NEW YORK (AP) — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is launching a new podcast that he says will begin “a new era of radical transparency in government,” according to a teaser video first obtained by The Associated Press.
The show, titled “The Secretary Kennedy Podcast,” will launch next week and feature Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine crusader who has reshaped the country’s health policy, in conversation with doctors, scientists and agency staff, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services officials told the AP ahead of the launch. In the teaser video, in a slick HHS-branded studio with ominous music playing in the background, Kennedy bills it as a new way to expose corruption and lies that have made Americans sick.
“We’re going to name the names of the forces that obstruct the paths to public health,” Kennedy says in the nearly 90-second clip.
Joining the Trump administration last year gave Kennedy a new platform for his views, some of which contradict the overwhelming consensus of scientists. A podcast could further elevate those ideas. Administration officials say it will help spread an important message about chronic disease and improving health to a wider audience.
“This is part of our larger strategy to bring the Make America Healthy Again message to as wide an audience as we can,” said Liam Nahill, HHS digital director.
The new communication effort from HHS comes as the department has faced a bevy of recent setbacks, including widespread criticism of its vaccine policy changes, a federal ruling last month blocking several of those moves, and resistance from key Republican senators that has kept President Donald Trump’s surgeon general pick from taking office. In that way, it could be seen as part of a broader rebranding strategy as the agency redirects away from vaccine efforts and toward a less contentious agenda on healthy food ahead of November’s midterm elections.
But the show, which has been in the works since early in the second Trump administration, also reflects Kennedy returning to a format where he has long felt at ease. He hosted his own podcast before entering office, and has appeared on dozens to share his perspectives in longform interviews, as recently as this week.
Tyler Burger, HHS digital communications manager and the producer of the new podcast, said while Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary has a podcast, officials believe Kennedy's will be the first to be hosted by a sitting cabinet secretary.
“We’re kind of bringing podcasting into the government as an official form and arm of our messaging,” Burger said. He said the set for the show was pieced together largely with items the agency already had, and has the capacity for a total of four people to sit in conversation together.
Because podcasts are now commonly made not only on audio but video, they are regularly clipped and shared across social media platforms, giving them “massive” reach, according to Melina Much, a postdoctoral fellow for New York University's Center for Social Media and Politics.
Much said podcasts also tend to be more intimate, conversational and friendly than a traditional interview, allowing administration officials to promote themselves without facing as much pushback.
Critics suggested the show would be used to spread falsehoods. It's "just another official channel to spread misinformation that will inject more dangerous conspiracy theories into the mainstream,” said Grace Silva, spokesperson for 314 Action, a left-leaning political action committee aimed at electing scientists in Congress.
Though officials wouldn't share a list of upcoming guests, Kennedy let one slip when he appeared as a guest on a recent episode of “The Bossticks.” He said for his own podcast, he spoke with Robert Irvine, the celebrity chef who has been tasked with revamping U.S. Army meals.
While Kennedy's teaser focuses on uncovering lies, HHS spokesman Andrew Nixon said the show will aim to cover affordability and other topics that polls show are salient for American voters of both parties ahead of the midterms.
“Americans are united on the need to urgently address chronic disease, improve nutrition, strengthen food quality, and lower health costs," he said. "The Secretary Kennedy Podcast will cover all those issues.”
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speaks during a fireside chat with CPAC Senior Fellow Mercedes Schlapp at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Dallas, Saturday, March 28, 2026. (AP Photo/Gabriela Passos)
RIVERHEAD, N.Y. (AP) — A Long Island architect who led a secret life as a serial killer pleaded guilty on Wednesday to murdering seven women and admitted he killed an eighth in a string of long-unsolved crimes known as the Gilgo Beach killings.
Rex Heuermann, 62, entered the pleas in a courtroom packed with reporters, police and victims’ relatives, some of whom wept as he detailed his crimes. He will be sentenced in June to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Heuermann's guilty pleas — to three counts of first-degree murder and four of intentional murder — bring finality to a case that bedeviled investigators, tormented victims’ relatives and tantalized a true-crime obsessed public for years. Although he wasn't charged in her death, he also admitted that he killed Karen Vergata in 1996.
Under questioning by Suffolk County District Attorney Ray Tierney, Heuermann admitted that he strangled all eight victims and dismembered some of them, that he used burner phones to contact them, and that he wrapped their bodies in burlap before dumping them.
Wearing a black suit coat and white button-down shirt, Heuermann appeared matter-of-fact and unemotional as he answered questions from Tierney and the judge. He never looked back at the packed courtroom gallery.
