The Dictatorship
How RFK Jr.’s ‘medical freedom’ initiatives leave LGBTQ people behind
This article is part of “Finding Pride in a Divided America,” a special series from BLN Daily.
In early June, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced his decision to purge 17 members from the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, a panel of public health and medical experts who advise the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on vaccines. In the following weeks he replaced them with anti-vaccine activists and leading suppliers of misinformation. We saw the consequences many feared from this action on Thursday when new HHS hire Lyn Redwood, a nurse practitioner and president of an anti-vaccine group founded by Kennedy, presented data to ACIP on flu vaccines based on a widely debunked theory.
Kennedy’s reconfiguring of ACIP comes as part of his larger promise to, in his words, extend so-called “medical freedom” and “health choice” to all Americans.
Coming during Pride Month, the act of imposing his views under the guise of freedom and autonomy hits especially hard.
This touting of freedom, choice and independence has a particularly hypocritical ring this time of year.
This June marks the 56th commemoration of the Stonewall Riots, a week of uprisings in the early summer of 1969 when queer and trans patrons of the Greenwich Village bar revolted in response to police raids. While this year the month has been marked by the usual marches and celebrations, it’s also marked by a period when LGBTQ civil rights and cultural acceptance are facing an accelerated retraction, with an intense focus on rescinding health care access.
Kennedy and his Make America Healthy Again movement claim that his policy moves will give Americans the power to make personal health choices free from government overreach. But this MAHA agenda so far focuses on “informed choices” like whether to get routine vaccines, seeking “radical transparency” by dismantling agencies responsible for the oversight of food safety, and focusing on individual responsibility for one’s health — rather than tackling systemic issues like poverty, racism and sexism that lead to worse health outcomes.
This touting of freedom, choice and independence has a particularly hypocritical ring this time of year. Not only are they a veneer for policies that will leave Americans with fewer safety protections and diminished access to health care, but they propel support for the Trump administration’s ferocious efforts to deprive queer and trans Americans of the very same decision-making power over our own bodies and lives.
The movement has placed groups like “crunchy” teenagersmomfluencersand Gen Z and millennial women who’ve historically leaned toward the Democratic Party in a coalition with MAGA’s most far-right proponents. Using rhetoric about bodily autonomy co-opted from the reproductive justice movement, Kennedy’s movement and its (largely white) influencers have exploited real fears about fertility, food additives and pollution to generate support for another Trump election that paved the way for his administration to advance an anti-LGBTQ and anti-DEI agenda. And has it ever.
Since entering office, President Donald Trump has issued a flurry of executive orders targeting LGBTQ rights and DEI programs that impact the health and acceptance of LGBTQ people, including directing Kennedy in his capacity as HHS secretary to end access to gender-affirming care for trans youth and separately pausing funding for the PEPFAR program, which provides HIV medication and support abroad.
Under Kennedy’s leadership, HHS has placed LGBTQ people at the center of the bull’s-eye by stripping away access to health care and resources. The agency was reported in March to be weighing preliminary plans that would gut the CDC’s Division of HIV Prevention, which promotes testing, tracks HIV infections and conducts research.
In early May, HHS released a report by unnamed authors condemning gender-affirming care that the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics said “misrepresents the current medical consensus and fails to reflect the realities of pediatric care.” “The Many Report” focusing on children’s health, released in May and laden with errors, echoes the earlier document, referring to gender-affirming care for youth as an unresearched “harm.” Meanwhile, the report makes no mention of intersex children, who are often forced to undergo medically unnecessary surgeries for atypical genitalia.
Beyond the federal government, two dozen states have passed bills targeting trans people in 2025 alone, according to the Trans Legislation Trackerand lawmakers in nine states have introduced measures to weaken same-sex marriage, which has conferred the right for same-sex spouses to access each other’s health insurance and make medical decisions for their families. All this as the Supreme Court ruled to uphold a state-level ban on access to gender-affirming care for youth and has taken up a case challenging a ban on conversion therapy.
While Kennedy sets HHS’ sights on destroying access to gender-affirming care and HIV/AIDS support and research, the MAHA movement has taken up its own mantle on forms of gender-affirming care and disease prevention.
