Jerome Adams, President Donald Trump’s surgeon general during his first term in office, has joined the increasingly impassioned calls for Trump to fire Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “for the sake of the nation.”
When asked in an interview with CNN’s Victor Blackwell on Saturday whether Trump should fire Kennedy or not, Adams responded, “I absolutely believe that he should for the sake of the nation and the sake of his legacy.”
“I’m deeply concerned about the health and safety of our nation under RFK’s current leadership,” Adams said, adding, “I absolutely believe he is uniquely damaging the credibility of federal agencies like the CDC, (National Institutes of Health, Food and Drug Administration) and he’s putting us at risk.”
“President Trump is clearly the leader on foreign policy, clearly the leader on the economy and tariffs, but when it comes to health, he’s doing whatever RFK says, and it blows me away whenever I think about all that we accomplished with Operation Warp Speed,” said Adams.
“I still am hopeful that President Trump will begin to see the danger that is presented not just to America but to his own legacy by continuing to have RFK in this position, making these horrific decisions,” Adams told Blackwell.
Adams served as surgeon general from 2017 to 2021 during the first Trump administration, with his tenure coinciding with the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic.
RFK Jr.’s vaccine skepticism puts him at odds not just with the majority of medical professionals, but with Trump himself, who initiated Operation Warp Speed and the development of multiple COVID vaccines.
Trump also praised vaccines on Friday, telling reporters, “You have some vaccines that are very amazing… I think you have to be very careful when you say that some people don’t have to be vaccinated. It’s a very tough position.”
Calls for Kennedy to be fired have grown louder in recent weeks after a dust-up at the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control saw Trump-appointed director Susan Monarez fired after less than a month in the role and several top officials resign in protest.
These calls came to a head just before RFK Jr. appeared in front of the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, with every single Democrat on the committee calling for his resignation.
The post Trump’s Former Surgeon General Calls for RFK Jr.’s Firing appeared first on The Daily Beast.
