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      Trump’s New Cologne: Eau de Musk

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      I was feeling sad that Melania may not care to come play first lady in the second Trump administration.She visited the East Wing only a couple of times during her husband’s first term, turning into the first lady of absenteeism, according to Katie Rogers, the author of “American Woman,” a history of modern first ladies. Her office there was so empty, her staff used it as a gift-wrapping station.Even so, I thought we might get a little comme il faut from “the Portrait,” as Ivanka nicknamed her stepmother — a small bow to protocol.But not likely. As some in the Trump orbit point out, it’s no accident that Barron is going to New York University, not a university here, like Georgetown or American.Melania will probably “move in” to the White House and drop by the capital, looking impervious and gorgeous. But in general, the Slovenian Sphinx is going to get even more sphinxy this time. She has made her disdain for D.C. clear. She skipped the ritual torch-passing of having tea in the Yellow Room of the White House with Jill Biden as the two presidents met. Jill had to settle for handing a note to Donald to take back to Melania in Palm Beach.The New York Post reported that Melania abhorred the Bidens because of the Mar-a-Lago documents raid in 2022, when she felt violated by F.B.I. agents with a search warrant snooping in the drawer with her fine washables.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Kennedy’s Views Mix Mistrust of Business With Bizarre Health Claims

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      Seven years after Americans celebrated the licensing of Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine, President John F. Kennedy called on Congress to finance a nationwide vaccination program to stamp out what he called the “ancient enemies of our children”: infectious disease.Now Kennedy’s nephew, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is the nation’s chief critic of vaccines — a public health intervention that has saved millions of lives — and President-elect Donald J. Trump’s pick to become the next secretary of health and human services. Mr. Kennedy calls himself a vaccine safety activist. The press calls him a vaccine skeptic. His detractors call him an anti-vaxxer and a conspiracy theorist.Whatever one calls him, Mr. Kennedy is a polarizing choice whose views on certain public health matters beyond vaccination are far outside the mainstream. He opposes fluoride in water. He favors raw milk, which the Food and Drug Administration deems risky. And he has promoted unproven therapies like hydroxychloroquine for Covid-19. His own relatives called his presidential bid “dangerous for our country.”If there is a through line to Mr. Kennedy’s thinking, it appears to be a deep mistrust of corporate influence on health and medicine. In some cases, that has led him to support positions that are also embraced by public health professionals, including his push to get ultra-processed foods, which have been linked to obesity, off grocery store shelves. His disdain for profit-seeking pharmaceutical manufacturers and food companies drew applause on the campaign trail.People close to him say his commitment to “make America healthy again” is heartfelt.“This is his life’s mission,” said Brian Festa, a founder of We the Patriots U.S.A., a “medical freedom” group that has pushed back on vaccine mandates, who said he has known Mr. Kennedy for years.But like Mr. Trump, Mr. Kennedy also has a tendency to float wild theories based on scanty evidence. And he has hinted at taking actions, like prosecuting leading medical journals, that have unnerved the medical community. On Friday, many leading public health experts reacted to his nomination with alarm.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s FDA Wish List: Raw Milk, Stem Cells, Heavy Metals

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr., one of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s advisers on health, is taking aim at the agency’s oversight on many fronts.Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been unflinching in his attacks on the Food and Drug Administration in recent weeks, saying he wants to fire agency experts who have taken action against treatments that have sometimes harmed people or that teeter on the fringe of accepted health care practice.How much influence Mr. Kennedy will have in President-elect Donald J. Trump’s next administration remains unclear, with some suggesting that he could act as a White House czar for policy over several federal health agencies. Mr. Trump has voiced support for Mr. Kennedy in recent weeks, saying he will let him “go wild on health.” In his acceptance speech, Mr. Trump reiterated his support for Mr. Kennedy’s involvement on health matters.Some of Mr. Kennedy’s priorities are relatively standard, such as focusing on the health effects associated with ultraprocessed foods. Yet others threaten to undermine F.D.A. authority to rein in inappropriate medical treatments or to warn about products that can damage the public health.A spokeswoman for Mr. Kennedy did not respond to interview requests.Days before the election, in a post on X that has received 6.4 million views, Mr. Kennedy threatened to fire F.D.A. employees who have waged a “war on public health.” He listed some of the products that he claimed the F.D.A. had subjected to “aggressive suppression,” including ivermectin, raw milk, vitamins as well as therapies involving stem cells, and hyperbaric oxygen.Some items that he singled out had become flash points for conservative voters during the coronavirus pandemic, including ivermectin, which was found to be an ineffective treatment against Covid.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Joe Rogan Endorses Trump, and Trump Calls Him ‘the Biggest There Is’

