NEW YORK (AP) — Since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services one year ago, he has defended his upending of federal health policy by saying the changes will restore trust in America’s public health agencies.
But as the longtime leader of the anti-vaccine movement scales back immunization guidance and dismisses scientists and advisers, he's clashed with top medical groups who say he's not following the science.
The confrontation is deepening confusion among the public that had already surged during the COVID-19 pandemic. Surveys show trust in the agencies Kennedy leads is falling, rather than rising, as the country's health landscape undergoes dramatic change.
Kennedy says he’s aiming to boost transparency to empower Americans to make their own health choices. Doctors counter that the false and unverified information he's promoting is causing major, perhaps irreversible, damage — and that if enough people forgo vaccination, it will cause a surge of illness and death.
There was a time when people trusted health agencies regardless of party and the government reported “the best of what science knows at this point,” said Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania.
"Now, you cannot confidently go to federal websites and know that," she said.
HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon argued that trust had suffered during the Biden administration. “Kennedy’s mandate is to restore transparency, scientific rigor, and accountability,” he said.
Historically, federal scientific and public health agencies enjoyed strong ratings in public opinion polls. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for decades scored above many other government agencies in Gallup surveys that asked whether they were doing a “good” or “excellent” job.
Two decades ago, more than 60% of Americans gave the CDC high marks, according to Gallup. But that number fell dramatically at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, amid agency mistakes and guidance that some people didn’t like.
In 2020, the percentage of Americans who believed the CDC was doing at least a “good” job fell to 40% and then leveled off for the next few years.
Alix Ellis, a hairstylist and mom in Madison, Georgia, used to fully trust the CDC and other health agencies but lost that confidence during the COVID-19 pandemic. She said some of the guidance didn't make sense. At her salon, for example, stylists could work directly on someone’s hair, but others in the room had to be several feet away.
“I’m not saying that we were lied to, but that is when I was like, OK, ‘Why are we doing this?’” the 35-year-old said.
Part of Kennedy’s pitch as health secretary has been restoring Americans’ trust in public health.
“We’re going to tell them what we know, we’re going to tell them what we don’t know, and we’re going to tell them what we’re researching and how we’re doing it,” Kennedy told senators last September, while explaining how he intended to make the CDC’s information reliable. “It’s the only way to restore trust in the agency — by making it trustworthy.”
Before entering politics, Kennedy was one of the loudest voices spreading false information about immunizations. Now, he’s trying to fix a trust problem he helped create, said Dr. Rob Davidson, a Michigan emergency physician.
“You fed those people false information to create the distrust, and now you’re sweeping into power and you’re going to cure the distrust by promoting the same disinformation,” said Davidson, who runs a doctor group called the Committee to Protect Health Care. “It’s upside-down.”
Kennedy has wielded the power of his office to take multiple steps that diverge from medical consensus.
Last May, he announced COVID-19 vaccines were no longer recommended for healthy children and pregnant women, a move doctors called concerning and confusing.
In November, he directed the CDC to abandon its position that vaccines do not cause autism, without supplying new evidence. And earlier this year, the CDC under his leadership reduced the number of vaccines recommended for every child, a decision medical groups said would undermine protections against a half-dozen diseases.
Kennedy also has overhauled his department through canceled grants and mass layoffs. Last summer, Kennedy fired his new CDC chief after less than a month over disagreements about vaccine policy.
Some have applauded the moves. But surveys suggest many Americans have had the opposite reaction.
“I have much less trust,” said Mark Rasmussen, a 67-year-old retiree walking into a mall in Danbury, Connecticut, one recent morning.
Shocked by Kennedy's dismantling of public health norms, professional medical groups have urged Americans not to follow new vaccine recommendations they say were adopted without public input or compelling evidence.
The American Academy of Pediatrics, along with more than 200 public health and advocacy groups, urged Congress to investigate how and why Kennedy changed the vaccine schedule. The American Medical Association, working with the University of Minnesota's Vaccine Integrity Project, this week announced a new evidence-based process for reviewing the safety of respiratory virus vaccines — something they say is needed since the government stopped doing that kind of systematic review.
