Mike Bloomberg warns RFK Jr. at HHS summit risks killing Americans

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 head the country’s main health agencies.

“Imagine if RFK Jr. had been in power during Trump’s first term,” Bloomberg said at the Bloomberg American Health Summit in Washington DC.

“Would Operation Warp Speed ​​even have happened? And if it had happened, how long would the vaccines have been delayed? How many fewer people would have been vaccinated? How many more people would have died ?”

“All we can say with certainty is this: It would have made Covid even more deadly and even more economically painful,” he said.

Giving RFK Jr. the power to direct U.S. health policy, he warned, would be “more than dangerous, it would constitute medical malpractice on a massive scale.”

The former New York City mayor devoted almost his entire 19-minute speech to denouncing Kennedy’s spread of misinformation about vaccines, including his “outrageous false claim” that the Covid-19 vaccine was the ” deadliest vaccine 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 later dropped out to support Trump.

An environmental lawyer and son of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, RFK Jr.’s campaign provided him with a prominent national platform and gave oxygen to his vaccine conspiracy theories .

In his speech on Tuesday, Bloomberg directly called on US senators not to confirm RFK Jr. to the Cabinet of the incoming Trump administration.

“We cannot allow Kennedy, Trump or anyone else to inflict unimaginable suffering on the American people,” he said.

Bloomberg expressed hope that Senate Republicans will convince Trump to reconsider RFK Jr.’s nomination before they are asked for their opinion. But if Trump maintains his choice, then the Senate “has a duty to our entire country, but especially to our children, to vote no,” he said.

Bloomberg also chastised Democrats who appear willing to let RFK Jr. run the Department of Health and Human Services because of his advocacy against junk and processed foods.

“We don’t need to choose between someone who supports healthy eating and someone who supports vaccines. Americans deserve both,” he said.

Bloomberg noted that he fought for many restrictions on unhealthy products when he was mayor, including banning large sugary drinks. These fights sparked backlash from conservatives and affected consumer industries at the time.

But RFK Jr. took a similar approach, endorsing a plan he said aims to “make America healthy again” alongside Republicans.

Bloomberg credited his own efforts with increasing the life expectancy of New Yorkers and touted the investments his philanthropic foundation continues to make to fight diseases like diabetes and heart disease.

“But if the federal government pulls out of vaccination, all this progress will disappear,” he said, suggesting it could lead to 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 for years, Bloomberg explained.

“It is mind-boggling that the Senate would even consider giving Kennedy any power over American health policy,” he said.

“Whatever one may think of his positions on food policies, they are far from being enough to overcome his opposition to vaccines.”