Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a fringe anti-vaxxer who by some means grew to become head of America’s well being companies below President Donald Trump, met with the president of Argentina and mentioned establishing a brand new various to the World Well being Group, in keeping with a tweet from Kennedy on Tuesday. And whereas the substance of their assembly is vital, all anybody can discover on social media is their weird photoshoot.
Your eyes don’t deceive you. That’s the Secretary of Well being and Human Companies holding a chainsaw that belongs to Milei and reads “las fuerzas del cielo” in Portuguese. Translated into English, it means “the forces of heaven.”
Milei, a far-right ally of President Trump, campaigned on guarantees to ship austerity to his nation and slash authorities spending, typically wielding his chainsaw. And ever since, individuals who meet with Milei will typically maintain the chainsaw themselves. Billionaire oligarch Elon Musk waved the chainsaw round earlier this yr on the Conservative Political Motion Convention (CPAC), the place Musk seemed completely blitzed out of his thoughts.
That convention in February, it ought to be famous, was the identical CPAC gathering the place two different audio system (together with Steve Bannon) did Nazi-style salutes that mimicked Musk’s gestures on Jan. 20.
It’s significantly odd for Kennedy to be posing with a chainsaw, contemplating he was investigated for utilizing a chainsaw to hack the pinnacle off a lifeless whale two decades ago. Kennedy’s daughter described how the pinnacle was strapped to the highest of the household automotive and stated that whale juice was streaming down into the open home windows. Kennedy known as the investigation a weaponization of the federal government, and it was later dropped.
Kennedy posted different pictures from the unusual assembly at Casa Rosada in Buenos Aires, Argentina on Tuesday, together with one other the place Milei is seated on the head of the desk and the chainsaw is within the foreground. For sure, the vibes are straight out of The Shining.
In one other period, these pictures can be mind-boggling and are available to outline the legacy of the politicians concerned. However right here within the yr 2025, it’s simply one other day that ends in Y.
What did these guys truly talk about? Apparently the Milei and Trump governments need to create some sort of woo-woo public well being physique that competes with the World Well being Group. Trump pulled the U.S. out of the WHO on his first day again because the American president on Jan. 20, and and Milei adopted swimsuit on Feb. 5.
“I had an exquisite assembly with Argentine President @JMilei about our nations’ mutual withdrawal from the WHO and the creation of another worldwide well being system based mostly on gold-standard science and free from totalitarian impulses, corruption, and political management,” Kennedy wrote.
What makes the World Well being Group totalitarian? Kennedy doesn’t get into specifics. However some far-right figures have claimed that WHO colluded with China to cover the “actual” origins of the covid-19 pandemic. The Trump regime’s gallery of health-adjacent weirdos insist covid-19 was created in a lab and unleashed upon the world both deliberately or by accident. Most scientists nonetheless imagine covid-19 has pure origins.
Kennedy has been busy in current weeks, firing very important staff of the companies he runs, together with the FDA and CDC, and rolling out new insurance policies. The well being secretary was on a podcast Tuesday known as “Final Human” the place he prompt authorities scientists would now not be allowed to publish within the New England Journal of Medication, the Journal of the American Medical Affiliation, and The Lancet. These are, after all, probably the most prestigious medical journals, however Kennedy known as them “corrupt,” in keeping with Politico.
Kennedy would as an alternative like American scientists to publish their work in “in-house” journals. As luck would have it, FDA head Marty Makary and NIH director Jay Bhattacharya not too long ago launched their very own medical journal known as the Journal of the Academy of Public Well being. Science journal known as the journal’s editorial insurance policies “uncommon,” and actual scientists have noted the journal appears to be comprised of “a small clique of contrarians across the COVID pandemic.”