Many Democratic-led states also have rebuffed Kennedy's policies, even creating their own alliances to counter his vaccine guidance.
“We see burgeoning confusion about which sources to trust and about which sources are real. That makes decision-making on an individual level much harder," said Dr. Megan Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health.
She said she worried the confusion was contributing to the recent rise in diseases like whooping cough and measles, which were once largely eliminated in the U.S.
Surveys indicate growing public wavering over support for the measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Although a large majority of people support giving it to children, the proportion declined significantly in just over nine months, according to Annenberg research. An August 2025 survey finds that 82% would be “very” or “somewhat” likely to recommend that an eligible child in their household get MMR vaccine, compared with 90% in November 2024.
New findings from the health care research nonprofit KFF in January show that 47% of Americans trust the CDC “a great deal” or “a fair amount” to provide reliable vaccine information, down about 10 percentage points since the beginning of Trump's second term.
Trust among Democrats dropped 9 percentage points since September, to 55%, the survey found. Trust among Republicans and independents hasn’t changed since September, but it has declined somewhat among both groups since the beginning of Trump’s term.
Even among MAHA supporters, the poll shows, fewer than half say they trust agencies like the CDC and FDA “a lot” or “some” to make recommendations about childhood vaccine schedules.
Gallup surveys also show a drop in Americans who believe the CDC is doing a “good job,” from 40% in 2024 to 31% last year.
Those results came alongside a decline of trust across the government — not just agencies under Kennedy’s oversight. Yet concerns about Kennedy’s trustworthiness also have emerged in the past year. Documents recently obtained by The Associated Press and The Guardian, for example, undermine his statements that a 2019 trip to Samoa ahead of a measles outbreak had “nothing to do with vaccines.” The documents have prompted senators to assert that Kennedy lied to them over the visit.
HHS officials say they are promoting independent decision-making by families while working to reduce preventable diseases. They say reducing routine vaccine recommendations was meant to ensure parents vaccinate children against the riskiest diseases.
HHS did not make Kennedy available for an interview, despite repeated requests. But as he has pledged to restore trust, he’s also urged people to come to their own conclusions.
“This idea that you should trust the experts," Kennedy said recently on The Katie Miller Podcast, “a good mother doesn’t do that.”
AP writer Amelia Thomson DeVeaux in Washington contributed to this report.
The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.
FILE - Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's choice to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, appears before the Senate Finance Committee for his confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, file)
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, Sept. 22, 2025, in Washington, as Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. listens. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
FILE - Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's choice to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, appears before the Senate Finance Committee for his confirmation hearing, at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 29, 2025. (AP Photo/Ben Curtis, file)
The immigration crackdown in Minnesota that led to mass detentions, protests and two deaths is coming to an end, border czar Tom Homan said Thursday.
“As a result of our efforts here Minnesota is now less of a sanctuary state for criminals,” Homan said at a news conference.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched Operation Metro Surge on Dec. 1.
Federal authorities say the sweeps focused on the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area have led to the arrest of more than 4,000 people. While the Trump administration has called those arrested “dangerous criminal illegal aliens,” many people with no criminal records, including children and U.S. citizens, have also been detained.
About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say President Donald Trump has “gone too far” in sending federal immigration agents into U.S. cities, according to a new AP-NORC poll.
Here's the latest:
Trump is inviting the leaders to talks in Florida at a moment when the administration is spotlighting what it sees as concerning Chinese influence in the region.
The summit was confirmed by a White House official who was not authorized to comment publicly about the yet-to-be formally announced gathering of leaders. It will also come just weeks before Trump is expected to travel to Beijing for talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping.
The Trump administration has made it a priority to assert dominance over the Western Hemisphere, where China has long built influence through massive loans and high trade volumes.
The administration last month launched an audacious military operation to oust Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and whisk him and his wife to New York to face federal drug conspiracy charges.
— Aamer Madhani
— Gov. Tim Walz: “The long road to recovery starts now. The impact on our economy, our schools, and people’s lives won’t be reversed overnight. That work starts today.”
— Sen. Amy Klobuchar: “Minnesotans stood together, stared down ICE, and never blinked.”
— Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey: “They thought they could break us, but a love for our neighbors and a resolve to endure can outlast an occupation.”
Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison says it’s highly unusual for the state to be shut out of investigations of shootings like they have in the aftermath of the deaths of two Americans.
Ellison is appearing at a Senate hearing to look at immigration enforcement in the state.
He was asked by Democratic Sen. Gary Peters of Michigan about what type of cooperation the state has had with the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department on investigations into the deaths of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.
“We haven’t had any cooperation up until now which is really unusual,” Ellison said.
Peters also asked whether the federal government was stonewalling the state and Ellison agreed.
Despite their strong support for Trump, Republicans are increasingly alone in supporting Trump on his immigration enforcement tactics, a new AP-NORC poll finds.
About 6 in 10 independents now say Trump has “gone too far” in deporting immigrants living in the U.S. illegally, an apparent increase from 46% in an AP-NORC poll in April.
Only about 2 in 10 independents have a positive view of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“Having the border shut, that’s OK. But what Trump is doing with ICE and Homeland Security? You don’t go yanking people out of cars. You don’t go shooting people,” said independent Rick Kinnett, a 60-year-old Navy veteran from Crawfordsville, Indiana.
Brooke Rollins and HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy, Jr., last month unveiled new dietary guidelines, which back away from long-standing advice to limit saturated fats and urge Americans to choose whole-food sources of saturated fat — such as meat, whole-fat dairy or avocados — while continuing to limit saturated fat consumption to no more than 10% of daily calories.
Those guidelines could have a big impact on U.S. schools districts that receive federal funding for school meals and must follow rules set by the Agriculture Department.
“We expect the actual rules to come out probably in four to six weeks, but we are working very diligently on that right now,” Rollins said Thursday. “We want to ensure that we can move very quickly as we’re working to get better, more nutritious, more wholesome foods into our schools.”
But that still left more than 2,000 on Minnesota’s streets. The border czar said Thursday that the drawdown began this week and will continue next week.
He also said he plans to stay in Minnesota to oversee the drawdown.
Homan took over the Minnesota operation in late January after the second fatal shooting by federal immigration agents and amid growing political backlash and questions about how the operation was being run.
Judge Roy K. Altman of the federal court for the Southern District of Florida rejected an attempt by Britain’s national broadcaster to delay proceedings. He set a February 2027 trial date.
Trump filed a lawsuit in December over the way the BBC edited a speech he gave on Jan. 6, 2021. The claim seeks $5 billion in damages for defamation and $5 billion for unfair trade practices.
The speech took place before some of Trump’s supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol as Congress was poised to certify President-elect Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 election that Trump falsely alleged was stolen from him.
The BBC had broadcast the documentary — titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” — days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. It spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.
The broadcaster has apologized to Trump over the edit of the Jan. 6 speech. But the publicly funded BBC rejects claims it defamed him.
▶ Read more
The Republican Kentucky senator says he called an oversight hearing to evaluate “the facts” around immigration enforcement in Minnesota and across the country.
Paul said during his opening statement that any time an American citizen is killed is a “tragedy” but made clear that filming government officials in a free society is a “constitutional right” and not “an act of aggression.”
Paul criticized what he called a “rush to judgment” after the shootings and said while he supports Immigration and Customs Enforcement that they had work to do to “restore public trust.”
The immigration crackdown in Minnesota that led to mass detentions, protests and two deaths is coming to an end, border czar Tom Homan said Thursday.
“As a result of our efforts here Minnesota is now less of a sanctuary state for criminals,” Homan said at a news conference.
“I have proposed and President Trump has concurred, that this surge operation conclude,” he continued.
U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement launched Operation Metro Surge on Dec. 1.
Federal authorities say the sweeps focused on the Minneapolis-St. Paul metro area have led to the arrest of more than 4,000 people. While the Trump administration has called those arrested “dangerous criminal illegal aliens,” many people with no criminal records, including children and U.S. citizens, have also been detained.
▶ Read more
While most U.S. adults think Trump has overstepped on immigration enforcement in cities, only about one-quarter of Republicans agree, according to a new AP-NORC poll.
About half of Republicans say Trump’s actions have been “about right,” while about one-quarter of Republicans say he hasn’t gone far enough.
