After a swearing-in ceremony at the White House last week, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., addressed the staff at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for the first time on Tuesday.
His remarks made it clear that he is ready to enact change at the department, promising that “nothing is going to be off limits” in his quest to reduce chronic disease rates in the United States.
On Wednesday’s show, Megyn was joined by The Unbreakable Boy star Zachary Levi to discuss the “Make America Healthy Again” movement and why Kennedy is the right man for the job.
Kennedy Addresses HHS
Rising to the helm of HHS is the realization of a decades-long dream for Kennedy, something he acknowledged in the Oval Office last Thursday after being sworn in. “For 20 years, I was up every morning on my knees and prayed that God would put me in a position where I can end the childhood chronic disease epidemic in this country,” he said. “Thank you, President Trump, for your leadership, your confidence in me, and your deep concern for the health of the American people.”
Kennedy said he and Trump shared a handshake on August 23, 2024, when he publicly endorsed him, and the president has kept his word ever since. That includes nominating him for HHS secretary and giving him the go ahead to enact the change they campaigned on.
That mission began in earnest Tuesday when Kennedy asked HHS staffers to “let go” of preconceived notions of him so they could start from “square one” with a shared goal. “My main mission at HHS – in which I hope you will all join me – is to reverse the chronic disease epidemic in America,” he said. “How are we going to do that? It isn’t by replacing one paradigm with another one by force. I am not going to come in here and impose my belief over any of yours.”
Instead, Kennedy said it is about giving the public the information they need to make informed decisions. “We are going to work together to launch a new era of radical transparency,” he noted. “Only through radical transparency can we provide Americans with genuine informed consent which is the bedrock and foundation stone of democracy.”
With that, he promised that public health recommendations would be scrutinized in a new way. “We will convene representatives of all viewpoints to study the causes for the drastic rise in chronic disease,” he said. “Some of the possible factors we will investigate were formerly taboo or insufficiently scrutinized.”
Those include the “childhood vaccine schedule, electromagnetic radiation, glyphosate, other pesticides, ultra processed foods, artificial food houses, SSRI and other psychiatric drugs, PFAS, PFOAS, microplastics.” The takeaway? “Nothing is going to be off limits,” Kennedy said.
A Healthier Way Forward
There was plenty of hand wringing on both sides of the aisle about whether Kennedy was the right person to lead HHS, but Megyn said it is hard to disagree with what he said. “Even if you are against Trump, if you are against Bobby Kennedy, whatever you believe about him, like, listen to what he is saying he is going to do,” she implored. “Listen and ask yourself: Wouldn’t this be great? What is so bad about this?”
Levi was brought into the fold of the Republican Party and supporting Donald Trump this election cycle because of his respect for Kennedy and Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, and he said Kennedy’s promise to pull back the curtain is long overdue. “Isn’t that what someone in his position should have always been doing, and what every one of those regulatory agencies should have always been doing,” he asked. “The FDA should have been on top of all of this, instead of just taking handouts from lobbyists.”
Megyn said it is refreshing to hear someone talking openly about antidepressants, pesticides, and how to prevent the health crises facing the U.S. instead of just treating them. Levi believes that will be the biggest change under Kennedy.
“There are even more effective ways of solving for all of this, and you really got to go to the source. You got to go to the root,” he said. “Why are SSRIs pushed on everybody so much? It is because there are incentive programs. Why are vaccines and the vaccine schedule pushed on children so hard? Because there are incentives.”
What needs to change, he said, is the incentive structure. “Why should there be incentives for doctors to push what should just be healthy, and natural, and good,” he asked. “You shouldn’t have to incentivize a doctor to encourage their patients to do something that has been tested and is safe and effective.”
“I think that if we actually start to regulate these industries,” he concluded, “all of that downstream pushing and stuff is going to kind of start to resolve itself.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Levi by tuning in to episode 1,010 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.