Trump-Vance campaign transition co-chair Howard Lutnick doused cold water on speculation that tech guru Elon Musk and onetime Independent presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. could land Cabinet posts.
While President Donald Trump has envisioned a health-related role for Kennedy, the scion will not get to helm the Department of Health and Human Services, according to Lutnick.
“No, of course not,” Lutnick told CNN’s “The Source with Kaitlan Collins” Wednesday. “He’s not going to be the Secretary, no.”
“That’s not what he wants to do,” he added. “He just wants data, and he wants to prove things [about vaccines] are wrong. And he says, ‘If I can’t prove they’re wrong, that’s fine. But if I can, I can save millions of Americans’ lives and make their lives better.’”
In order to become Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, one must get confirmed by the Senate, which would likely pose a serious uphill battle for Kennedy given his skepticism on vaccines.
Kennedy, who endorsed Trump in August, has publicly stated that he’d get “control” over the major public health agencies as part of the initiative to “Make America Healthy Again.”
“[What] Trump has promised me is – is control of the public health agencies, which are HHS and its sub-agencies, CDC, FDA, NIH and a few others, and then also the USDA,” Kennedy said in a video obtained by CNN.
“We’ve got to get off of seed oils, and we’ve got to get off of pesticide-intensive agriculture.”
The Kennedy scion said at a gala event in September that he wasn’t promised a position point-blank in exchange for his endorsement of Trump due to legal concerns about a quid pro quo.
Trump has crowed to his supporters about bringing Kennedy on in some capacity.
“I’m going to let him go wild on health. I’m going to let him go wild on the food. I’m going to let him go wild on the medicines,” Trump bellowed out during his Madison Square Garden rally Sunday.
“The only thing I don’t think I’m going to let him even get near is the liquid gold that we have under our feet,” he went on, in reference to oil.
The Post contacted a Kennedy rep for comment.
Regarding Musk, the space and electric car tycoon most likely wouldn’t get a formal administration position, but rather help the government from the outside, according to Lutnick.
“He’s not coming into the government. He can’t sell SpaceX and Tesla,” Lutnick said.
Due to the government contracts Musk’s companies like SpaceX enjoy, an official government role would present conflict of interest concerns.
Musk has boasted about establishing the Department of Government Efficiency, which he’s dubbed DOGE in a spoof of the eponymous cryptocurrency and some of his favorite memes.
Usually, government departments are entities within the executive branch that are led by a Cabinet member and oversee a litany of agencies.
“[Musk’s] going to be adjacent to it,” Lutnick explained, “and writing software for the government, and then giving the software to the government, and helping the government.”
“It’s going to be amazing.”
Musk has estimated he could slash some $2 trillion — about a third — of the roughly $6.75 trillion federal budget.
For context, discretionary spending for fiscal year 2024 clocked in at about $1.6 trillion. The rest of the federal budget is interest on the debt, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and other mandatory programs.
“We have to reduce spending to live within our means,” Musk previewed to voters during a virtual town hall last Friday. “And, you know, that necessarily involves some temporary hardship, but it will ensure long-term prosperity.”
The X owner has famously estimated that he cut about 80% of the staff at his platform, which was once named Twitter.
