RFK Jr. Is Out for Revenge
The health secretary’s indiscriminate layoffs will undermine his own priorities.
By Nicholas Florko, The Atlantic
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is finally getting his wish of sucker punching the federal health agencies. This week, Kennedy began the process of firing some 10,000 employees working under the Health and Human Services umbrella. Even before he took office, Kennedy warned health officials that they should pack their bags, and on Tuesday, he defended the cuts: “What we’ve been doing isn’t working,” Kennedy posted on X. He is focused on “realigning HHS with its core mission: to stop the chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.” But instead of improving how the federal health bureaucracy works, RFK Jr. is throwing his agencies into chaos.
The Trump administration hasn’t released details about which offices specifically were targeted, but the cuts seem to be so deep and indiscriminate that they are going to hamstring Kennedy’s own stated priorities.