Donald Trump’s team appeared to be quietly distancing itself from Robert F Kennedy Jr in the immediate aftermath of the election amid speculation that the former presidential candidate could be handed control of US public health agencies.
Advisers to the president-elect questioned whether Mr Kennedy, a vaccine sceptic who has also been the subject of a series of bizarre stories involving animals, would make it through a security check for a cabinet position.
It raises questions about what role, if any, Mr Kennedy would be given in the Trump administration, as the Republican’s transition team sets about filling thousands of federal posts for his return to the White House.
Mr Kennedy had previously said that Mr Trump had “promised” him control of the Department of Health and Human Services and public health agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
However, there is disquiet in the Trump team about media attention on the former independent candidate after he was pressed in a post-election interview with NBC about his vaccine scepticism.
Mr Kennedy said that he would seek to fix the “huge deficits” in vaccine safety but clarified: “We’re not going to take vaccines away from anybody.”
According to CNN, a source close to Mr Trump said: “That is not what we want people focused on today.”
Mr Kennedy, son of the late attorney general Bobby Kennedy and nephew of president John F Kennedy, has also said he plans to remove fluoride from drinking water.
The claim prompted criticism from public health experts, who argued it would undo one of the great public health achievements of the 20th century.
Mr Trump’s camp is now questioning whether Mr Kennedy could get confirmed for a cabinet-level position by the Senate, obtain security clearance, or even want to go through those processes.
“If you dump a bear in Central Park and think you’re above the law, you don’t want to have to go through that gauntlet of political correctness,” a former Trump official told CNN.
In August, Mr Kennedy admitted that he had found a dead bear cub and dumped it in Central Park in New York in 2014, leaving a bicycle at the scene to make it look like an accident.
He thought locals, who have been baffled by the mystery for a decade, would find it “amusing”.
Mr Kennedy has also been accused of eating the barbecued remains of a dog in Korea – a claim he denied – and sawing the head off a dead whale to strap it to the roof of his car.
Despite attempts by his team to downplay Mr Kennedy’s prominence, Mr Trump singled out his rival-turned-supporter for praise in his victory speech.
“RFK Jr came in and he’s going to help make America healthy again,” he told supporters in Florida on Tuesday night. “He’s a great guy and he really wants to do some things and we’re gonna let him go do it
If handed control of the public health agencies by Mr Trump, Mr Kennedy said on Wednesday he planned to clear out “entire departments”.
“In some categories, their entire departments, like the nutrition department in the FDA, they have to go. They’re not doing their job. They’re not protecting our kids,” he told MSNBC.
“Why do we have Froot Loops in this country that have 18 or 19 ingredients, and you go to Canada, and it’s got two or three?”
He added that he could not eliminate public health agencies altogether without congressional approval, but would seek to root out “corruption” in those bodies.
Scramble for Cabinet places
Separately, Tom Cotton, the Arkansas senator, reportedly ruled himself out of contention as CIA director or defence secretary despite being seen as a top contender for those positions.
Mr Cotton, a veteran of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, will instead remain in the Senate, where he is a slim favourite to become the GOP conference chairman, sources told Axios. If elected on Wednesday, it would make the 47-year-old the third-ranking Republican in the Senate.
Mike Pompeo, who served as secretary of state in the first Trump administration, could return in his old role but has also been touted as a future defence secretary.
Another potential secretary of state is Richard Grenell, the former US ambassador to Germany and a Trump loyalist, who is said to have advised the Republican on foreign policy during the campaign.
Bill Hagerty, the Tennessee senator and former ambassador to Japan, and Robert O’Brien, Mr Trump’s former national security adviser, are also seen as contenders for the role.
Sources close to Mr Trump have said that he wants to staff his national security team, which will be tasked with ending the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, with businessmen and chief executives rather than military figures.
The Republican appointed a number of three and four-star generals during his first administration, referring to them affectionately as “my generals” before their relationship spectacularly fell apart.
Among those figures was John Kelly, Mr Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, who made headlines in the closing days of the election campaign by characterising his former boss as a “fascist” who admired Adolf Hitler.
However, Mr Trump also clashed with his first secretary of state Rex Tillerson, the former chief executive of ExxonMobil, who privately referred to the Republican as a “f—ing moron”.
Elon Musk, who was praised as a “new star” and “amazing guy” by Mr Trump on Tuesday, is expected to be handed a key administration role.
The president-elect has previously said he plans to install the Tesla billionaire, who has called for the federal budget to be slashed by $2 trillion, as the head of a new government efficiency commission.
