What Is RFK Jr. After?

On Washington Week With The Atlantic, Michael Scherer joins a discussion about his story on the HHS secretary’s plans to remake America’s public-health system.

Panelists on Washington Week With The Atlantic
Courtesy of Washington Week With The Atlantic
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Over many interviews, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told the Atlantic staff writer Michael Scherer about how he plans to remake America’s public-health system. Scherer joined Washington Week With The Atlantic to discuss his story, and what the Health and Human Services secretary may be after.

“What we do know about RFK is the caricature he’s caught in—this daily battle between people who think he’s destroying science or people who think he’s taking on the establishment,” Scherer said last night. Less known, however, is how “he got from being at the edge of the Democratic Party” to becoming HHS secretary in the Trump administration.

“I think the answer is he’s a fiercely determined person who is on a quest,” Scherer continued. “He has been able to plow through enormous obstacles and enormous detractors to really not lose faith in his own vision of what he’s doing.”

Joining the editor in chief of The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to discuss this and more: Scherer, a staff writer at The Atlantic; Dan Diamond, a White House reporter for The Washington Post; and Julie Rovner, the chief Washington correspondent and host of the podcast What the Health at KFF Health News.

Watch the full episode here.