WASHINGTON — Scott Gottlieb, who served as Meals and Drug Administration commissioner within the first Trump administration, is elevating issues with Senate Republicans in regards to the president-elect’s number of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to steer the Division of Well being and Human Providers, he mentioned in a tv look Friday.
Gottlieb maintained that there’s “skepticism within the Republican caucus [on RFK Jr.’s nomination], greater than the press is reporting proper now.”
“I’ve had conversations, and I’ve raised my issues and I’ll proceed to lift my issues,” Gottlieb mentioned on CNBC in response to a query about whether or not he’s spoken with particular person senators in regards to the prospect of confirming RFK Jr.
Gottlieb’s remarks replicate an effort to undermine RFK Jr.’s. nomination earlier than the Senate reconvenes after its Thanksgiving break, when RFK Jr. may start assembly with senators to debate his affirmation.
To date, reasonable Republicans have held again from saying whether or not they may assist RFK Jr.’s nomination. Given the commanding Republican majority within the Senate subsequent 12 months, RFK Jr. must lose 4 Republican votes and fail to sway a single Democrat to ensure that his nomination to fail.
The previous commissioner listed a lot of potential points that RFK Jr.’s nomination may face. Amongst them: Given his views on the U.S. meals trade, senators with massive agricultural pursuits may withhold their assist, as may anti-abortion senators given RFK Jr.’s previous assist of abortion rights, together with “public health-minded” senators given his skepticism of — some critics say opposition to — childhood vaccines.
Gottlieb expressed skepticism that Congress may attempt to put guardrails round RFK Jr. by attaching situations to funding for HHS. He mentioned it’s unlikely that senators would have the need to rein in an government company in that method, and that Congress already faces delays in passing full authorities spending payments as a substitute of simply stopgap measures.
“That’s not going to achieve success,” Gottlieb mentioned.
Gottlieb additionally implied that there could possibly be a chasm between RFK Jr.’s beliefs about childhood vaccines and people of President-elect Trump himself.
“I don’t suppose the president needs to see a resurgence of measles, needs to see a resurgence of whooping cough on this nation, needs to see, God forbid, circumstances of polio on this nation.… I believe if RFK follows by means of on his intentions, and I imagine he’ll, and I imagine he can, it’s going to price lives on this nation,” Gottlieb mentioned.
Gottlieb warned that RFK Jr. may take particular actions dangerous to public well being, together with by disbanding a vaccine advisory committee to the Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention after which re-creating it stacked with like-minded folks and by irritating funding for the Vaccines for Kids program, which offers free vaccines when their medical insurance received’t pay for them. Gottlieb known as the workforce RFK Jr. is constructing “very skilled,” and pointed to people with ties to the anti-vaccine group RFK Jr. based, the Kids’s Well being Protection.
“These guys are succesful, I believe they’re lethal critical and have been very clear about their intentions, and I believe generally you must take folks at their phrase,” Gottlieb mentioned.
Past his criticism of RFK Jr., Gottlieb additionally known as David Weldon, Trump’s choose to steer the CDC, a “very dedicated anti-vaxxer.” For the primary time, following a change by Congress, that submit is topic to affirmation by the Senate.
Tensions have been excessive between Gottlieb and Trump’s picks for his new administration for a very long time.
Calley Means, an adviser to RFK Jr., has accused Gottlieb of working to “undermine President Trump’s reform agenda” and of “exhibiting disloyalty to President Trump.”
On Friday, Means posted on X in response to Gottlieb’s CNBC look that, “Belief in public well being has plummeted resulting from authorities officers like Scott going straight from the FDA to the Pfizer boardroom.”
Even earlier than RFK Jr. rose to prominence, Vivek Ramaswamy, who’s now operating a course of geared toward dramatically reducing authorities spending, made a dig at Gottlieb throughout an early presidential debate in December 2023.
“The chief, the commissioner of the FDA finally ends up on the board of Pfizer…. I don’t care if it’s a Republican or Democrat. We want some primary ideas that finish the corruption in authorities,” Ramaswamy mentioned.
Gottlieb isn’t the one former Trump administration elevating issues about RFK Jr.’s place on childhood vaccines.
Former surgeon normal Jerome Adams has lately voiced issues about will increase in circumstances of whooping cough and international measles deaths.
“Continual illnesses are important- however you possibly can’t die from most cancers once you’re 50 in the event you die from polio once you’re 5,” Adams posted on the social media platform X.
RFK Jr. and his advisers have known as for extra focus at federal companies on power illnesses versus infectious illnesses.
This text has been up to date with a social media submit from Calley Means.
