Trump Praises RFK Jr. Amid Calls for His Resignation

‘He’s got a lot of good ideas,’ the president said of the health secretary.

President Donald Trump in Maryland on Sept. 7, 2025. Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images

President Donald Trump over the weekend praised Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as an increasing number of Democrats call on him to resign or for the president to fire him.

“He’s a different kind of a guy. He’s got a lot of good ideas, but he’s got a lot of ideas. Normally, they don’t have any ideas, and that’s why we have problems with autism and so many other things. Because we’re coming up with the answers for autism. You watch,” Trump told reporters on Sept. 7 before departing the White House.

“We’re coming up with the answers for other things that normal people—regular people, easy-to-get-along-with people—wouldn’t be able to do.”

Kennedy said earlier this year that health officials would be working to determine the causes of autism, the rate of which has shot up in the United States in recent years. Trump has said he supports the effort.

Kennedy, while overseeing divisions such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, has also had recommendations for COVID-19 limited, precipitated the termination of the CDC’s director, and removed every member from the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel.

Kennedy faced criticism on Sept. 5 from senators during a hearing in Washington, including several GOP lawmakers.

“Some of your statements seem to contradict what you said in the prior hearing,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said in the session.

Multiple Democrats, including Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), said that Kennedy should resign over actions they said put the health of Americans at risk. In a joint statement after the hearing, she and 11 other Democratic senators called for Trump to fire Kennedy if he did not step down.

“By discarding well-established science related to vaccines, elevating conspiracy theorists and self-interested charlatans to positions of public trust, and presiding over the largest cut to American health care in history, Robert Kennedy has reinforced every fear families had about him,” they said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is among the other lawmakers who have recently called on Trump to terminate Kennedy.

Kennedy during the hearing defended his moves as necessary to reestablish trust in health agencies and pointed out that some of the senators have received contributions from pharmaceutical companies or groups.

Trump that day defended Kennedy, who is known as RFK Jr.

“I didn’t get to watch the hearings today. But he’s a very good person. And he means very well. And he’s got some little different ideas. I guarantee a lot of the people at this table like RFK Jr., and I do, but he’s got a different take, and we want to listen to all of those takes,” the president said at a tech leaders’ event he hosted at the White House.

“But I heard he did very well today. But it’s not your standard talk, I would say, and that has to do with medical and vaccines. But if you look at what’s going on in the world with health and look at this country also with regard to health, I like the fact that he’s different.”

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said on X that Kennedy “is taking flak because he’s over the target.”

“The Trump Administration is addressing root causes of chronic disease, embracing transparency in government, and championing gold-standard science. Only the Democrats could attack that commonsense effort,” she said.