Trump names vaccine skeptic as health chief

WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — Donald Trump on Thursday tapped anti-vaccine activist and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as his secretary of health in the latest provocative nomination from the incoming Republican president.

“We want you to come up with things and ideas and what you’ve been talking about for a long time and I think you’re going to do some unbelievable things,” Trump told Kennedy Jr. during an event at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Thursday evening.

Moving quickly since his election last week, Trump has embarked on a campaign of political shock and awe as he rolls out an administration designed to upend — and in some cases literally dismantle — the US government.

Several of Trump’s choices for top jobs — including a TV news anchor at the helm of the Pentagon and an ally embroiled in sexual misconduct allegations for attorney general — have unnerved the Washington establishment.

Trump also announced Thursday that his personal attorneys Todd Blanche and Emil Bove, who defended him at trial this year over hush money payments to porn star Stormy Daniels, would serve as deputy attorneys general.

Kennedy, a scion of the famous political family who is popularly known as RFK Jr., is a longtime environmental campaigner who abandoned a fringe bid for the presidency to endorse Trump against Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.

Trump had said previously he wanted Kennedy to “go wild” in changing health care and the two campaigned together promising to “Make America Healthy Again.”