Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. President Donald Trump attend a campaign event sponsored by conservative group Turning Point USA, in Duluth, Georgia, U.S., October 23, 2024.
Carlos Barria | Reuters
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. doesn’t just want a top health-care position in the Trump administration, he wants your suggestions for more than 4,000 posts to be appointed by President-elect Donald Trump across the U.S. government.
Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy” website is seeking recommendations for appointees “across the future Trump administration” and allows users to “read, comment and vote” on those people.
The page titled “Nominees for the People!” says “President Trump and Robert F Kennedy Jr want your help nominating people of integrity and courage.”
Categories for appointees include “Government Efficiency,” “Economy,” “America’s Health,” “Peace at Home,” “Peace Abroad,” “Food and Agriculture,” “Technology,” “Labor,” “Education,” and “Energy and Infrastructure.”
Spokespeople for the Trump transition team did not immediately reply to CNBC when asked whether the president-elect had authorized Kennedy’s initiative, and whether the team would consider the responses to the website in staffing the future administration.
A spokeswoman for Kennedy did not immediately reply when asked for comment.
Kennedy, who is a vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist, campaigned for president as an independent but suspended his campaign in August and endorsed Trump. The president-elect at a rally in New York in October said that if he won the presidential race he would let Kennedy “go wild on health.”
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes an announcement on the future of his campaign in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S. August 23, 2024.
Thomas Machowicz | Reuters
Kennedy is the most-recommended person under the category “America’s Health” on his site, with more than 3,200 votes. He was followed in votes by Dr. Charlie Fagenholz, whose website says he is a “holistic physician trained in chiropractic, frequency and functional medicine,” and Sherri Tenpenny, a doctor of osteopathy who told Ohio state legislators that Covid-19 vaccines made people magnetic.
Under the “Peace Abroad” category, which includes “State, Defense and Intelligence” agencies, former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, D-Hawaii, received the most votes. Gabbard, co-chair of Trump’s transition team, reportedly is vying to be nominated for secretary of Defense.
Retired Army Lt. General Michael Flynn received the second-most votes after Gabbard. Flynn briefly served as Trump’s first national security advisor before being fired by Trump for lying to then-Vice President Mike Pence about conversations Flynn had with Russia’s ambassador to the United States. Trump later pardoned Flynn, who had pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about those conversations.
Charlie Kirk, the conservative activist, is the top vote-getter under “Education,” while former Texas congressman Ron Paul was by far the leading suggestion under the “Economy” section of Kennedy’s website.
While the top vote-getters received 1,000 votes or more, many other people suggested as potential nominees have very few, if any votes on the site.
Kennedy last week told NBC News that Trump has said he wants him to have a role in improving U.S. government health agencies in three primary areas: “clean up corruption at those agencies”; return those agencies to the gold standard, science”; and “make America healthy again” by reducing the “chronic disease epidemic.”
Asked if Trump would appoint him secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees a sprawling array of health agencies, Kennedy said, “I don’t know if that’s the post that I want.”
“I might be more effective in the White House as health czar or something like that, but we don’t know,” he said.
He also said Trump “absolutely” has “asked me to” take a leadership role in improving national health and policy.
Over the weekend, at an event in Arizona, Kennedy reportedly indicated he would fire 600 workers at the National Institutes of Health and replace them.
“We need to act fast, and we want to have those people in place on Jan. 20, so that on Jan. 21, 600 people are going to walk into offices at NIH and 600 people are going to leave,” ABC News reported, citing a YouTube video of Kennedy’s remarks.