Trump Confirms RFK Jr. Would Tackle Food and Health Policy

By Ryan Hanrahan

Politico’s Grace Yarrow reported Monday that “former President Donald Trump confirmed to Joe Rogan in a podcast episode released Friday that Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a former presidential candidate and current MAHA (“Make America Healthy Again”) crusader, would have a place in his administration to focus on health and food policy.”

“‘I’m gonna let him go wild on health. I’m gonna let him go wild on the food. I’m gonna let him go wild on medicines,’ Trump said of Kennedy,” according to one report.

The Hill’s Ashleigh Fields reported about two weeks ago that “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. signaled in a new video that if former President Trump wins November’s election, he could join the administration to work on agriculture policy. Kennedy, who suspended most of his campaign earlier this year and backed Trump, outlined a list of priorities he said he would usher in for the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) if Trump is elected.”

“‘When @realDonaldTrump gets me inside the USDA, we’re going to give farmers an off-ramp from the current system that destroys soil, makes people sick, and harms family farms,’ he wrote Monday on the social platform X, along with a video asking supporters to donate to his ‘Make America Healthy Again’ cause,” Fields reported. “…’America’s current ag policy is destroying America’s health on every level. It’s destroying the economic health of farmers by forcing them to get big or get out,’ Kennedy said in the video. ‘Big corporate farms do just fine, while the small and medium family operators are squeezed to the point of collapse.’”

“He then touched on issues caused by toxic pesticides and polluted soil and shared plans to remove internal ‘conflicts of interest’ within the agency,” Fields reported. “‘We’re going to ban the worst agricultural chemicals that are already prohibited in other countries. And we’re going to remove conflicts of interest from the USDA dietary panels and commissions,’ he said. ‘I’ve seen some of what America’s most innovative, regenerative farmers are doing today. They can literally green deserts. They rebuild depleted soils, wells that have been dry for 30 years start flowing again.’”

Some Farmers Concerned

Progressive Farmer’s Chris Clayton reported last week that “Missouri farmer Blake Hurst is surprised that American farm groups aren’t pushing back on Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s assertions that agriculture is destroying America’s health.”

“Hurst, a former president of the Missouri Farm Bureau, wrote an op-ed criticizing some of Kennedy’s views. In an interview with DTN, Hurst said he’s not surprised farm leaders are being quiet about Kennedy’s plans for farmers,” Clayton reported. “‘Everything is so tribal,’ Hurst said. ‘We’re in the Trump tribe and we don’t want to criticize it. Trump did it so it has to be good, right? The second thing is there’s an assumption we’re supposed to take him (Kennedy) figuratively and not literally.’”

“Hurst said he believes one of Trump’s biggest successes economically in his first term was the administration’s entire emphasis on deregulation,” Clayton reported. “‘And I think you can draw a direct line from those efforts to the performance of the economy,’ Hurst said. ‘Some of the things RFK Jr. is talking about will lead in the other direction. Rather, it would be a 180-degree turn from the first term, so that has to be concerning.’”

Clayton reported that “Kennedy’s positions also run counter to the Trump campaign’s responses to the American Farm Bureau Federation questionnaire on agriculture in which the former president said he would reverse Biden-Harris regulations.”

Trump Confirms RFK Jr. Would Tackle Food and Health Policy was originally published by Farmdoc.