After former President Barack Obama left his successor with a Pandemic Playbook, Donald disregarded it, and you know what happened next: COVID-19. Well, this time, as Biden gets ready to exit the White House and Donald prepares to move in, dozens of senior leaders in both administrations trundled into the neighboring Eisenhower Executive Office Building to game out how the new government would respond to an emergency, such as a pandemic.
It seems crucial that RFK Jr., Donald's nominee for the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, will be in attendance. He wasn't. He was busy lobbying Senators for his confirmation. Priorities!
The Washington Post reports:
For two hours, incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio, South Dakota Gov. Kristi L. Noem and other intended members of President Donald Trump's Cabinet hashed out their roles and responsibilities in the event of a crisis — splitting their time between a hypothetical avian flu outbreak and a hypothetical terrorist attack in New Orleans — as outgoing Biden officials shared lessons and guidance from their real-world experience. National security officials in previous administrations have characterized the exercise, which is a required part of the presidential transition, as essential preparation to ensure that a new government is ready for an emergency on Day 1.
But a top figure was notably absent: Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump's pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, the pivotal agency when a pandemic strikes."The one guy who should've been there wasn't there," said one attendee, who, like several others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe a private session led by the National Security Council. Most of those attendees said they were mystified by Kennedy's absence and wondered where he was.
So, what was more important than learning how to handle a pandemic?
Kennedy was two miles away, on Capitol Hill, seeking to sway senators skeptical of his candidacy to serve as the nation's top health official, according to three people with knowledge of his schedule that day. Rather than reassuring lawmakers of his readiness to face an emergency, Kennedy left some of them deeply rattled by sharing debunked theories about vaccines and making other questionable assertions, the people said.
For Kennedy's critics, including some in the Trump administration, the episode encapsulates several of their fears about his controversial candidacy. If confirmed as HHS secretary, the longtime environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist would take charge of a nearly $2 trillion agency that approves vaccines and medications, manages the nation's emergency stockpile of medical countermeasures, and helps coordinate disaster response. HHS officials also are closely monitoring potential threats such as avian flu and other circulating viruses.
The meeting alarmed Sen. Patty Murray, who RJK Jr. hoped to convince.
Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), one of the senators with whom Kennedy met in lieu of attending the emergency-planning session, was so alarmed by her conversation with him that she immediately released a statement warning about how "dangerous" it would be to confirm him.
"I came out of my meeting with RFK Jr. stunned," she told The Washington Post this week. "I have never left a meeting with a Cabinet nominee as disconcerted and troubled by their words in my entire career."
Murray was unaware that JFK Jr. had skipped the vital pandemic meeting to speak with her. I'm sure she's even more alarmed now.
