic accounts and policing harmful behaviour.
“It’s become a refuge for people who want to have the kind of social media experience that Twitter used to provide, but without all the far-right activism, the misinformation, the hate speech, the bots and everything else,” he said.
You can read more about Bluesky here:
Donald Trump has wasted no time in assembling his incoming cabinet, issuing a flurry of nominations this week that – in some cases – have further heightened fears that his return to the White House will lead to an extremist agenda.
The roster of names has inevitably drawn comparisons with Trump’s 2016 victory, when he was reported to have devoted relatively little attention to a transition effort. Back then, his picks were described as “conventional” and the incoming cabinet was said have been broadly in line with that of a traditional Republican.
Eight years on and the shape of the Trump 2.0 White House so far has spurred serious concerns about public health and reproductive rights, and left military leaders “stunned” and former intelligence experts “appalled”.
Some senators have already expressed doubt that some of Trump’s nominees will garner sufficient votes to be confirmed – even in the Republican-majority chamber which holds the power to deny his appointments.
So how do Trump’s cabinet nominees in 2024 compare with those he made in 2016?
Elon Musk reportedly met with Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations on Monday, a day before Donald Trump named the SpaceX founder as one of the heads of the newly created Department of Government Efficiency.
The meeting was a discussion of how to defuse tensions between Iran and the United States, according to two Iranian officials who spoke with the New York Times. One of the Iranian officials said that the Tesla executive requested the meeting and that the ambassador picked the site.
As Trump prepares to address conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East, Musk, the world’s richest man, has been assisting in discussions with foreign officials, establishing himself as the country’s most influential civilian come January.
Earlier this month, Musk reportedly made a guest appearance on a call between Trump and the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who thanked Musk for the satellites he had been providing Ukraine through his company, Starlink.
“He’s now engaging the Iranians,” said Sina Toossi, a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, about Musk. “And the Iranians have not engaged Americans in direct negotiations since before Trump left the nuclear deal, so this could be a very big deal.”
California’s Democratic representative Robert Garcia called the nomination “fucking insane”, writing on X: “He’s a vaccine denier and a tin foil hat conspiracy theorist. He will destroy our public health infrastructure and our vaccine distribution systems. This is going to cost lives.”
Alastair McAlpine, a pediatric physician at British Columbia’s children’s hospital, wrote: “It is hard to overstate what a terrible decision this is. RFK Jr has no medical training. He is a hardcore anti-vaccine and misinformation peddler. The last time he meddled in a state’s medical affairs (Samoa), 83 children died of measles.”
The conservative pundit and lawyer George Conway also commented on Kenedy’s nomination, along with that of Tulsi Gabbard and Matt Gaetz.
“Very little of what Trump does these days amazes me. Any one of the last three of Trump’s Cabinet-level picks (Gabbard as DNI, Gaetz as AG, RFK Jr for HHS), standing alone, would arguably have been the worst in American history. The fact that Trump made all three in a span of roughly 24 hours is astonishing,” Conway wrote.
Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F Kennedy Jr as US secretary of health and human services has prompted widespread criticisms towards Kennedy, an anti-vaccine activist who has embraced a slew of other debunked health-related conspiracy theories.
In a Truth Social post on Thursday, Trump claimed that Americans have been “crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies” and that Kennedy will “will restore these Agencies to the traditions of Gold Standard Scientific Research, and beacons of Transparency, to end the Chronic Disease epidemic, and to Make America Great and Healthy Again!”
In response to Kennedy’s nomination, Public Citizen, a progressive nonprofit organization focusing on consumer advocacy, said: “Robert F Kennedy Jr is a clear and present danger to the nation’s health. He shouldn’t be allowed in the building at the department of health and human services (HHS), let alone be placed in charge of the nation’s public health agency.”
“Donald Trump’s bungling of public health policy during the Covid pandemic cost hundreds of thousands of lives. By appointing Kennedy as his secretary of HHS, Trump is courting another, policy-driven public health catastrophe,” the organization added.
Apu Akkad, an infectious disease physician at the University of Southern California, called the announcement a “scary day for public health”.
More now on Robert F Kennedy Junior, Trump’s nominee to oversee key US health agencies:
Kennedy’s Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit anti-vaccine group he led until becoming a presidential candidate, flooded American Samoa with vaccine misinformation ahead of a devastating measles outbreak there in 2019.
The position to lead the US health department needs Senate approval. If approved, experts say vaccines will be “the first issue on the table”.
Dr Michael Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota, said even if public policies remain unchanged, should authorities with the imprimatur of the federal government speak out against vaccines, “that discourages people who might otherwise be vaccinated, and at that point that’s as bad as not having a vaccine at all”.
The effects are not theoretical. As recently as last week the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a report that found fewer than one in six healthcare workers had received updated Covid-19 vaccines in the 2023-24 respiratory virus season, and under half had received flu shots.
Childhood vaccinations have also dipped since the pandemic. Vaccination hesitancy and misinformation were both cited as major reasons by researchers.
“We forget what this country was like 50 years ago – how many children died every year from polio, pertussis [whooping cough], measles,” said Osterholm. “We’re going to see the return of diseases we have controlled for decades.”
RFK Jr has also recommended removing fluoride from drinking water, although fluoride levels are mandated by state and local governments.
Trump has announced another pick for his administration: Dean John Sauer as solicitor general. Sauer was Missouri solicitor general from 2017 to 2023. Sauer has also worked on Trump’s legal team before, arguing his presidential immunity case.
