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RFK Jr. is in his influencer era

The real reason Trump’s health secretary is launching a podcast.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is entering his influencer era as US health secretary.

Last week brought two telling developments that appear to mark a new phase of Kennedy’s leadership at the US Department of Health and Human Services. First, Kennedy launched The Secretary Kennedy Podcast with an inaugural episode focused on his efforts to overhaul the country’s food supply. And second, President Donald Trump nominated Dr. Erica Schwartz, a conspicuously conventional public health official, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention under Kennedy.

Those moves might seem contradictory, but they actually signal a new role for Kennedy within the Trump administration. The latter move is especially telling. When Kennedy was promising to dismantle the medical establishment that he blamed for so many of America’s health problems, overhauling the CDC was at the top of the list. And during his first year as health secretary, hundreds of CDC employees have been laid off. Four leaders have come and gone in a matter of months — one after a high-profile clash with Kennedy. It has been an agency in crisis.

But with the nomination of Schwartz, who has notably been an advocate for routine vaccinations in the past, to lead the CDC, Kennedy looks increasingly sidelined on policy by the White House.

Still, they don’t want him totally out of the public’s eye — not when Republicans are counting on Make America Healthy Again voters in the upcoming midterm elections. Instead, Kennedy’s job description now looks more like health influencer-in-chief, a podcast host with an undeniably enormous platform but not the policymaking sway that he once sought.

The White House has been disempowering RFK Jr.

After promising during the presidential campaign to let........

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