Impeach RFK Jr.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday. Francis Chung/AP

Of all the unqualified extremists Donald Trump has appointed to his Cabinet, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as of now, poses the most direct threat to the nation. The secretary of health and human services is devastating the United States’ public health system and promoting quack science that imperils the lives of Americans. In recent weeks, he has decapitated the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, canceled mRNA vaccination research that held the potential for amazing medical breakthroughs, and loaded an important vaccine advisory panel with vaccine critics.

His promotion of vaccination opposition—don’t call him a vaccine “skeptic”; he’s a vaccine foe—has fostered an environment in which Florida this week announced it was ending all vaccine mandates for schoolchildren, with the state’s surgeon general, Joseph Ladapo, bizarrely declaring every vaccine mandate “is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery.” It’s unlikely a state would have taken this risky and outrageous step if the federal government—led by the HHS secretary and the president—would have denounced the move. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has no such worries with Kennedy and Trump.

Kennedy is a threat to the well-being of the American citizenry. That’s why House Democrats should move to impeach him.

This week, in a column for the New York Times, nine former CDC directors—who collectively served under every president from Jimmy Carter to Trump—asserted that Kennedy has waged a war on public health. Here is their summation of the damage he has done:

Mr. Kennedy has fired thousands of federal health workers and severely weakened programs designed to protect Americans from cancer, heart attacks, strokes, lead poisoning, injury, violence and more. Amid the largest measles outbreak in the United States in a generation, he’s focused on unproven treatments while downplaying vaccines. He canceled investments in promising medical research that will leave us ill-prepared for future health emergencies. He replaced experts on federal health advisory committees with unqualified individuals who share his dangerous and unscientific views. He announced the end of U.S. support for global vaccination programs that protect millions of children and keep Americans safe, citing flawed research and making inaccurate statements. And he championed federal legislation that will cause millions of people with health insurance through Medicaid to lose their coverage. Firing [CDC director] Dr. [Susan] Monarez — which led to the resignations of top CDC officials—adds considerable fuel to this raging fire.

More than 1,000 current and former HHS employees signed an open letter calling for Kennedy to resign or be fired. They noted he has appointed “political ideologues who pose as scientific experts and manipulate data to fit predetermined conclusions”; selected “David Geier, supporter of debunked theories linking vaccines to autism, to lead an HHS investigation on vaccines and autism”; refused to be “briefed by well-regarded CDC experts on vaccine-preventable diseases”; rescinded “the Food and Drug Administration’s emergency use authorizations for COVID-19 vaccines without providing the data or methods used to reach such a decision”; and insulted the HHS workforce by declaring, “Trusting experts is not a feature of either science or democracy.”

On Thursday, Kennedy, appearing before the Senate Finance Committee, repeatedly lied during a contentious hearing. He insisted he had not broken the vow he previously made to senators to not do anything to limit vaccines, though that’s exactly what he has done. He falsely claimed the CDC was overrun by financial conflicts and inaccurately said that was why he fired all 17 members of a vaccine advisory panel. (His new appointees have their own financial conflicts.) He testified that he doesn’t know how many people died of Covid and whether the vaccines prevented Covid deaths: “The problem is they didn’t have the data.” But that data does exist.

Kennedy demonstrated his slipperiness by agreeing that Trump ought to receive a Nobel prize for Operation Warp Speed, which developed the Covid vaccines, though he has previously said the Covid vaccine killed many people and was a “crime against humanity.” He told the senators that “there are no cuts to Medicaid.” But the Congressional Budget Office says that Medicaid provisions in Trump’s tax-and-spending bill would increase the number of people without health insurance by 7.8 million in 2034. And RFK Jr. hurled other falsehoods.

None of this is new. Kennedy has long been shown to be a deranged liar and conspiracy theorist. He lied during his confirmation hearings to hide his not-secret agenda to annihilate the nation’s vaccine regimen. And now we can see what happens when a disingenuous crusader obsessed with crackpot notions is put in charge of the US public health system.

Medical and scientific organizations—including the American Public Health Association, the American Society for Virology, and the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society—have called for his dismissal. And numerous Democratic senators have done the same. House Democrats ought to do them one better and introduce articles of impeachment.

