Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent weeks lobbying President-elect Donald Trump to nominate an Agriculture secretary who would be his ally in a war with the sugar, soybean, corn and other farm commodity interests he argues are poisoning Americans.
Working largely from his home in California, Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services even meticulously vetted and put forward his own list of candidates to run the massive agency responsible for the country’s farm and food policy, according to three people familiar with the discussions.
But Trump went a different direction. Instead, the president-elect made a wild-card pick — a former White House aide with little formal experience in agriculture policy and no record on the public health concerns driving Kennedy’s agenda.
Trump’s choice of Brooke Rollins, who co-founded the Trump-aligned think tank America First Policy Institute, to lead the Agriculture Department represents something of a victory for the entrenched agriculture interests that view Kennedy as a foe. And it shows the potential limits of Kennedy’s power to pursue his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda in a Trump administration attuned to the concerns of industry.
