Robert F. Kennedy Jr has revealed one of the major points of disagreements in his and President Donald Trump’s relationship – in what may be the first sign of trouble in paradise in MAGA.
RFK Jr was put through a brutal grilling by senators at his confirmation hearing to become health secretary on Wednesday, where he was pressed on some of his controversial views on things like vaccines, Medicaid and fast food.
Despite coming from a Democrat dynasty, he repeatedly told the hearing he would follow Trump’s lead on policies such as abortion, saying: ‘I serve at the pleasure of the President.’
But the cracks in their relationship began to show when RFK Jr was quizzed by Bernie Sanders about climate change and its effects on people’s health.
Sanders stated that he believes climate change is real and is a health care issue, but ‘Donald Trump thinks it is a hoax [that originated in] in China’, before turning it to RFK Jr and asking if he stands with the president on the matter.
The ‘hoax’ statement referenced a 2012 tweet by Trump that said: ‘The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.’
But RFK Jr quickly answered, saying: ‘President Trump and I, from our first meeting, agreed to disagree on that issue. I believe climate change is existential. My job is to make Americans healthy again.’
Trump had criticized RFK Jr’s views on climate change as the two went head to head on the campaign trail in April, saying he was ‘a big fan of the Green New Scam, and other economy killing disasters.’
RFK Jr faced an avalanche of questions at during his confirmation hearing to become health secretary on Wednesday
The President went so far as to say that his now nominee was ‘the most Radical Left Candidate in the race.’
The hearing came just days after Trump withdrew the US from the Paris climate deal, and announced a broader agenda to boost the nation’s US oil and gas production, saying ‘drill baby, drill.’
RFK Jr faced dozens of questions Wednesday about past anti-vaccine statements, abortion and comments likening the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) to work to Nazi death camps and sexual abusers in the Catholic Church.
‘I support the CDC. My job is not to dismantle or harm the CDC,’ he said.
But when Sanders took the microphone, the conversation went from how health care should be seen as a fundamental human right to climate change.
Sanders has viewed global warming as a top priority for years, campaigning to declare climate change a national emergency while running for president in 2020.
He also promised to put the Green New Deal into action by investing $16.3 trillion in a 10-year mobilization ‘that factors climate change into virtually every area of policy.’
Sanders’ views were a far cry from those of Trump who has long voiced his opposing stance on climate change.
During his first presidency, from 2017 to 2021, Trump repeatedly expressed doubts about it being caused by human behavior, calling it a ‘hoax.’
And during the campaign trail last year, he called it ‘one of the great scams of all time.’
Senator Bernie Sanders questioned RFK Jr if he believed climate change was real, asking if the nominee stands on President Donald Trump’s side. The senator said he believes it is a healthcare issue
RFK Jr revealed climate change is one of the matters he and Trump disagree on that matter. Trump has claimed that climate change is a ‘hoax’ invented by China
RFK Jr, on the other hand, has a history of just the opposite.
He helped found a global clean water organization and pledged to be ‘the greatest environmental president in American history’ during his run for the 2024 election.
RFK Jr called for the end of subsidies for fossil fuels, stronger enforcement of laws like the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act and new regulations on plastics and chemicals. He also wanted to provide more protection for wildlife, lands and waters.
However, he has also said that putting all focus and resources to combat global warming was a ‘huge tactical error.’
While speaking on ‘The Real Cause of Climate Change podcast,’ RFK Jr discussed how he has been trying to convince friends and that natural ‘solar cycles’ are behind global warming, not greenhouse gas emissions from humans.
During another podcast ‘Planet Panic,’ the host discussed the continuation of coal burning, suggesting renewable energy is nothing more than ulterior motives behind federal climate policies, LegalPlanet reported.
‘These people expect us to change our lives completely and they keep pointing to the scientists and the specialists who know this stuff—but your scientists were so wrong… Why are we supposed to listen to you at all? It’s why I’m in the vaccine space,’ RFK Jr said.
He added that ‘global warming is a control—an enslavement system.’
But RFK Jr has criticized the environmental movement for losing focus on air pollution, specifically affecting America’s children.
In 2023, he said The main culprits are coal-burning power plants, which have essentially privatized the air entering our children’s lungs.
‘One in four black children in urban areas suffer from asthma,’ RFK Jr said on the campaign trail.
‘That asthma events are triggered by ozone particles, but come mainly from coal-burning power plants.’
He added that government corruption is to blame for permitting the release of unsafe levels of toxic byproducts into the air to help polluters avoid costs and increase energy output.