Cabinet members can be impeached. This has happened twice in US history. William Belknap, who served as secretary of war for President Ulysses Grant, was impeached in 1876 for his involvement in what was called the trader post scandal (in which he was accused of receiving kickbacks on federal contracts). He was acquitted by the Senate. In 2024, House Republicans impeached Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas for supposedly not complying with federal immigration law. The Democratic-controlled Senate dismissed the articles of impeachment, contending they did not "allege conduct that rises to the level of a high crime or misdemeanor.”

Yes, there’s not much chance that articles of impeachment filed against Kennedy in the House, which is ruled by Trump’s cult, will get too far. But as Trump continues his authoritarian rampage and his administration implements profoundly harmful policies, the Ds need to acknowledge they are not in a conventional political battle and, most important, show some fight. Do Americans want to Make Measles Great Again? Do they desire a wrecked public health system and severe cuts in research for cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and other diseases? Do they want to be unprepared for the next pandemic?

These are extreme times. House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries a few days ago stated that he’d like to work with Trump on affordable housing legislation. (See Dumbass Comment of the Week below.) The desire for bipartisanship is a tough craving for some of these guys and gals to kick. But to earn the trust and votes of concerned Americans, Democrats must show that they understand the multiple crises at hand and that they are willing and able to engage in the trench warfare that the Trump threat demands. Targeting Trump’s worst henchmen (and henchwomen) is just one way they can do that.

This can be a piece of the party’s 2026 strategy. The Democrats are aiming to regain the House and have hopes—though not as high—for the Senate. The most likely positive outcome for them at this point is a win in only the lower chamber. (I’m assuming nothing exceptional occurs to prevent or hinder the midterm elections—which is not an unsubstantial assumption.) Were the Democrats to triumph only in the House, their ability to thwart Trump’s assault on American democracy would increase but still be limited. They could mount investigations and issue subpoenas, but they could not pass legislation. And it’s important to keep in mind that much of what Trump has done in the past seven months to grab and consolidate power has not involved legislation. But the Democrats would hold the power of impeachment. And laying down a marker now for a Kennedy impeachment would be a serious flex.

Why not move to impeach Trump? you ask. His authoritarian, unconstitutional abuses of power and arguably illegal moves could justify that. But the country has been through this before (twice!), and impeachment of a president is a direct defiance of the electorate’s will. Another Trump impeachment would allow an unpopular Trump to rally his supporters to oppose what he will call a new Democratic “hoax.” And his brown-nosing GOP lickspittles in the Senate would have his back. Also, a Democratic attempt to impeach Trump might make it seem the Democrats are as bent on revenge as Trump.

Impeaching Kennedy would cast the spotlight on his policies—which are not supported by the public—and place pressure on the handful of Republicans in the House and Senate who still have some connection to reality and who realize that Kennedy is a menace. What's his impeachable offense? Endangering citizens ought to count, and lying to Congress is indeed a felony. His lies are life-and-death matters.

A handful of Republicans have begun to challenge Kennedy—or, that is, express concern about his perfidy. Talking about Kennedy’s recent decisions on vaccines, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a medical doctor who has long championed vaccination, said, “This is about children's health. This is about how we protect the children of the United States of America. There's allegations that that that health is being endangered. We need to try not presupposing anybody's right or wrong. We got to get to the bottom of it.”

For a Republican in the Trump era, that weaselly statement counts as criticism. The bottom is already evident. Kennedy is undermining vaccinations for children and for adults. Cassidy had the chance to stop this during Kennedy’s confirmation process, when he was a key vote. After much pondering, he chickened out, backed Kennedy, and assumed a huge chunk of responsibility for the mess Kennedy is creating.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) also was grousing about Kennedy this week. She asserted that the firing of Monarez and the departure of other high-level disease experts at the CDC raise “considerable questions about what is happening within the agency. Americans must be able to fully trust that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rigorously adheres to science-based and data-driven principles when issuing policy directives. The removal of the director after such a short tenure appears to be evidence that politics are taking precedence over policy. I fully support…Cassidy’s call for congressional oversight and look forward to participating in the committee’s work.”

She, too, voted to place Kennedy at HHS. No point in crying for the barn door to be closed now. The mad horseman of the apocalypse is on a breakneck gallop.

Kennedy presents a clear and present danger. He is Exhibit No. 1 that the Trump regime is a fever swamp of fringe views, grift, extremism, and conspiracism. As the House Democrats prepare for the coming electoral battle against the forces of Trumpism, they will have to do more than highlight their gazillion policy proposals and proclaim their ideas for health care, the economy, retirement security, and you-name-it are the best. They must display fierceness—over and over. Moving to impeach Kennedy is one way to do this. And it has the benefit of being fully warranted.

