Trump’s Once Favorite Paper Rips Him on RFK Jr.: ‘Outbreak at Mar-a-Lago’

President-elect Donald Trump was slammed on Thursday by his once “favorite newspaper” for nominating Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to be the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).

Trump, who was elected to a second term in the White House earlier this month, announced Kennedy Jr. as his pick for HHS secretary on Thursday. Kennedy Jr. gained Trump’s favor after he dropped out of the 2024 presidential race where he ran as an independent candidate and endorsed the president-elect. The nomination immediately sparked backlash among medical professionals and others, mostly over Kennedy Jr.’s long history of anti-vaccine activism and other questionable positions on health and medicine.

In an opinion article published on Thursday, the editorial board of the New York Post denounced Kennedy Jr. as “nuts” and suggested that the nomination could be explained by a worm that he claimed ate part of his brain spreading to Trump’s Mar-a-Lago residence in Florida.

While writing that Trump’s pick violates “the first rule of medicine” of “first, do no harm,” the board recalled meeting with Kennedy Jr. in 2023 and finding his views to be “a head-scratching spaghetti of what we can only call warped conspiracy theories, and not just on vaccines.”

“We sat down with RFK Jr. back in May 2023, when he was still challenging President Biden for the Democratic nomination,” the newspaper’s editorial board wrote. “We came out thinking he’s nuts on a lot of fronts…it’s hard to see how he’s the guy to lead HHS and its staff of 83,000 to practical solutions.”

The board continued: “Donald Trump won on promises to fix the economy, the border and soaring global disorder; his team needs to focus on delivering change on those fronts—not spend energy either having to defend crackpot theories or trying to control RFK Jr.’s mouth. We fear the worm that he claims ate some of his brain some years ago is contagious and there’s been an outbreak at Mar-a-Lago.”

Newsweek has reached out for comment to Trump’s office via email on Friday.

The Post has often reported favorably on Trump during his time as a local property magnate and later reality TV star. A month before the 2020 presidential election, the Rupert Murdoch-owned title endorsed him, but distanced itself from Trump after he made unfounded accusations that the election had been stolen due to widespread voter fraud.

After Trump took office in 2017, Axios reported that according to sources close to him, the Post was his preferred paper, with a friend describing it as “the paper of record for him.”

However, in September of 2022, Trump responded to a Post editorial on his Truth Social platform and complained that his “favorite newspaper” had now turned against him.

In May, The New York Times reported that Kennedy Jr. suffered from memory loss and mental fogginess in 2010 before doctors discovered a dead worm in his brain. Kennedy Jr. reportedly said during a 2012 deposition that his problems were “caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.”

“I have cognitive problems, clearly,” he said in the deposition. “I have short-term memory loss, and I have longer-term memory loss that affects me.”

However, the Times did mention that Kennedy Jr. told the publication this past winter that he has recovered from his memory loss and that he had no lasting health issues from the brain parasite.

While Kennedy Jr.’s purported brain worm is not frequently cited as a potential roadblock to his confirmation by the U.S. Senate as HHS secretary, concerns about his anti-vaccine advocacy and other potential policy issues could inspire contentious confirmation hearings.

Kennedy Jr. has said he is not against all vaccines but has been critical of vaccinations in the past. He is on leave as the chair of the anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense and has repeated the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. He also told podcaster Lex Fridman that there are “no” safe and effective vaccines, breaking from the overwhelming scientific consensus.

He has said he would not ban vaccines if confirmed, previously telling MSNBC that “if vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away.”

Cynthia Leifer, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Cornell University, previously told Newsweek that Kennedy Jr.’s vaccines statements “make people question vaccine safety,” despite the fact that vaccines “are already rigorously tested and safe.”

“RFK says he won’t take away vaccines if they are working. The problem with this statement is that vaccines do work or they would never have been approved in the first place,” she said.

However, some medical professionals defended Kennedy Jr.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, a Republican, praised his nomination in a recent interview with Fox News. “Trump has done well by selecting RFK Jr. because he’s got the attention of the public. These issues are not new issues.”

“I believe that the 86,000 workers at HHS…I believe most of them will welcome RFK because they are getting smothered under corporate capture,” he added. “These agencies aren’t actually free to do what they want to do frequently.”