Former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, a democratic presidential candidate, attends the U.S Conference of Mayors 88th Winter Meeting in Washington, D.C, January 22, 2020.
Yasin Ozturk | Anadolu Agency | Getty Images
Billionaire and public health advocate Mike Bloomberg on Tuesday excoriated Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for U.S. health secretary, over his anti-vaccine record and urged the Senate to reject his bid to lead the nation’s top health agencies.
“Just imagine if RFK Jr. had been in office during Trump’s first term,” Bloomberg said at the Bloomberg American Health Summit in Washington D.C.
“Would Operation Warp Speed have even happened? And if it did, how long would the vaccines have been delayed? How many fewer people would have gotten the shot? How many more people would have died?”
“All we can say for sure is this: It would have made Covid even more deadly and even more economically painful,” he said.
Giving RFK Jr. the power to steer U.S. health policy, he warned, would be “beyond dangerous, it would be medical malpractice on a mass scale.”
The former New York City mayor devoted nearly all of his 19-minute speech to slamming Kennedy’s spread of disinformation about vaccines, including his “outrageous false claim” that the Covid-19 vaccine was the “deadliest vaccine ever made.”
Bloomberg, who ran for president as a Democrat in 2020, has long advocated for public health reforms, both as mayor and through his philanthropic efforts.
RFK Jr. initially ran for president in 2024 as a Democrat, but switched to an independent bid and later dropped out to endorse Trump.
An environmental lawyer and the son of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, RFK Jr.’s campaign provided him with a prominent national platform and gave oxygen to his conspiracy theories about vaccines.
Bloomberg in Tuesday’s speech appealed directly to U.S. senators not to confirm RFK Jr. to the Cabinet role in the next Trump administration.
“We can’t allow Kennedy or Trump or anyone else to bring unimaginable suffering to the American people,” he said.
Bloomberg expressed hope that Senate Republicans will convince Trump to reconsider nominating RFK Jr. before they are asked to weigh in. But if Trump stands by his choice, then the Senate “has a duty for our whole country, but especially to our children, to vote no,” he said.
Bloomberg also admonished Democrats who appear open to letting RFK Jr. lead the Department of Health and Human Services because of his advocacy against junk food and processed foods.
“We don’t need to choose between someone who is pro-healthy food and pro-vaccine. Americans deserve both,” he said.
Bloomberg noted that he had fought for numerous restrictions on unhealthy products while he was mayor, including an effort to ban large sugary drinks. Those fights garnered backlash from conservatives and affected consumer industries at the time.
But RFK Jr. has taken a similar tack, endorsing a plan that he says is intended to “Make America Healthy Again” alongside Republicans.
Bloomberg credited his own efforts with raising New Yorkers’ life expectancy, and touted the investments his philanthropic foundation continues to make to combat ailments like diabetes and heart disease.
“But if the federal government steps back from vaccines, all of that progress will vanish,” he said, suggesting that doing so could result in millions of needless deaths.
And if the government starts to invest in “nutty conspiracy theories,” then funding for researching cures for other diseases could be set back by years, Bloomberg argued.
“It boggles the mind that the Senate would even consider giving Kennedy any power whatsoever over American health policy,” he said.
“Whatever one may think of his positions on food policies, it’s nowhere near enough to overcome his opposition to vaccines.”
