Now that we’re nearly half a year into the Trump Restoration — proving, if nothing else, that six months can feel more like six years, or is it 60? — we can appropriately judge which of Donald Trump’s cabinet picks has been the absolute worst.
As of today, it’s hard to ignore Kristi Noem — the renowned puppy killer and secretary of Homeland Security — whom Trump praised for getting on TV so soon after the deadly flash flood hit the Texas Hill Country.
Unfortunately, while she was visiting Texas and getting herself on TV, Noem failed to sign off on putting FEMA into action there for three whole days. Maybe it was because, like Trump, Noem had called for the elimination of FEMA.
The feedback on this has been so intense — given the scale of the tragedy — that Trump has now decided that he may not disband FEMA after all.
Meanwhile, Secretary of SNAFU Pete Hegseth is always a contender. In his latest issue — which is either a massive screw-up or, if you’re into conspiracies, maybe a case of Republicans throwing him under the bus to save Trump — Hegseth apparently paused deliveries of defensive weapons to Ukraine without informing Trump.
So Trump, even as he was blasting his buddy Vladimir Putin for gaslighting him on the war in Ukraine, told Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy that he didn’t know who put the stop to the arms deliveries. So, to save face, I guess, he had to resume shipments, which is a good thing, but no thanks to Hegseth.
Also in the news, but not, of course, in a good way, is Attorney General and Trump-Sycophant-in-Chief Pam Bondi, who now has nearly the entire MAGA world mad at her for saying that convicted child molester Jeffrey Epstein never had a client list, even though she had promised she had one on her desk.
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And you know what MAGA thinks of the DOJ report when it suggests that Epstein wasn’t actually murdered in prison, but committed suicide.
MAGA conspirators were sure the Epstein list would show prominent Democrats as pedophiles or worse (not that I can think of much that is worse). Should we now think that maybe — just maybe — Hillary Clinton wasn’t actually molesting children or murdering Epstein?
It’s gotten to the point that even some Democrats are wondering whether there isn’t a list — which Elon Musk and others suggested might include Trump — and that it’s a Bondi coverup. With this cabinet, you can never have too many conspiracies.
And yet, for all that, the easy winner has to be Robert Kennedy Jr., although at least one prominent Colorado Democrat, with whom you may be familiar, doesn’t seem to agree. In fact, he says — and I’m sure you know who I’m talking about — that Democrats’ big tent must include those who endorse RFK and his anti-vax, anti-science, pro-conspiracy regime.
We may remember that many Democrats were stunned when Jared Polis said he enthusiastically welcomed Kennedy as Health Secretary because of his anti-Big-Ag, anti-Big-Pharma stances. Polis said he didn’t agree with some of Kennedy’s positions on matters like vaccines, but I guess he thought we should overlook that.
Some of us kept waiting — as Kennedy constantly blasted out misinformation about the efficacy of vaccines — for Polis to, I don’t know, apologize or at least withdraw his support.
But as late as last spring, Polis told Politico — during a meeting in Denver of Democratic pols and strategists who want to take what they call the “Colorado Way” national — “Democrats need to speak to a larger coalition.”
And by larger coalition, he meant that Democrats can’t win without accepting a wider range of perspectives, which include, apparently, RFK’s insane perspectives.
Saying that though he disagreed on vaccines — let’s give Polis no real credit for that — Polis says people should investigate RFK’s position for themselves and not simply attack Kennedy, the world’s most prominent anti-vaxxer, without doing the work. I mean, what about his campaign against synthetic food dyes?
OK, so let’s do the work, with some assistance from a helpful article in Vanity Fair.
As you may have noticed, we now have the highest number of measles infections in the U.S. since measles were declared eliminated in 2000. Why were measles, which used to kill children by the hundred each year, eliminated?
You know, vaccines.
Why was the COVID-19 pandemic basically brought to heel, saving millions of lives, although the virus remains active?
You know, vaccines.
