A couple of months after taking the reins at the Department of Health and Human Services, Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sat down with Dr. Jonathan LaPook, CBS News’ chief medical correspondent, who pressed the Cabinet secretary on some of his most controversial decisions. RFK Jr., however, repeatedly said he wasn’t aware of the actions LaPook was describing.
It was an embarrassing moment, but it wasn’t an isolated incident. About a month later, during back-to-back appearances before House and Senate committees, the HHS secretary ran into a similar problem: Lawmakers kept asking Kennedy about steps he and his department had taken, and he kept responding with answers such as “When did I do that?”
It reached the point at which Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington eventually told RFK Jr. that she wasn’t sure whether he was “the one making decisions” at the department he ostensibly leads.
All of this came to mind while reading The New York Times’ new reporting on the way Kennedy manages HHS — or, in his case, fails to manage HHS. From the article:
Mr. Kennedy has shown little interest in managing the details of work in his department, according to multiple colleagues. Instead, they say, he is single-mindedly focused on his top priorities, including food recommendations and pesticide exposures, and hunting for evidence to support his long-held beliefs that vaccines are harmful.
Deeply mistrustful of career civil officials, the secretary has surrounded himself with a close circle of handpicked advisers and stacked agencies with political appointees aligned with his views. While major posts have sat vacant and a wave of veteran health experts and scientists have departed, Mr. Kennedy has remained isolated from much of the department’s top staff.
The Times’ reporting (which has not been independently verified by MS NOW) was based on accounts from a dozen people at HHS, including many who have had direct contact with him as secretary, who agreed that Kennedy rarely engages with department employees or members of Congress.
Even his work hours have proven controversial: When he’s in the department’s headquarters in the nation’s capital, he “keeps a low profile” after arriving around 10 a.m., before departing by 4 p.m.