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 guide the Division of Well being and Human Providers, he stated 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 stated 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 mirror 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.
Up to now, average Republicans have held again from saying whether or not they are going to help RFK Jr.’s nomination. Given the commanding Republican majority within the Senate subsequent yr, 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 quite a lot of potential points that RFK Jr.’s nomination may face. Amongst them: Given his views on the U.S. meals business, senators with giant agricultural pursuits may withhold their help, as may anti-abortion senators given RFK Jr.’s previous help 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 circumstances to funding for HHS. He stated it’s unlikely that senators would have the desire to rein in an government company in that approach, and that Congress already faces delays in passing full authorities spending payments as an alternative of simply stopgap measures.
“That’s not going to achieve success,” Gottlieb stated.
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Gottlieb additionally implied that there may very well be a chasm between RFK Jr.’s beliefs about childhood vaccines and people of President-elect Trump himself.
“I don’t assume the president desires to see a resurgence of measles, desires to see a resurgence of whooping cough on this nation, desires to see, God forbid, instances of polio on this nation.… I feel if RFK follows by way of on his intentions, and I consider he’ll, and I consider he can, it’ll price lives on this nation,” Gottlieb stated.
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 gained’t pay for them. Gottlieb referred to as the group 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 feel they’re lethal critical and have been very clear about their intentions, and I feel generally you need to take folks at their phrase,” Gottlieb stated.
Past his criticism of RFK Jr., Gottlieb additionally referred to as David Weldon, Trump’s choose to guide the CDC, a “very dedicated anti-vaxxer.” For the primary time, following a change by Congress, that publish 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 “displaying 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 because of 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 aimed toward dramatically slicing 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 rules that finish the corruption in authorities,” Ramaswamy stated.
Gottlieb isn’t the one former Trump administration elevating issues about RFK Jr.’s place on childhood vaccines.
Former surgeon common Jerome Adams has not too long ago voiced issues about will increase in instances of whooping cough and world measles deaths.
“Power ailments are important- however you may’t die from most cancers if you’re 50 in case you die from polio if you’re 5,” Adams posted on the social media platform X.
RFK Jr. and his advisers have referred to as for extra focus at federal companies on persistent ailments versus infectious ailments.
This text has been up to date with a social media publish from Calley Means.
