Sure, you may believe the current situation represents the worst possible political reality. But to that, I say, RFK Jr. 2028? It’s no joke; Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the longtime antivaxxer and current steward of the country’s public health, may indeed be eyeing another presidential run.
Axios first reported Wednesday that RFK Jr.’s super PAC co-hosted an organizing meeting last week over Zoom. While the meeting was ostensibly intended to drum up support for Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” movement, at least some people think he’s planning further ahead.
“A 2028 presidential campaign wasn’t explicitly discussed, but two people with knowledge of the call came away believing it was a step toward another campaign for Kennedy,” Axios reported. Notably, the meeting was led by Tony Lyons, cofounder of the MAHA super PAC, and included calls from prominent MAHA-supportive influencers like celebrity Russell Brand and motivational speaker Tony Robbins.
RFK Jr. is now the Secretary of Health and Human Services—a cabinet position he secured after ending his first doomed presidential run in the summer of 2024, followed by his endorsement of Donald Trump. Since then, both Trump and the GOP have largely embraced Kennedy’s agenda.
Under the guise of improving the country’s approach to chronic illness, Kennedy has overseen widespread firings and funding cuts across the many agencies under HHS, including at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration. He’s pressured companies to remove synthetic food dyes from their products in favor of naturally obtained ones, despite limited evidence suggesting the former are generally riskier to people’s health. He’s appointed like-minded vaccine skeptics to important positions, some of whom have already succeeded at having their nonsensical beliefs enshrined as government policy. And he’s pledged to tackle fictional threats like chemtrails while downplaying real ones like bird flu and the largest U.S. outbreak of measles documented in the last 30 years. Oh, and for some strange reason, he wants every American to be wearing a Fitbit by 2028.
It’s not at all certain that RFK Jr. will run for president again, nor that he’d have much of a chance if he did. After all, his first try—first running as a Democratic candidate, then independently—did flop. A recent Pew poll also found that a majority of Americans (43%) disapprove of his tenure as HHS chief, while only 36% are supportive. He’d also be 75 years old by the time he took office. But with Trump only having one term left (hopefully), there will undoubtedly be many would-be successors looking to take over the reins of the GOP. And few of these potential candidates right now have the sort of rabid fanbase that RFK Jr. can boast.
If the last decade of politics in America should teach us anything, it’s that nothing is truly impossible, for better or worse.
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