The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal is coming out in opposition to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
“Senate Republicans have an obligation to scrutinize his giant closet of business conflicts and dubious ideas,” the Journal wrote in an editorial published Sunday ahead of Kennedy’s hearings with the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on Thursday.
The newspaper’s op-ed board said it expects Kennedy to “obfuscate about his ties to trial lawyers, anti-vaccine views, and support for sundry progressive causes,” while also “presenting himself as a truth-teller and slayer of government corruption, [even though] he’s as slippery as Anthony Fauci.”
“Most troubling is his long record of anti-vaccine advocacy,” the Journal wrote, noting the former presidential candidate has “tried to soften his vaccine skepticism since being nominated, and he now says he won’t take away anyone’s vaccines.”
The Rupert Murdoch-owned outlet mentioned that Kennedy’s financial disclosures show he has “received millions of dollars from referring clients to Wisner Baum and Morgan & Morgan, law firms that have sued vaccine and drug makers.”
“The risk is high that Mr. Kennedy will use his power and pulpit at HHS to enrich his trial-lawyer friends at the expense of public health and medical innovation,” the editorial board wrote. “Senators would be wise to believe RFK Jr.’s career of spreading falsehoods rather than his confirmation conversions.”
The Journal has shown a willingness to criticize Trump and his officials in recent years, most recently knocking the president for pulling the security details of former top aides who have faced threats from foreign powers.