Got anything to say about this item—or anything else? Email me at ourland.corn@gmail.com.

Usually, this feature appears in the premium version of the newsletter—as a counterweight to Dumbass Comment of the Week. But I thought the project mentioned below deserved to be shared with all Our Land readers. If you enjoy and appreciate Our Land, please consider supporting it by signing up here for the complete edition of the newsletter. It’s only because of premium subscribers that we can keep producing Our Land.

I was out of Washington, DC, when Donald Trump sent in troops under the false claim that the city was experiencing a crime emergency. But now that I am back, I’ve seen soldiers in the city in areas, such as near my office, where crime is not a problem. During my lunch break on Wednesday, I chatted with three National Guardsmen from Louisiana, guys in their early 20s, who were strolling about, armed with pistols but looking more like tourists than crime fighters. After all, if they spot an ongoing crime, they are not authorized to do anything to help the victim except call 911. Yes, this deployment is a joke. I asked them if they were happy to be in DC. There was a long pause before one piped up, “The weather’s nice...Not too humid.”

Earlier in the day, I came across this poster affixed to the sidewalk outside a Metro station aimed not at the troops but the ICE thugs who have been deployed here and elsewhere:

That’s a good question.

I checked out the website and discovered that it belonged to Home of the Brave, which calls itself “a community of Americans who refuse to be silenced.” The group notes, “Our nation is under attack. Donald Trump is exploiting the presidency to enrich himself and his family while forcing Americans to submit to his authoritarian agenda or face retaliation. Instead of fighting back, elite institutions—businesses, law firms, media companies, and universities—are caving. They are bowing to his demands in hopes that they can avoid being his next target.”

I wondered if Home of the Brave was a far-left pocket of the resistance. But then I saw the board of directors. It includes George Conway, Bill Kristol, Barbara Comstock, Sarah Matthews, Michael Luttig, and Sarah Longwell—all onetime prominent and loyal Republicans—as well as others, such as former cops Harry Dunn and Michael Fanone (who were each assaulted by January 6 rioters), Brookings Institution fellow and Lawfare editor Ben Wittes, and former Ambassador Susan Rice.

I texted Conway and asked what was up with this endeavor? He told me Home of the Brave has installed in DC 4,000 street posters and 400 sidewalk decals, as well as “wildposters” at 30 locations. (These are collections of posters six-feet tall that have a tile effect.) It also has deployed a mobile billboard truck and placed ads at 115 bus shelters. That’s quite the initiative.

So here we have conservative Never Trumpers taking it to the street, literally, and showing more spunk than many elected Democrats. Godspeed. 

Trump’s disciples really will say anything to glorify Dear Leader. I’m tempted to say they have no shame. But that would make me sound naive. Top of the list of butt-kissers is Kristi Noem, the Cruella de Vil of Trump’s Cabinet. On Face the Nation, she proclaimed, “I do know that LA wouldn't be standing today if President Trump hadn't taken action. That city would’ve burned down if left to the devices of the mayor or the governor.”

All of Los Angeles would have been annihilated without those Marines and National Guard troops that did little more than guard federal buildings and patrol while protests occurred in a square-mile area of downtown? Host Ed O’Keefe appeared taken aback by this brazen toadyism and asked if that was what Noem really meant to say. It was.

Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, the House Democratic leader, was asked if Trump should use “emergency powers” to deal with the housing crisis. He replied:

Donald Trump promised that he would lower housing costs on day one. Here's a suggestion for the Trump administration: try to legislate, and maybe we can find common ground in order to get something done on behalf of the American people.

The idea of finding common ground with Trump, the wannabe autocrat whose White House refers to the Democrats as a “domestic extremist organization,” is rather Pollyannaish. Raising this as a theoretical possibility casts Trump as a reasonable president who Democrats just might be able to work with. Jeffries did add, “The notion that Donald Trump and the administration would use emergency powers to address a housing crisis that has existed in this country since Day One of his administration—and he’s done nothing about—is a joke.” Still, Jeffries ought to not present Trump as a possible partner for positive legislation. It’s not true.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin showed the GOP is a personality cult. On Fox, he was asked if he supported any green energy proposals “personally.” His answer: “Well, I am for whatever President Trump is advocating for.”