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      Joe Rogan, the enormously popular podcast host who brought Donald J. Trump onto his show for a three-hour episode last month, endorsed the former president in a post on social media on Monday.Mr. Rogan, who also spoke at length with Senator JD Vance of Ohio, Mr. Trump’s running mate, and Elon Musk, a prominent Trump surrogate, on recent episodes of his podcast, said Mr. Musk made “what I think is the most compelling case for Trump you’ll hear, and I agree with him every step of the way.”“For the record, yes, that’s an endorsement of Trump,” Mr. Rogan, host of “The Joe Rogan Experience,” wrote on Monday evening.Minutes later, Mr. Trump promoted Mr. Rogan’s endorsement from the campaign trail in Pittsburgh, falsely suggesting that Mr. Rogan had never before endorsed a political candidate. Mr. Rogan endorsed Bernie Sanders in 2020.“He’s the biggest there is,” Mr. Trump said of Mr. Rogan, adding, “Somebody said the biggest beyond anybody in a long time.”Mr. Rogan’s conversations with Mr. Trump, Mr. Vance and Mr. Musk were overwhelmingly friendly, often full of praise for the former president. In his appearance, Mr. Trump courted Mr. Rogan’s audience, largely young and male, with talk of eliminating the federal income tax, mixed martial arts and speculation about life on Mars.Early in his interview with Mr. Vance, Mr. Rogan said American presidents “age radically” and “dramatically” once they take office.“Everyone but Trump,” Mr. Rogan quickly added. In his interview with Mr. Trump, he had noted that the former president’s meandering speaking style — which Mr. Trump calls “the weave” — appeared to be intensifying. “Your weave is getting wide,” Mr. Rogan had said. “You’re getting wide with this weave.”This year, Mr. Rogan had earned Mr. Trump’s ire by supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who had been running for president as an independent and who at one point was poised to draw support from Mr. Trump. Mr. Rogan had said that Mr. Kennedy was “the only one that makes sense to me.” Facing criticism from Mr. Trump and his supporters, Mr. Rogan clarified that he was not endorsing Mr. Kennedy, who ultimately dropped out and backed Mr. Trump.“It will be interesting to see how loudly Joe Rogan gets BOOED the next time he enters the UFC Ring,” Mr. Trump wrote on his social media platform, Truth Social, in August. More

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      A November Surprise That’s Jostling the Markets

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      The dollar, Treasury yields and crypto currencies have fallen, reversing some elements of the so-called Trump trade after an unexpected poll result. In the race’s final hours, a poll reminds the markets of the power of women voters.Caroline Gutman for The New York TimesDown to the wire Investors on Monday appear to be unwinding bets on the so-called Trump trade. In a major reversal, bonds have rallied and the dollar and crypto currencies have dipped in the race’s final hours.One explanation is a surprising new poll that showed Vice President Kamala Harris, powered in part by support from women and older voters, edging ahead in deep-red Iowa — a finding that’s also led to a tightening of Donald Trump’s lead in political prediction markets.Why the change of heart? The highly regarded Ann Selzer/Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll that was published on Saturday gave Harris a three-point advantage over Trump in the Hawkeye State, a Republican stronghold. “It’s hard for anybody to say they saw this coming,” Selzer said.Some urged caution about the poll. The Economist questioned whether the small sample size in Selzer’s poll made it a good predictor of what might happen in other states. And the Trump campaign pointed to another Iowa poll out this weekend that showed the former president with a 10-point lead over Harris.But Michael McDonald, a politics professor at the University of Florida who runs a vote-tracking site, pointed to similar dynamics in a recent Kansas poll.The Selzer poll has roiled the political betting markets. Following its publication, Trump’s odds of victory fell on platforms including Polymarket, after they had climbed in recent weeks, in tandem with crypto and other elements of the Trump trade.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Says Trump Will Seek to Remove Fluoride From Drinking Water

