RFK Jr. Asked: Can The FDA Ensure Safety After So Many Jobs Have Been Cut?

4/4/2025

At an elementary school in Alexandria, Virginia, on Thursday, HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was asked how the FDA can ensure safety despite massive job cuts.

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Transcript

00:00Great. We'll take a couple of questions before we wrap up. Yes, ma'am.

00:05Can the FDA ensure food safety now that so many jobs have been cut?

00:09And for you, Secretary Rawlings, you spoke about better nutrition for children.

00:13How can schools – there were recently millions of dollars in cuts in a cooperative program

00:18between local farms and schools. Is that money coming back? Is something similar coming back?

00:23Go ahead.

00:24In terms of FDA's capacity, the cuts in all of our agencies are not affecting science,

00:30so the science jobs aren't preserved.

00:33The frontline enforcement jobs and health delivery jobs are preserved.

00:38HHS was a bloated agency, and it was not doing its job.

00:45Our health – during the past four years, we saw a 38 percent rise in its budget,

00:51and health care continued to decline.

00:54So we're reorganizing HHS so it can do its internal job, which is to make America healthy again.

01:01Yeah, and I appreciate the question on the food programs.

01:04There's been a lot of confusion about what has been cut.

01:07The first thing I'll say is that we are realigning, as all of our agencies are,

01:11but at USDA we're realigning the agency around what works well, what's important.

01:16Almost 80 percent of the USDA budget of $280 billion, I think,

01:20is actually in the food and nutrition program space.

01:23It's actually not even in the farming and ranching space.

01:26And so as we look at that, and under the last four years, under President Biden,

01:31it was almost a 40 percent increase, tracking close to where HHS expanded as well.

01:36So what we are pulling back now is the COVID-era programs that were affirmed

01:42under the last administration that were always meant to come back,

01:47and a lot of the money that we're pulling back is money that is, all of it actually,

01:51has not been spent or committed.

01:53It is future money, again, under COVID-era programs.

01:56Every child in America that is hungry will have good food to feed them.

02:01And if they don't, then we will immediately realign to ensure that they do.

02:05And the other thing I'd like to say is that the programs like today,

02:09that are so inspiring and watching these incredible kids,

02:12a lot of them from food-challenged families,

02:15that this is what we should be supporting at USDA.

02:19This is why we're realigning, so that the status quo that has been bloated by 40 percent

02:24in the last four years, that that's not going to work anymore.

02:27That instead we need to realign around leaders like are part of this school

02:31that have completely rethought this and have done such an amazing job

02:34in moving farm-fresh produce as much as is possible into the schools

02:39and into these kids' snacks and lunches.

RFK Jr. Asked: Can The FDA Ensure Safety After So Many Jobs Have Been Cut?

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