RFK Jr. will fight for the American family at HHS

If there’s one thing Donald Trump understands, it’s the art of the deal. The architect of America’s new political realignment saw the value that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his broad coalition of voters brought to the table. So he invited them to join his campaign. It worked. That partnership led to a historic win that gave the Republican Party a rare “trifecta,” control over the White House, the House, and the Senate. It also gave the GOP a mandate to deliver on the MAGA agenda.

But what about the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda?

RFK has already committed to put in place the same set of historic pro-life policies that President Trump implemented during his first term.

Well, that was also part of the mandate. Trump made it clear that he valued RFK’s insights on the campaign trail. Now, he’s tapped him to head the Department of Health and Human Services. That’s not just an alliance. It’s a merger. MAGA and MAHA are officially united under one banner to accomplish our shared goals.

And one of those goals is to revitalize the American family. President Trump and RFK have a great opportunity to return the family to the heart of public policy by reforming HHS to focus less on promoting abortion, DEI, and gender ideology and more on promoting family formation and better health outcomes.

Still, some of my closest friends and movement allies have privately expressed concerns to me about RFK’s previous statements in support of abortion. I get it. I had my own concerns and voiced them publicly during the campaign. But I suspect we can trust him on this issue for three reasons.

First, Kennedy doesn’t appear to be captured by the modern left’s abortion fanaticism. While many Democrats proudly trumpet their support of elective abortion at any point throughout a pregnancy, even supporting late-term abortions when the baby can feel pain, Kennedy’s position has always been less gung-ho. On the campaign trail, he declared that “every abortion is a tragedy,” expressed his opposition to elective late-term abortions, and suggested that he would support restrictions on abortions after “a certain number of weeks.” This is a very far cry from the radicalism of the modern pro-abortion movement.

Second, Kennedy has every reason to follow through on his side of the bargain and execute Trump’s agenda at HHS. Kennedy has his own priorities, and Trump is giving him free rein to pursue shared goals. He’s not going to let previous lukewarm convictions about abortion get in the way.

Trump will be running point on abortion policy, not RFK, and Kennedy will certainly not be overruling Trump’s pro-life agenda at HHS. He has an agenda he wants to focus on, and that agenda does not include shilling for the abortion industry.

Third and most importantly, RFK has already committed to put in place the same set of historic pro-life policies that President Trump implemented during his first term.

In a thread on X last month, Senator Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) laid out a few of the specific policies that this would entail. Kennedy has pledged to end taxpayer funding of organizations that perform or promote abortions, both domestically and overseas. He has pledged to reinstate “the bar on Title X funds going to organizations that promote abortions.” He has pledged to reinstate conscience protections for medical professionals so that they can’t be forced to dismember children against their will. He’s pledged that all his deputies will be pro-life. And he’s pledged to reverse the Biden rule that ridiculously “reinterpreted” anti-discrimination law to force doctors to perform abortions.

We also have no reason to doubt RFK on the transgender issue. Again according to Hawley, Kennedy has already pledged to reverse Biden’s HHS rule that classified a doctor’s refusal to perform sex-change operations on children as illegal discrimination. And there is no indication that Kennedy would stand in the way of the rest of Trump’s plans to protect America’s children, either.

Trump made his agenda known from the early days of the campaign: He plans to block all federal funds from going toward sex-change procedures, and he plans to kick hospitals out of the Medicaid and Medicare programs if they continue to perform sex-change procedures for minors. He also announced that he would order HHS to investigate Big Pharma for illegally marketing hormones or puberty blockers for off-label use. RFK should take particular joy in that one.

I’ve liked most of President Trump’s nominations, so it’s hard to pick a favorite. But the RFK Jr. nomination is certainly up near the top. He’s a change agent in a department that desperately needs change. He’s a disruptor who will be overseeing powerful industries that desperately need disruption. That’s exactly the type of person we should want leading Health and Human Services.