The women, many of them sex workers, were killed over a 17-year span and buried in remote locations, including along an isolated beach highway across the bay from where he lived, authorities said.
“This defendant walked among us play-acting as a normal suburban dad when in reality, all along, he was obsessively targeting innocent women for death,” Tierney said at a news conference hours after the hearing.
He thanked relatives of the victims, including some standing alongside him, for helping bring their loved ones’ stories to life. And he praised members of the Gilgo Beach Homicide Investigation Task Force, which cracked the case with the help of clues that included DNA lifted from a discarded pizza crust.
“He thought that by killing them, he could silence them forever and get away with murder,” Tierney said. “But he was wrong.”
Gloria Allred, an attorney for some of the victims' families, described several of the women as young mothers who were just trying to earn extra money to support their children because they didn't have the means to go to college or get a decent job.
“Little did they know that the defendant, Rex Hermann, did not care about their hopes and dreams, or that they had families and friends who loved them,” Allred said before calling up family members to speak directly about the case and the plea deal.
Elizabeth Baczkiel, whose daughter Jessica Taylor was murdered by Heuermann, said: “I am glad that this is over as far as him pleading guilty. It took a big chunk of stress off of me and my family.”
Fighting back tears, Missy Cann, whose sister Maureen Brainard-Barnes was murdered, said his guilty plea “brings solace” after living 19 years “in the space between heartbreak and hope.”
Heuermann's ex-wife, Asa Ellerup, and their daughter attended the hearing and were mobbed by reporters as they entered and left the building.
“My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families," Ellerup said afterward. "Their loss is immeasurable and the focus should be on them at this time and moment. I ask that you give some privacy to my family as they navigate through this very difficult time.”
Ellerup and her daughter, Victoria, had no knowledge of or involvement in the killings, said their lawyer, Robert Macedonio.
Heuermann's attorney, Michael Brown, was asked after the hearing why his client decided to plead guilty.
“There came a point in this defense where Rex said, ‘I want to plead guilty,'" Brown said, noting that one of Heuermann’s concerns was sparing the victims’ families and his own family from the ordeal of the case going to trial.
In response to a question about whether Heuermann was sorry, Brown responded, “I would hope so. ... I would expect at sentencing he would have something to say.”
As part of his guilty plea, Heuermann agreed to cooperate fully with the FBI's behavioral analysis unit.
The case began in earnest in 2010 after police found numerous sets of human remains while searching for a missing woman, Shannan Gilbert, along Long Island’s South Shore, setting off a search for a potential serial killer that attracted global interest and spawned a Hollywood movie. Although her relatives disputed the finding, authorities eventually determined that Gilbert drowned, and Brown said Wednesday that Heuermann "had nothing to do with Shannan Gilbert.”
Investigators used DNA analysis and other evidence to identify victims. In some cases, they were able to connect them to remains found elsewhere on Long Island years earlier.
Remains of six victims — Melissa Barthelemy, Brainard-Barnes, Amber Lynn Costello, Valerie Mack, Taylor and Megan Waterman — were found in the scrub along Ocean Parkway near Gilgo Beach. The remains of another victim, Sandra Costilla, were found more than 60 miles (100 kilometers) away in the Hamptons.
Police also identified the remains of Vergata, which were found on Fire Island, more than 20 miles (32 kilometers) west, in 1996, and near Gilgo Beach in 2011.
But despite the attention, including a documentary series and the 2020 Netflix film, “Lost Girls,” the investigation dragged on for more than a decade, punctuated by fleeting leads and dashed hopes.
In 2022, six weeks after a new police commissioner formed the Gilgo Beach task force, detectives identified Heuermann as a suspect by using a vehicle registration database to connect him to a pickup truck that a witness reported seeing when one of the victims disappeared in 2010.
Heuermann lived for decades in Massapequa Park, about a 25-minute drive across a causeway spanning South Oyster Bay to the sandy stretch where the women’s remains were found. Some of the victims were believed to have disappeared from that community and their cellphones were found to have pinged towers in the area, authorities said.
After the truck discovery, a grand jury authorized more than 300 subpoenas and search warrants, allowing the task force to dig in to Heuermann’s life.
Detectives collected billing records for burner phones he used to arrange meetings with the victims, retested DNA found with the bodies and scoured Heuermann’s internet search history, which showed that he had viewed violent torture pornography and exhibited an intense interest in the Gilgo Beach killings and the renewed investigation. Cellphone data showed Heuermann was in contact with some victims just before they disappeared, investigators said.
