President-elect Trump has picked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Health and Human Services Department. Kennedy is the son of former senator and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, and an environmental lawyer known for his vaccine skepticism. Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, he encouraged people not to get vaccinated and has instead promoted treatments proven to be ineffective, like hydroxychloroquine. This is RFK Jr. speaking to podcast host Lex Fridman last year.

Lex Fridman: “Can you name any vaccines that you think are good?”

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.: “I think some of the live virus vaccines are probably averting more problems than they’re causing. There’s no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.”

Kennedy last year advanced a racist conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was “targeted to” certain ethnicities and that Chinese people and Ashkenazi Jews were “most immune” to the disease. He has promoted baseless conspiracy theories linking environmental chemicals to homosexuality or gender dysphoria. He has also peddled conspiracy theories about water fluoridation and is a supporter of the consumption of raw milk, despite FDA restrictions on its sale due to the threat of harmful bacteria.