Jerome Adams, who served as US surgeon general throughout President Donald Trump’s first administration, is looking for Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be fired as controversy continues to swirl over his dealing with of vaccine approvals.
When requested by NCS’s Victor Blackwell on Saturday if Trump ought to hearth Kennedy, Adams mentioned, “I absolutely believe that he should for the sake of the nation and the sake of his legacy.”
Adams’ feedback come after a contentious hearing on Capitol Hill earlier this week, the place Kennedy was grilled by each Democrats and Republicans about his views on vaccines and the latest exodus at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, together with the resignation of its director, over tighter vaccine insurance policies Kennedy was pushing.
“I’m deeply concerned about the health and safety of our nation under RFK’s current leadership,” Adams advised Blackwell, later including: “I absolutely believe he is uniquely damaging the credibility of federal agencies like the CDC, (National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration) and he’s putting us at risk.”
The former surgeon general additionally raised issues about Trump’s shut relationship with Kennedy, arguing that the president ought to take cost of well being coverage.
“I’m just flabbergasted, to be honest, that he seems to have President Trump in a thrall,” Adams mentioned. “President Trump is clearly the leader on foreign policy, clearly the leader on the economy and tariffs. But when it comes to health he’s doing whatever RFK says.”
Yet, Adams mentioned he’s “hopeful” that Trump will acknowledge what he described as “the danger” Kennedy poses.
“I still am hopeful that President Trump will begin to see the danger that is being presented — not just to America, but to his own legacy — by continuing to have RFK in this position, making these horrific decisions,” Adams advised Blackwell.
During Thursday’s congressional listening to, Kennedy defended the modifications on the CDC, claiming that they “were absolutely necessary adjustments to restore the agency to its role as the world’s gold standard public health agency.”
When Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren argued that final month’s choice by the FDA — which falls underneath Kennedy’s purview — is successfully denying some folks entry to updated Covid-19 vaccines after solely approving it for a restricted group of individuals, Kennedy forged doubt on the efficacy of the vaccine.
“I’m not going to recommend a product for which there’s no clinical data for that indication. Is that what I should be doing?” Kennedy asked Warren.
Following the listening to, Trump praised Kennedy’s performance, saying that whereas he didn’t watch the listening to, “I heard he did very well today.”
But on Friday Trump appeared to distance himself from Florida’s choice to remove faculty vaccine necessities, that every one folks ought to get sure vaccines.
“I think you have to be very careful when you say that some people don’t have to be vaccinated,” he mentioned. “You have vaccines that work, they just pure and simple work. They’re not controversial at all, and I think those vaccines should be used, otherwise some people are going to catch it, and they endanger other people.”
NCS’s Adam Cancryn contributed to this report.