Hard to find a better summation of the hollow and principle-free souls of Trump’s yes-men and yes-women.

This week’s winner was featured in our main item above: Florida Surgeon General Joseph Ladapo, while announcing the end of all vaccine mandates in the state, declaring, “Every last one of them is wrong and drips with disdain and slavery. Who am I to tell you what your child should put in [their] body?"

Here was a public health official essentially saying there is no such thing as public health. The whole concept of public health is that we live in a community where the actions of individuals can affect others—and adversely, in the case of infectious diseases. Thus, we take steps for the collective good to protect the species. If killer viruses have more bodies to spread and mutate within, the higher the odds of them killing a lot more of us. Moreover, comparing vaccination mandates to slavery is absurd. The judges note that Ladapo deserves special recognition for winning this contest with a statement that is not only idiotic but also quite dangerous.

There was a distinct theme in the mail this week. Cabot Thunem wrote:

Will ICE squads be stationed at polling places in counties that lean Democratic? Not arresting, just detaining for a few days any non-white people they see? We cannot be too careful, you know.

They don't have to detain people. The Trump White House merely has to let people know that ICE will be there. That could discourage voters—even fully documented people, given that ICE has made mistakes and grabbed legal citizens. Voters in targeted communities might not feel safe and stay away from polling places.

Becky Brill emailed:

I am increasingly concerned about Trump’s move to occupy more Blue states and cities with the military. We all know that this has zero to do with crime. If it did, he’d be sending troops to help his Republican pals’ states with even higher crime rates instead. I remember during his first term he had advisers who suggested seizing voting machines. Do you think he is gradually militarily occupying several key Democratic-controlled cities ahead of the 2026 midterms?  How might he use the military to interfere in those elections? Could this be the hidden reason for Trump’s moves?

It is possible that Trump is looking ahead and thinking of ways to send troops into Democratic strongholds prior to the midterms, if only to create an atmosphere of fear that will be a disincentive to some voters. These troops won't have to seize voting machines. They will only have to establish an intimidating presence.

Tom Pondysh shared this:

I'm seeing Trump trying to instigate a serious confrontation between our military and our citizens, in order, I believe, to give him license to declare martial law. Maybe it's my skewed view, but this seems very clear to me. Clear enough that we should prepare for that eventuality. The question: How to do it? We are not far from a coup and major violence in the streets, IMO. I'd love to have your thoughts on this.

I'm not sure we're on a path to such an extreme action as a declaration of martial law and a coup, though I would bet Trump has fantasized about that. Trump is certainly testing the waters on the use of troops to militarize our cities and, as I noted above, to create an intimidating environment that could affect the 2026 midterms. But we’re only eight months into this presidency. So I would not make any guesses about where all this might lead over the next three years.

Responding to the recent issue on Trump revving up his revenge goons, John Ranta sent a reminder:

You are probably already aware that Trump didn’t make Columbia University his first higher ed target arbitrarily—nor was the “fine” of $400 million an accident. 

John forwarded a New York Times article reporting that 25 years ago Columbia rejected a real estate deal proposed by Trump that would have earned him $400 million. I remembered that failed venture, but I had forgotten if was for the same amount as the federal funds that Trump withheld from Columbia. Quite the coincidence. This guy is driven by revenge more than by money and greed.

Duane DeBruler observed:

Trump's penchant for getting even is exactly why Ukraine essentially lost its war against Russia on the day he was reelected. JD Vance practically gave Volodymyr Zelenskyy the kiss of death when they met with Don Donald in the Oval Office on February 28, 2025.

We still don’t know what’s going to happen ultimately in Ukraine. But these days, Trump is not doing much to pressure his pal Vladimir Putin to end the brutal and illegal war Russia started. Trump has long embraced and advocated the baseless conspiracy theory that Ukraine, not Russia, interfered in the 2016 election to impede him. His embrace of this notion partly led to his first impeachment. Ukraine did not attack the 2016 election; Russia did. Trump's belief that Ukraine was the perp likely guides his actions regarding the war in Ukraine as much as does his long-running affinity for Putin.

“Moxie, who’s that?”
“It’s Benedict. We’ve been taking walks on this beach each summer for about a decade.”
“So a summer friendship?”
“Yes—and so less complicated than all my friendships back home.”