DAILY CALLER NEWS FOUNDATION—The recent vow from Donald Trump and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to tackle public health issues together could signal a major shift in Republican priorities if the former president prevails on Election Day.
Trump has called for creation of an independent commission with the input of Kennedy, the former independent presidential candidate. He also has pledged to address various “Make America Healthy Again” issues that RFK Jr. has brought to the forefront, including improving the public’s intake of nutritious foods and addressing the rising trend of obesity in adults.
These concerns, in addition to other so-called MAHA priorities that have not historically found much support in the GOP—such as calling for more stringent environmental regulations—indicate that a potential second Trump administration may take a different approach on health, agricultural, and environmental issues than during the first term.
Campaign officials, GOP lawmakers, and health experts previewed a diverse set of these health priorities in interviews with the Daily Caller News Foundation. Tackling the rising chronic disease rate that affects roughly 60% of American adults is a shared point of concern.
“It’s finally turning the page and saying, ‘We want a health system, not a disease system,’” Dr. Robert Redfield, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said. “For 50 years we built a disease system.”
“When we send President Trump back to the White House, he will work alongside passionate voices like RFK Jr. to Make America Healthy Again by providing families with safe food and ending the chronic disease epidemic plaguing our children,” Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign, said. “President Trump will also establish a special presidential commission of independent minds who are not bought and paid for by Big Pharma and will charge them with investigating what is causing the decadeslong increase in chronic illnesses.”
Republicans, including former Trump administration health officials, are enthusiastic that marshaling the federal government in response to the country’s myriad health crises could turn the corner on an era where Americans are facing poorer health outcomes and declining life expectancy.
Redfield, the former CDC director, endorsed the idea of an independent commission on chronic disease and told the Daily Caller News Foundation that the federal government “must get more serious in preventing chronic disease” to turn that corner.
“It’s much more important to get real time, continuous, day-to-day monitoring of your chronic illness, not just the way the system works now where you check in every six months and someone tells you how you’re doing,” Redfield added. “No, you’ve got to check in every day.”
According to Redfield, a second Trump administration could cut the $4 trillion-plus Americans spend on health care every year by half if federal agencies take an “all-of-government” approach to targeting substance use disorder, obesity, and ultra-processed foods in addition to improving mental health services.
“These are, in my view, low-hanging fruit,” Redfield said. “That alone would improve the American health system substantially.”
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, who is helping vet candidates to serve in a second Trump administration, recounted running into a swarm of British schoolchildren on a recent trade mission to the United Kingdom. Miller said it provided further confirmation that a second Trump term must take action on obesity and processed foods.
“Ninety kids and there wasn’t one fat kid in the bunch,” recalled Miller, who has also called for bringing back the presidential fitness test program retired by the Obama administration in 2012. “That kind of inspired me and made me think we’re not doing something right.”
To improve health outcomes for the more than 40% of Americans who are obese, Miller told the Daily Caller News Foundation, a second Trump administration should consider ending the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program coverage for processed foods. [SNAP remains popularly known as food stamps.]
“Why are we paying for soda drinks and cookies and junk food with SNAP benefits?” Miller asked. “That needs to stop.”
Miller also pointed to his Texas Fresh Farm program, which provides fresh and local products to more than 5 million Texas schoolchildren as a program that should be implemented nationwide to improve a portion of the public’s intake of nutritious foods.
Republican lawmakers have also been supportive of a second Trump administration prioritizing nutrition as part of the “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.
“As a physician, I can absolutely say that good nutrition leads to better patient outcomes 100% of the time. Healthy food is medicine and is the cure for many chronic diseases and curbing health care spending in the United States,” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kansas, told the Daily Caller News Foundation in a formal statement. “American farmers set the gold standard for nutritious food, and the MAHA agenda will work with farmers and ranchers to continue producing the safest and most wholesome food at affordable prices for our country and the world.”
Implementing these priorities will likely require the empowerment of federal government agencies with budgets and enforcement powers that Republican lawmakers could be inclined to shrink.
Taking action on chronic disease and obesity will also necessitate buy-in from members of the public and lawmakers who have lost trust in institutions’ abilities to tell the truth and manage crises such a COVID-19 without infringing on individual autonomy.
“Our failed response to the pandemic opened the eyes of millions to the capture and corruption of federal agencies by the corporate interests who are supposed to be regulated by them,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., said. “As a result, the public’s interest is not being well served or properly protected.”
“Getting public health officials in the next administration that really spend a lot of energy on trying to reestablish public trust is going to be fundamental to the success of the efforts of Make America Healthy Again,” Redfield said. “The vaccine mandates were a big mistake. Closing down our economy—a big mistake. Shutting down our schools—a big mistake. So, there was a huge loss of credibility and trust that has to be rebuilt.”
Redfield said he is still a strong believer in vaccines, dubbing them “the most important gift to modern medicine,” but said vaccine mandates are a self-defeating approach and that debate about a vaccine’s safety and efficacy should be encouraged not denounced.
“I’ve always said that Bobby Kennedy is not anti-vax. Bobby Kennedy just wanted honest transparency and debate about vaccines,” Redfield said of RFK Jr. “We should foster discussion and debate, and if someone has a question about looking at data to determine a vaccine’s safety that shouldn’t be listed as anti-vax. That should be listed as wanting an honest, open discussion about ‘What is the data?’”
“As we secure our borders and rebuild our economy, we are also going to Make America Healthy Again,” Trump himself said Wednesday at a campaign event with Kennedy in Duluth, Georgia. “We have more chronic health problems than any nation, more childhood diseases than we did just a generation ago. Millions of Americans are realizing that something is wrong.”
“By getting this fixed not only will we have healthier families, we will save trillions and trillions of dollars and bring down the cost of health care,” Trump said.
“We have a thousand chemicals in our food that are illegal in Europe, but the problem is not from those chemicals. The big problem is corruption in our federal agencies. These agencies are now owned by big Pharma, by Big Food and Big Agriculture,” Kennedy told the crowd in Duluth. “Don’t you want a president that’s going to get the chemicals out of our food? And don’t you want a president that’s going to get the corruption out of Washington, D.C.? And don’t we deserve a president of the United States that’s going to Make America Healthy Again?”
Redfield also told the Daily Caller News Foundation that he’s willing to serve in a second Trump administration.
“I’m in the final turn,” Redfield said. “I’d obviously work in any way I can to help the president and Bobby Kennedy and our nation move toward health.”
Kennedy did not respond to a request for comment.