An RFK–Trump Union Would Be Total Chaos

The presidential bid of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ended where skeptics assumed it would, with a full-fledged endorsement of Donald Trump for president, setting off a battle by Kennedy to get his name removed from the ballot in battleground states such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and North Carolina. The universes of two political giants from opposite ends of the spectrum are merging, and speculation is growing that RFK could serve a role in a future Trump administration related to public health. At the least, Trump says RFK will be “very much involved” in matters related to “chronic health problems and childhood diseases.”

While some have backhandedly called this a political “marriage made in heaven” and said these two men are perfect for each other, they are worlds apart on the policies that matter most to RFK. It just happens they share a rising voter base that we’ll call the Dale Gribble voter, coined by Richard Hanania of the Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology.

What defines them? For Gribble voters, a reference to a character in the classic animated series King of the Hill, the credibility of American institutions bears the burden of proof, rather than highly online conspiracy theories about dark forces controlling the food supply, pharmaceuticals, and technology. On stage yesterday with Tucker Carlson and Vivek Ramaswamy, RFK called Trump’s GOP the “party of the common man” and the Democrats the champions of “Big Pharma, BigAg, Big Tech, the Big Banking Systems.”

You can imagine Dale Gribble raising his fist in the air as he smashes “repost” on X.

Kennedy’s unsuccessful independent campaign is built upon the lingering distrust of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 primary victory over Sen. Bernie Sanders, another leftward insurgent without deep loyalty for the Democratic Party brand. Those disaffected voters still decry the contest as ‘rigged’ and get their feedback loop from Breaking Points by Saagar Enjeti and Krystal Ball, alongside the Joe Rogan Experience and the occasional Michael Shellenberger post on Substack. These are the oddly absent hippie Democrats who used to loudly protest American militarism abroad, care about childhood obesity, and plot total bans on pesticides and GMOs.

Now that the left has categorized concern over obesity and diabetes as racist and part of class struggle, that mindset is most associated with Fox News’ outcast superstar, Tucker Carlson. In August, Carlson hosted guests Casey and Calley Means, who railed against the medical establishment as being designed to keep Americans sick and then make bank on their lifetime of hospital bills and prescription drugs. Less than two weeks later, RFK joined Carlson’s podcast to publicize his endorsement of Trump and echo those same guests almost word for word about the normalization of “chronic disease” in America compared to life in the 1960s.

Naturally, the culprit identified by Tucker’s roster of guests is processed food.

Kennedy then hopped over to Dr. Phil’s show to reiterate those sentiments, this time casting Ozempic as a conspiracy against the American people. He proposed that the US government intervene in the development of weight-loss drugs by providing three organic meals a day to all Americans, to cure diabetes nationwide “overnight”.

It’s no coincidence that when RFK sat with Carlson, he told the audience he had assurances from Trump that if reelected, the JFK assassination files would be released in full to the public. This is what Dale Gribble has been waiting for all his life. He hasn’t believed a word the government says about anything since JFK’s murder in 1963. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the living avatar of that skepticism, and Trump was simply the first major political figure to speak to these particular voters. Both can sing the song of fighting entrenched bureaucrats, corrupt politicians, and corporate forces colluding against everyday Americans.

Could RFK serve inside a potential second Trump administration? RFK was right when he told Carlson that he’d never get Senate confirmation for CIA Director. He’d also struggle, but less so, to get the spot of Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary, which his old running mate, Nicole Shanahan, teased a few days ago. It’s very possible he could head the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a post which he was denied in 2008 under President Obama.

Trump voters and disaffected Democrats don’t care about the inconsistencies between these two men on climate, abortion, or preserving Obamacare. It’s a simple “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” scenario, even if RFK is promoting the “chemtrails” conspiracy theory and renewing his usual pledge to jail those involved.

And here lies the problem with RFK’s endorsement, which he surely did not make to be made Trump’s ambassador to Afghanistan. He wants the EPA spot.

On policy, it would be an awkward fit. The actions of the Trump administration were at odds with Kennedy’s worldview, most notably when Trump’s EPA reauthorized the weed killer atrazine. Barack Obama’s EPA had pushed a reduction of minimum residue levels to such low levels that this essential herbicide became unusable on American farms.

Farming groups have been outspoken about how the EPA’s ambiguity on atrazine assessments is hurting the sector. RFK does not just believe that residue levels of atrazine could potentially harm growers and consumers, but he buys the conspiracy that atrazine is responsible for feminizing American males. It’s Alex Jones’ laugh line about he doesn’t want the government to “turn the frickin frogs gay”, a theory based on the long-debunked research of Tyrone Hayes.

No surprise, the claim about feminized frogs and American children resurfaced in Carlson’s aforementioned interview of the Means siblings.

If Trump were to get reelected and appoint RFK as head of the EPA, his mantra on crop protection chemicals would hit American farmers hard, most of which practice conventional agriculture, and all of which rely on the protective function of these products to provide reliable yields.

Understandably, the Trump campaign is seeking support from all corners, but it matters greatly to have some level of coherent policy overlap in an administration. It’s far from a match “made in heaven” when it comes to policy and not the concerns of Dale Gribble.

We know that Trump will at least be including RFK on his White House transition team, so RFK would be picking EPA and HHS staffers if he doesn’t lead an agency himself. This would mean chaos within the administration and chaos on American farms. Perhaps an RFK ambassador gig in Afghanistan wouldn’t be such a bad call for Team Trump.

Bill Wirtz is an agriculture policy analyst with the Consumer Choice Center.

Stephen Kent is media director for the Consumer Choice Center.

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