From the New York Times: “As Missouri’s solicitor general, Mr Sauer took part in a last-ditch effort to keep Mr. Trump in power after his defeat in the 2020 election, filing a motion on behalf of his state and five others in support of an attempt by Texas to have the supreme court toss out the results of the vote count in several key swing states.
“He also joined in an unsuccessful bid with Texas in asking the supreme court to stop the Biden administration from rescinding a Trump-era immigration program that forces certain asylum seekers arriving at the southern border to await approval in Mexico.”
In a statement, Trump said:
I am pleased to announce that Dean John Sauer will serve as Solicitor General of the United States in my Administration. John is a deeply accomplished, masterful appellate attorney, who clerked for Justice Antonin Scalia in the United States Supreme Court, served as Solicitor General of Missouri for six years, and has extensive experience practicing before the US Supreme Court and other Appellate Courts.
Most recently, John was the lead counsel representing me in the Supreme Court in Trump v. United States, winning a Historic Victory on Presidential Immunity, which was key to defeating the unConstitutional campaign of Lawfare against me and the entire MAGA Movement. John was a Rhodes Scholar, graduated from Duke University, Oxford University and is a Magna Cum Laude graduate of Harvard Law School. John will be a great Champion for us as we Make America Great Again!
Trump is announcing another flurry of names for his administration, including in a statement sent out minutes ago, former Georgia congressman Doug Collins as Secretary of Veterans Affairs.
Collins ran for Senate in 2020, finishing third in the primary. He also, per the Hill, “provided counsel to Trump in the aftermath of the 2020 presidential election as Trump sought to challenge Georgia’s election results.”
Trump’s statement reads:
I am pleased to announce my intent to nominate former Congressman Doug Collins, of Georgia, as The United States Secretary for Veterans Affairs (VA). Doug is a Veteran himself, who currently serves our Nation as a Chaplain in the United States Air Force Reserve Command, and fought for our Country in the Iraq War. We must take care of our brave men and women in uniform, and Doug will be a great advocate for our Active Duty Servicemembers, Veterans, and Military Families to ensure they have the support they need. Thank you, Doug, for your willingness to serve our Country in this very important role!
Donald Trump has named his own lead attorney, Todd Blanche, as deputy attorney general, the second most senior position in the Department of Justice. Trump has nominated far-right Republican congressman Matt Gaetz as attorney general.
In a statement, the president-elect said:
I am pleased to announce that Todd Blanche will serve as Deputy Attorney General in my Administration. Todd is an excellent attorney who will be a crucial leader in the Justice Department, fixing what has been a broken System of Justice for far too long. Todd prosecuted gangs and other federal crimes as a Chief in the Southern District of New York United States Attorney’s Office, clerked for two Federal Judges, and graduated with Honors from law school, while working full time at the SDNY. Todd is going to do a great job as we, Make America Great Again.
Donald Trump has continued to nominate loyalists with dubious qualifications to his upcoming administration. The most significant nomination of the day of of Robert F Kennedy, Jr to lead the Health and Human Services department.
If confirmed, Kennedy – who has gained notoriety for being one of the most persistent and successful purveyors of misinformation about vaccines – would be in charge of the department that oversees the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kennedy joined forces with Trump and promised to “Make American Healthy Again” after dropping his own presidential bid. Public health experts warn that his involvement in the US health and medical infrastructure could have devastating consequences.
Trump also named Jay Clayton, his former SEC chair, to serve as US attorney for the southern district of New York. The court often handles high-profile financial fraud cases.
Two prominent senators have called for the House ethics committee to share with them its investigation into Matt Gaetz, who Donald Trump nominated to serve as attorney general in his administration. Gaetz resigned his seat in Congress shortly after, likely stopping the release of the report into allegations of sexual misconduct and drug use, but the Democratic senator Dick Durbin and his Republican counterpart John Cornyn said the document should be shared with them, if Gaetz’s nomination is to proceed.
Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted as House speaker last year in a putsch backed by Gaetz, said the ex-congressman “won’t get confirmed” as attorney general.
Trump’s former national security adviser John Bolton said that before either is confirmed, the FBI should investigate both Gaetz and Tulsi Gabbard, who Trump nominated as director of national intelligence. She is known for her tolerant view of Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad, both US adversaries.
Nikki Haley said she was never interested in serving in Trump’s cabinet. She was UN ambassador during his first term, but Trump recently said he would not bring her back into his government.
The Onion is buying conspiracy theory hub InfoWars in a bankruptcy auction, after its creator Alex Jones was hit with a massive defamation judgment from families of the Sandy Hook shooting victims.
Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy are asking Americans who are “high-IQ small-government revolutionaries” and willing to work over 80 hours a week to join their new Department of Government Efficiency – at zero pay.
In a new X post on Thursday that doubled as a job announcement and another one of Musk’s trolling attempts, the account for the newly formed Doge wrote: “We don’t need more part-time idea generators. We need super high-IQ small-government revolutionaries willing to work 80+ hours per week on unglamorous cost-cutting.”
The name of the department, which is not part of the federal government, harkens back to a meme of an expressive shiba inu dog.
“If that’s you, DM this account with your CV. Elon & Vivek will review the top 1% of applicants,” the statement added.
In a separate post, Musk chimed in on the callout, saying: “Indeed, this will be tedious work, make lots of enemies & compensation is zero.”
“What a great deal!” Musk, the richest man in the world, wrote with a laughing emoji. He has promised to reduce federal bureaucracy by a third and cut $2tn from US government spending, an endeavor he said “necessarily involves some temporary hardship”.
Source: US Politics - theguardian.com