To obtain Heuermann’s DNA, a task force surveillance team tailed him in Manhattan, where he worked, and watched as he threw the remnants of his lunch — a box of partially eaten pizza crusts — into a sidewalk garbage can.
Investigators rushed in, grabbed the box, and sent it to the crime lab, which matched DNA from the crust to a male hair found on burlap used to restrain one of the victims. He was arrested in July 2023.
After Heuermann’s arrest, detectives spent more than 12 days searching his yard and home, where they found a basement vault that contained 279 weapons. On his computer, investigators said, they found what they described as a “blueprint” for the killings, including a series of checklists with reminders to limit noise, clean the bodies and destroy evidence.
Associated Press writers Philip Marcelo in New York City, Dave Collins in Hartford, Connecticut, and Julie Walker in Riverhead, New York contributed to this report.
Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney speaks during a news conference next to law enforcement members and family members of the victims after Rex Heuermann, accused in Long Island's infamous Gilgo Beach serial killings, pleaded guilty on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, at Suffolk County Police Academy Gymnasium in Brentwood, New York. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
A family member of the victims cries as she listens Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney during a news conference after Rex Heuermann, accused in Long Island's infamous Gilgo Beach serial killings, pleaded guilty on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, at Suffolk County Police Academy Gymnasium in Brentwood, New York. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Attorney Michael Brown, gives his statement outside the courthouse as Rex Heuermann, accused in Long Island's infamous Gilgo Beach serial killings, pleaded guilty on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, New York. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Asa Ellerup, wife, of Rex Heuermann gives her statement outside the courthouse as Rex Heuermann, accused in Long Island's infamous Gilgo Beach serial killings, pleaded guilty on Wednesday, April 8, 2026, at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, New York. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Rex A. Heuermann, center, pleads guilty to murdering seven women and admitted he killed an eighth in a string of long-unsolved crimes known as the Gilgo Beach killings, at a court hearing in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y., Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (James Carbone/Newsday via AP, Pool)
Victoria Heuermann walks to the courtroom as Rex Heuermann, accused in Long Island's infamous Gilgo Beach serial killings, is expected to plead guilty, Wednesday, April 8, 2026, at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Elizabeth Baczkiel, mother of victim Jessica Taylor, walks to the courtroom as Rex Heuermann, accused in Long Island's infamous Gilgo Beach serial killings, is expected to plead guilty, Wednesday, April 8, 2026, at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Asa Ellerup, left, wife, of Rex Heuermann and Ellerup's attorney, Robert Macedonio, right arrive outside court as Rex Heuermann, accused in Long Island's infamous Gilgo Beach serial killings, is expected to plead guilty, Wednesday, April 8, 2026, at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Rex A. Heuermann, pleads guilty to murdering seven women and admitted he killed an eighth in a string of long-unsolved crimes known as the Gilgo Beach killings, at a court hearing in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y., Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (James Carbone/Newsday via AP, Pool)
Rex A. Heuermann, pleads guilty to murdering seven women and admitted he killed an eighth in a string of long-unsolved crimes known as the Gilgo Beach killings, at a court hearing in Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y., Wednesday, April 8, 2026. (James Carbone/Newsday via AP, Pool)
Suffolk County District Attorney Raymond A. Tierney walks to the courtroom as Rex Heuermann, accused in Long Island's infamous Gilgo Beach serial killings, is expected to plead guilty, Wednesday, April 8, 2026, at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Asa Ellerup, wife, left and her daughter Victoria Heuermann arrive outside court as Rex Heuermann, accused in Long Island’s infamous Gilgo Beach serial killings, is expected to plead guilty, Wednesday, April 8, 2026, at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Asa Ellerup, left and her daughter Victoria Heuermann arrive outside court as Rex Heuermann, accused in Long Island’s infamous Gilgo Beach serial killings, is expected to plead guilty, Wednesday, April 8, 2026, at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Asa Ellerup, left and her daughter Victoria Heuermann arrive outside court as Rex Heuermann, accused in Long Island’s infamous Gilgo Beach serial killings, is expected to plead guilty, Wednesday, April 8, 2026, at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Asa Ellerup, estranged wife, center left, and her daughter Victoria Heuermann arrive outside court as Rex Heuermann, accused in Long Island’s infamous Gilgo Beach serial killings, is expected to plead guilty, Wednesday, April 8, 2026, at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
Asa Ellerup, estranged wife, of Rex Heuermann arrive outside court as Rex Heuermann, accused in Long Island’s infamous Gilgo Beach serial killings, is expected to plead guilty, Wednesday, April 8, 2026, at Suffolk County Court in Riverhead, N.Y. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)