You may remember Kennedy has called the COVID vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made.” And now, in his latest ruling on COVID booster shots, he said he would no longer recommend shots for “healthy” pregnant women and for children. Six doctors’ groups have filed suit against the ruling, which goes against most scientific evidence.
Meanwhile, despite promising Dr./Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, that he would not mess with vaccines to win his confirmation vote, Kennedy fired an entire panel of experts who advised the CDC and replaced them with — you guessed it — vaccine skeptics.
Can you guess where that will lead? I mean, other than more lawsuits.
He also hired David Grier, a discredited doctor, to study what scientists say is a nonexistent link between childhood vaccines and autism, a claim Kennedy has been disputing for years.
In a New York Times op-ed, psychiatrist Allen Frances explains why diagnoses of autism have grown so rapidly. It’s not vaccines, he wrote. It’s not toxins. It has to do with the changes in how autism is defined. Frances says he knows this because he was among those who put the new assessments in place.
Frances concluded, “If you searched the world wide, you could not find a less suitable person to be leading health care efforts in the United States or in the world.”
Speaking of which, Kennedy, as far as I know, had nothing useful to say about Trump’s decision to eliminate USAID funding for fighting disease, mainly in poor countries. We’ll have to see how many children — estimated to be in the hundreds of thousands or higher — die as a result.
But Kennedy did praise Trump’s Big Ugly Contemptible Bill that eviscerates Medicaid and eliminates critical rules made by Obamacare and which will, according to the Congressional Budget Office, cause as many as 17 million people to lose their health insurance. You’d think that limiting access to doctors might not represent progress for Kennedy’s MAHA (Make Americans Healthy Again).
You’d also think the bill’s cuts in food assistance to children might also lead to fewer healthy children.
Should we investigate?
After the death of the second child in Texas from measles, Cassidy was so upset that he called on “top health officials” to promote vaccination. Soon after Cassidy’s tweet, Kennedy tweeted that “the most effective way to prevent the spread of measles is the MMR vaccine,” which is something he rarely says.
But then on the same day, Kennedy sent out another tweet showing him with two doctors who happen to be anti-vaxxers and are calling for unproven therapies — budesonide and clarithromycin. Of course Kennedy has called for using cod liver oil and vitamin A to treat measles and now promotes an active search for vaccine alternatives. Meanwhile, he has nothing to say about severe cuts in funding for cancer research and Alzheimer’s research. He does do some of his own research, however, like swimming with his grandchildren in a contaminated creek.
Maybe we couldn’t find a worse person to guard the nation’s health.
Studies show that where MMR vaccination rates are 95% or above, people are protected by herd immunity. That’s how we got rid of measles in America. The rate in the country now for children entering kindergarten is 92%, and it’s much lower in many red states.
In Colorado, according to the latest statistics from the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, we’re at 94%, but that doesn’t mean there shouldn’t be real concern.
The CDPHE data also shows that school districts in 13 counties, mostly in rural parts of the state, are below 90%. Montezuma, Archuleta and Elbert counties are below 80%. You think Kennedy will help with that?
The MMR shots, numerous studies have shown, are effective in 97% of cases. But Kennedy thinks getting the shots should be a personal decision, because he doesn’t believe the 97%, I guess, and says more studies are required. Polis, who does believe in vaccines and whose children are vaccinated, also doesn’t believe in mandates. He supports personal decisions, which means, in my view anyway, that parents’ rights are seen as more important than children’s right to be healthy.
According to the World Health Organization — from which Trump decided to withdraw — the lives of an estimated 154 million children have been saved by vaccines in the past 50 years.
Is that enough investigation for you?
After my own personal investigation, I don’t see how it couldn’t be.
Mike Littwin has been a columnist for too many years to count. He has covered Dr. J, four presidential inaugurations, six national conventions and countless brain-numbing speeches in the New Hampshire and Iowa snow. Sign up for Mike’s newsletter.
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