Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. praised President Donald Trump at a MAHA commission event at the White House on Thursday. Kennedy said he has never seen a president who is willing to stand up to industry and willing to talk about difficult issues. Kennedy added he has never heard Trump say “we can’t do that.” “I’ve met every president since my uncle was president. And I’ve never seen a president, Democrat or Republican, that is willing to stand up to industry when it’s the right thing to do, and willing to talk about really difficult issues and to hold his stand on those issues. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’m very, very grateful to you,” Kennedy said. “My uncle tried to do this, but he got killed and it never got done,” Kennedy said about good health policy in the United States. “I’m so proud of this cabinet,” Kennedy said. “And particularly [Agriculture] Secretary Rollins, and [EPA] Administrator Zeldin who, again, I’ll say for the 3rd time, worked late, late nights early into the morning to make this happen. And all the leadership from the White House staff beginning with Stephen Miller.” “This is the beginning of a conversation, a national conversation that we are going to have the surety with nuance for the first time in history,” he said. “Thanks to your leadership, President Trump. There is a reason that the MAHA moms sided with President Trump. It’s because this administration has the bravery to tell the truth and solve problems through innovation and not Nanny State regulation.”

HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR.: Well, thank you very much, Mr. President. I do want to say something, because I get a lot of credit for steering this administration toward the Maha movement, but I joined the campaign in August. I joined President Trump in August and went from independent to his campaign. But it was in June that he made a speech specifically on this issue. It was a Maha speech before Maha existed. And I took note of that speech at the time and thought, there is a potential here for a common ground. I want to thank you for your vision, for your courage, for standing up. President Trump is a populist president. He’s a president, he’s blamed for giving money to billionaires and all this stuff. We hear about that all the time. But he is on the side of the middle class, the working class, the poor in this country, people that I’ve been following. I’ve met every president since my uncle was president. And I’ve never seen a president, Democrat or Republican, that is willing to stand up to industry when it’s the right thing to do, and willing to talk about really difficult issues and to hold his stand on those issues. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’m very, very grateful to you. I’ve sat with industry again and again in a room with him and heard him say, we can’t do that. We’re going to do something different, deliver news that they didn’t want to hear. So I’m grateful to this. This is a milestone, there’s never in American history has the federal government taken a position on public health like this. And because of President Trump’s leadership, it’s not just one cabinet secretary, it’s the entire government that is behind this report. And I can say again, I talked a little bit about when I met Rachel Carson as a boy. My uncle tried to do this, but he was killed and it never got done. And ever since then, we’ve been waiting for a president who would stand up and speak on behalf of the health of the American people and say, there is no difference between good economic policy, good environmental policy, and good public health policy, and good industrial policy. We can have all of them. We need a united cabinet and we need to go forward as a single people. I want to thank you for that, President Trump.

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