Former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Democratic presidential candidate, attends the 88th Winter Meeting of the U.S. Conference of Mayors in Washington, DC, on January 22, 2020.
Yasin Öztürk | Anadolu Agency | fake images
Billionaire and public health advocate Mike Bloomberg on Tuesday criticized Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump's pick for U.S. health secretary, for his anti-vaccine record and urged the Senate to reject his candidacy to lead the country's main health agencies.
“Imagine if RFK Jr. had been in office during Trump's first term,” Bloomberg said at the Bloomberg American Health Summit in Washington DC.
“Would Operation Warp Speed have happened? And if it had, how long would vaccines have been delayed? How many fewer people would have received the vaccine? How many more people would have died?”
“The only thing we can say with certainty is this: it would have made Covid even more deadly and economically more painful,” he said.
Giving RFK Jr. the power to direct American health policy, he warned, would be “more than dangerous: it would be medical malpractice on a grand scale.”
The former New York City mayor spent nearly his entire 19-minute speech criticizing Kennedy's spread of vaccine misinformation, including his “outrageous and false claim” that the Covid-19 vaccine was the “most mortal ever made.”
Bloomberg, who ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, has long advocated for public health reforms, both as mayor and through his philanthropic efforts.
RFK Jr. initially ran for president in 2024 as a Democrat, but switched to an independent candidacy and then dropped out to endorse Trump.
An environmental lawyer and son of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, RFK Jr.'s campaign gave him a prominent national platform and gave oxygen to his vaccine conspiracy theories.
In Tuesday's speech, Bloomberg directly appealed to U.S. senators not to confirm RFK Jr. to the cabinet of the incoming Trump administration.
“We cannot allow Kennedy or Trump or anyone else to bring unimaginable suffering to the American people,” he said.
Bloomberg expressed hope that Senate Republicans will convince Trump to reconsider RFK Jr.'s nomination before they are asked to intervene. But if Trump upholds his election, then the Senate “has a duty to our entire country, but especially to our children, to vote no,” he said.
Bloomberg also admonished Democrats who appear willing to let RFK Jr. lead the Department of Health and Human Services because of his advocacy against junk food and processed foods.
“We don't need to choose between someone who is for healthy foods and someone who is for vaccines. Americans deserve both,” he said.
Bloomberg noted that he had fought for numerous restrictions on unhealthy products while he was mayor, including an effort to ban large sugary drinks. Those fights generated negative reactions from conservatives and affected consumer industries at the time.
But RFK Jr. has taken a similar stance, backing a plan he says aims to “make America healthy again” alongside Republicans.
Bloomberg credited his own efforts for increasing the life expectancy of New Yorkers and praised the investments his philanthropic foundation continues to make to combat ailments such as diabetes and heart disease.
“But if the federal government takes a step back on vaccines, all that progress will disappear,” he said, suggesting that doing so could result in millions of unnecessary deaths.
And if the government starts investing in “crazy conspiracy theories,” then funding for research into cures for other diseases could be delayed by years, Bloomberg argued.
“It is surprising that the Senate would even consider giving Kennedy any power over American health policy,” he said.
“Whatever your stance on food policies, it's not enough to overcome your opposition to vaccines.”
