Former Trump surgeon general says RFK Jr. must go

Jerome Adams, who served as U.S. surgeon general during the first Trump administration, said that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s time as HHS secretary "has been a failure" and he should leave the agency.

Speaking in an interview with STAT News, Adams cited RFK Jr.'s delayed response to the August shooting at the CDC's Atlanta campus, the loss of confidence towards him from HHS and related agency employees, and repeated lying.

"Well, he lied to Congress," Adams told the outlet. "It's actually very clear now — if you take the statements that he made during his confirmation hearing, and the things that he's done since then, and then his explanations for them in his most recent hearing — there’s only one of two conclusions you could come to. He’s either a bald-faced liar, or he's incredibly incompetent and doesn't understand what he's talking about."

He added that the secretary is continuing to make false or misleading statements about autism and thimerosal, a preservative used in some vaccines, that will "cause fear that is going to cause real harm to the public."

Adams added that the public's trust in the federal government's health agencies has plummeted, saying ,"objectively, we can prove that trust in the CDC, the FDA, HHS have plummeted to an all-time low during his tenure and directly because of him and the misinformation he’s sown. AAP, ACOG, AAFP, these major physicians groups are literally telling their patients, 'you cannot trust the CDC anymore because of RFK.'"

After the Aug. 8 shooting at CDC headquarters in Atlanta that left a police officer dead, RFK Jr. took "18 hours to make a tepid statement, which was really capitulating to his base, and in the meantime, he posted fishing pictures," according to Adams.

"They literally do not feel safe, physically safe, emotionally safe, working for him, and I don’t know how you’re going to run one of the largest agencies on the planet when the people under you have lost complete and total trust in you."

Adams also criticized FDA Commissioner Marty Makary. "Statements like, '100% of people can get the vaccine if they choose it.' Both he and [Makary] said that. They're either lying, or they're incredibly incompetent to the point that they don't understand all the ways in which they have set up new and unique barriers for people being able to access vaccines, that contradict their pledge that they made." 

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