On January 22, 2020, Democratic presidential candidate and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg attended the 88th U.S. Conference of Mayors Winter Conference held in Washington, DC.
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Billionaire and public health advocate Mike Bloomberg on Tuesday condemned comments made by President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for U.S. secretary of health, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. anti-vaccination record And he urged the Senate to reject his bid to lead the nation’s top health agency.
“Imagine if RFK Jr. had been in office during President Trump’s first term,” Bloomberg said. Bloomberg America Health Summit in washington d.c.
“Would Operation Warp Speed actually have happened? If it had, how much slower would vaccinations have been? How many fewer people would have been vaccinated? How many more people would have died? Do you?”
“The only thing we can say for sure is this: it will make the coronavirus even more deadly and economically more painful,” he said.
He warned that giving RFK Jr. the power to lead U.S. health care policy would be “beyond dangerous and amount to massive medical malpractice.”
The former New York mayor spent nearly all of his 19-minute speech criticizing President Kennedy’s spread of disinformation about vaccines. false claims”, he said, calling the COVID-19 vaccine “the most lethal vaccine ever created.”
Bloomberg, a Democratic candidate for president in 2020, has long advocated for public health reform both as mayor and through his philanthropy.
RFK Jr. initially ran for president in 2024 as a Democrat, but switched to running as an independent and later dropped out to support Trump.
RFK Jr.’s campaign, an environmental lawyer and son of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, has provided him with a prominent national platform and given oxygen to his conspiracy theories about vaccines.
In a speech Tuesday, Bloomberg directly appealed to U.S. senators not to confirm RFK Jr. to the incoming Trump administration’s cabinet.
“We cannot allow Kennedy, Trump, or anyone else to cause unimaginable suffering to the American people.”
Bloomberg expressed hope that Senate Republicans will persuade Trump to reconsider RFK Jr.’s nomination before it is called upon for consideration. But if Trump supports his choice, he said, the Senate “has an obligation to the nation as a whole, and especially to our children:” Vote no,” he said.
Bloomberg also admonished Democrats who were willing to appoint RFK Jr., who advocates against junk and processed foods, to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
“You don’t have to choose between being pro-health food and pro-vaccine. Americans have the right to support both,” he said.
Bloomberg noted that he fought as follows: many restrictions During his time as mayor, he worked to regulate unhealthy products, including efforts to ban large amounts of sugary drinks. These battles prompted a backlash from conservatives and affected the consumer industry at the time.
But RFK Jr. has taken a similar stance, joining Republicans in supporting a plan aimed at “making America healthy again.”
Bloomberg credited his efforts with increasing New Yorkers’ life expectancy and touted the ongoing investments his philanthropic foundation is making to fight diseases such as diabetes and heart disease.
“But all that progress will be wiped out if the federal government pulls back on vaccines,” he said, suggesting that doing so could result in millions of unnecessary deaths.
And if the government starts investing in “crazy conspiracy theories,” Bloomberg argued, funding for research into treatments for other diseases could be set back for years.
“It’s mind-boggling that the Senate is considering giving Kennedy any authority over American health care policy,” he said.
“No matter what you think of his positions on food policy, we are far from overcoming his opposition to vaccines.”