Teviss Crawford, a 20-year-old student from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, said he’s pleased with Trump’s leadership on immigration, although he wishes the president could find a way to deport more immigrants who are in the country illegally.
“I don’t think the deportations have been enough, to be honest. I think it’s much too lax,” he said of Trump’s crackdown.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio is leading a large U.S. delegation this week to the Munich Security Conference where increasingly nervous European leaders are hoping for at least a brief reprieve from President Trump’s often inconsistent policies and threats that have roiled transatlantic relations and the post-World War II international order.
A year after Vice President JD Vance stunned assembled dignitaries at the same venue with a verbal assault on many of America’s closest allies in Europe, accusing them of imperiling Western civilization with left-leaning domestic programs and not taking responsibility for their own defense, Rubio plans to take a less contentious but philosophically similar approach when he addresses the annual gathering of world leaders and national security officials Saturday, U.S. officials say.
The State Department’s formal announcement of Rubio’s trip offered no details about his two-day stop in Munich, after which he will visit Slovakia and Hungary. But the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to preview the trip, said America’s top diplomat intends to focus on areas of cooperation on shared global and regional concerns, including in the Middle East and Ukraine as well as China, an economic powerhouse seeking to take advantage of the uncertainty in U.S.-European ties.
▶ Read more
— Matthew Lee
The Interior Department has distributed only a fraction of the $150 million Congress set aside in last year’s sprawling spending bill for the celebration of the nation’s 250th anniversary.
A spokesperson for the department said Wednesday that the single biggest recipient of funding is America250, which has gotten $25 million of the money set aside in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act for celebrations and commemorations of America 250. The money went to Interior to distribute but did not specify recipients or amounts. The spokesperson said decisions are being made on how to disperse the money.
The acknowledgement comes one day after a congressional subcommittee hearing where Democrats raised questions about how much public funding Freedom 250, created by President Donald Trump, has received and whether that was to the detriment of America250.
Freedom 250 has received less than $4 million from the pool, said someone with knowledge of the money that organization has received.
Four members of Idaho’s congressional delegation sent a joint letter to Interior Secretary Doug Burgum last September requesting money be dispersed to A250 commissions in all 56 states and territories to support local history organizations. The congressional delegation hasn’t received a response.
— Gary Fields
“I can tell you President Nicolás Maduro is the legitimate president,” Venezuela’s Delcy Rodriguez said in an NBC News interview.
With the comments, Rodriguez is continuing to make the case that last month’s U.S. operation to capture Maduro last was a violation of Venezuelan sovereignty even as the Trump administration says she’s cooperating with their effort to overhaul Venezuela’s vast oil industry.
U.S. forces whisked Maduro and his wife to New York to face drug conspiracy charges. Rodriguez in the interview said the Maduros are “innocent.”
Rodriguez met with Energy Secretary Chris Wright on Wednesday in Caracas.
A new AP-NORC poll also finds the Republican Party’s advantage on Trump’s signature political issue has shrunk since October.
About 3 in 10 U.S. adults trust Republicans to do a better job handling immigration, while a similar share say the same of Democrats. An additional 3 in 10, roughly, don’t think either party would do a better job handling the issue, and about 1 in 10 say both parties would handle it equally well.
In October, 39% of U.S. adults said they trusted the Republicans to better handle immigration, while 26% said that about the Democrats, giving the GOP a 13-point edge. In the new poll, the difference between the parties is only 4 points.
About 6 in 10 U.S. adults say President Donald Trump has “gone too far” in sending federal immigration agents into U.S. cities, according to a new AP-NORC poll.
The new polling comes as the nation watches the human impact of Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota, where thousands of heavily armed masked agents have descended upon the capital city to find and remove immigrants in the country illegally.
There have also been numerous violent clashes with protesters, including two U.S. citizens were killed by federal agents in recent weeks.
About 6 in 10 Americans also believe Trump has “gone too far” when it using federal law enforcement at public protests in U.S. cities, the poll found.
President Donald Trump speaks during an event on coal power in the East Room of the White House, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
President Donald Trump speaks during an event on coal power in the East Room at the White House, Wednesday, Feb. 11, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)