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      Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Saturday that among the first acts of a second Trump administration would be to “advise all U.S. water systems to remove fluoride from public water,” a stunning potential reversal of what is widely considered one of the most important public health interventions of the past century.The statement, posted on social media, is among the more concrete pledges made by Mr. Kennedy — a former independent presidential candidate who is now backing Mr. Trump — in his capacity as a top adviser on Mr. Trump’s transition team. It also raises the specter of an all-out assault on public-health expertise should Mr. Trump win next week’s election, a prospect that has already caused significant alarm among experts across the medical and environmental fields.As president, Mr. Trump would not have the power to order states and municipalities to remove fluoride from their water supplies; fluoridation is a matter of local control.But a presidential pronouncement would inject the White House into a debate that stretches back to the 1950s, when conspiracy theories swirled around fluoridation, with critics claiming it was a Communist plot to poison Americans’ brains — a view that was memorably parodied in Stanley Kubrick’s film “Dr. Strangelove.”More recently, however, there has been scientific debate around the practice, with some studies suggesting that excess exposure to fluoride — at levels twice the amount recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency — could harm infants’ developing brains. But scientists, including those at the federal government’s National Toxicology Program, say more research is needed to understand whether lower exposure to fluoride has an effect.The process of adding small amounts fluoride to drinking water, or fluoridation, began about 80 years ago to prevent tooth decay. That effort, public health officials say, has been extraordinarily successful. A majority of Americans today live in water systems that are fluoridated, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which lists fluoridation as one of the 10 great public health achievements of the 20th century.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Supreme Court Rejects Bid to Block Count of Some Pennsylvania Provisional Ballots

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      Republicans had sought to block the counting of provisional ballots by voters whose mail-in ballots were deemed invalid. Democrats celebrated the ruling as a win in a crucial state.The Supreme Court cleared the way on Friday for some voters in Pennsylvania whose mail-in ballots had been deemed invalid to cast provisional ballots in person, rejecting an appeal by Republicans not to count such votes.Democrats immediately celebrated the decision, which like in many such emergency petitions was unsigned and gave no reasoning, as a victory in a state crucial to each party’s presidential and Senate hopes. It could affect thousands of mail-in ballots in a contest where the latest polls show Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald J. Trump virtually tied.The ruling was one in a string of court victories for Democrats, whose voters are more likely to use mail ballots and were therefore more likely to have had their votes tossed out if Republicans had succeeded in the case.“In Pennsylvania and across the country, Trump and his allies are trying to make it harder for your vote to count, but our institutions are stronger than his shameful attacks,” the Harris campaign said in a statement after the ruling. “Today’s decision confirms that for every eligible voter, the right to vote means the right to have your vote counted.”The Republican National Committee was “disappointed” in the court’s ruling, a spokeswoman said.In a brief statement attached to the court’s order, Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. wrote that the case was “a matter of considerable importance.” But he said the justices had no way to give the Republicans what they were asking for — a statewide block on allowing these provisional ballots.Only Butler County elections officials were parties to the case, he wrote, which meant the justices could not force elections officials in other counties to block those ballots. He was joined by two other conservative justices, Clarence Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      From AI to Musk’s Brain Chip, the F.D.A.’s Device Unit Faces Rapid Change

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      The new director overseeing medical devices will confront criticisms about hasty approvals as she ushers in revolutionary technology.There are now artificial intelligence programs that scan M.R.I.s for signs of cancer, Apple AirPods that work as hearing aids and devices that decode the electrical blips of the brain to restore speech to those who have lost it.Medical device technology is now deeply entrenched in many patients’ health care and can have a stunning impact on their lives. As advancements become more tangible to millions of Americans, regulation of the devices has commanded increasing attention at the Food and Drug Administration.Dr. Michelle Tarver, a 15-year-veteran of the agency, is stepping into that spotlight at a critical time. She is taking the reins of the F.D.A.’s device division from Dr. Jeffrey Shuren, who forged deep ties with the device industry, sped up the pace of approvals and made the agency more approachable to companies. Some of those device makers were represented by Dr. Shuren’s wife and her law firm, posing ethical conflicts for him that continue to draw scrutiny.Dr. Michelle Tarver, an ophthalmologist and a 15-year veteran of the F.D.A.’s medical device division.U.S. Food and Drug AdministrationMore broadly, congressional lawmakers and consumer advocates have become increasingly concerned about the device industry’s influence over the sprawling division, which has a budget of about $790 million and a staff of 2,500. Device safety and standards for agency approvals of products as intimate as heart valves or neural implants will be at the forefront of the division’s mission in the coming years. Among the issues Dr. Tarver will encounter:Brains, computers and Elon MuskFew devices will require such intense oversight as one of the most breathtaking technologies in development: brain-computer interfaces that dip into the surface layers of the brain to decode its electrical noise — and return function to people who have lost it.Researchers from a number of teams have demonstrated the capability to restore the voice and speech of a California man with ALS, to enable a paralyzed man to walk and to help a man who is paralyzed below the neck to play Mario Kart by simply thinking about steering left or right.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More