These efforts amount to an attack on the physical and mental well-being of LGBTQ Americans and seek to eradicate transgender people from existing altogether — an effort that Kennedy was complicit in long before entering government. On his own podcast and in other interviewsKennedy has falsely claimed that pollutants cause gender dysphoria, comparing trans youth to lab frogs that can be “chemically castrated” by being exposed to hormones in one discussion with the alt-right podcaster Jordan Peterson, which was removed from YouTube in 2023 for what the platform said violated its vaccine misinformation policy. In step with this disinformation, Kennedy has claimed that AIDS is caused by poppers and a “gay lifestyle,” rather than HIV.
While Kennedy sets HHS’ sights on destroying access to gender-affirming care and HIV/AIDS support and research, the MAHA movement has taken up its own mantle on forms of gender-affirming care and disease prevention. Women leaders in the movement decry a “reproductive crisis,” not by calling out diminished access to abortion care or IVF, but by focusing their criticism on hormonal birth control and mammograms. Others peddle supplements like methylene blue, which is used to treat a blood disorder but is otherwise a textile dye that followers claim provides protection from Alzheimer’s and other illnesses (there is no evidence for this, but it does turn their tongues blue).
The basis for these concerns may come from legitimate questions about birth control and a sincere desire to protect oneself against devastating illnesses. Yet there is a deeply sinister irony to MAHA’s fear that grave medical injustices are being committed against them and their families. The movement seldom, if ever, acknowledges America’s history of medical experimentation performed on Black people, forced sterilization of disabled people, and “treatments” like lobotomies and exorcisms given to “cure” LGBTQ people in the past — all part of a craven legacy that the Trump administration seeks to censor by cutting DEI programs and criminalizing the teaching of racism, slavery and inequality. But for the very groups its leaders now target, MAHA’s greatest fears have already come true.
Half a year into the Trump administration, it’s clear that Kennedy and his MAHA movement are fortifying a pipeline from wellness culture to the anti-LGBTQ far right through policy, reports and the gutting of panels vital to supporting Americans’ health, while plying supporters with debunked wellness talk and empty promises of independence.
It’s the same tired homophobia and transphobia rebranded as health freedom, and LGBTQ people — especially trans youth — are being stripped of our choices until we’ll have none at all.
The Dictatorship
Monday’s Campaign Round-Up, 6.22.26: Why Trump backed both Republicans in a key S.C. race
Today’s installment of campaign-related news items from across the country.
* In South Carolina’s gubernatorial raceDonald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Pam Evette last month. Last week, however, ahead of this week’s primary runoff election in the race, the president published an online item telling voters that “you can’t go wrong” with either Evette or state Attorney General Alan Wilson.
If this sounds at all familiar, it’s because Trump has done this before. Around this time two years ago, for example, he endorsed both Republicans running in a congressional primary in Arizona. And two years before that, he endorsed two leading contenders in a Senate primary in Missouri.
Only the president can say for sure why he ended up endorsing Evette and Wilson in the South Carolina race, though it’s worth emphasizing for context that GOP primary voters have already ignored his direction into two gubernatorial primaries this month, and it stands to reason that he hoped to avoid a third.
* We’re one day away from a variety of notable racesincluding but not limited to South Carolina’s gubernatorial race. There are also some congressional primaries in a handful of statesincluding Maryland, New York and Utah.
* In took a while, but the ballots have been tallied under Maine’s ranked-choice systemand we now know that Democrat Hannah Pingree, the former state House speaker, will face off against Republican Bobby Charles, who worked at the State Department during the Bush-Cheney era.
* As for Maine’s closely watched congressional racestate Auditor Matt Dunlap won the Democratic nomination in the battleground 2nd District, defeating state Sen. Joe Baldacci, who enjoyed the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. Dunlap will run in the fall against a familiar figure: former Republican Gov. Paul LePage, who had moved to Florida a few years ago, but who returned to run for Congress.
* In California’s congressional special electiontwo Democratic candidates — state Sen. Aisha Wahab and Melissa Hernandez, a Bay Area Rapid Transit director — have advanced to an Aug. 18 special general election. The winner will fill the vacancy left by disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell, who resigned in April.
* In a new commercial shared first with MS NOWDemocrat James Talarico has launched his campaign’s first multimillion-dollar ad buy in Texas’ gubernatorial race. In the 30-second spot, Talarico focuses on affordability and the cost of living. The state lawmaker will face scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton in the fall.
* And in New Jersey, Republican Rep. Tom Kean Jr.who has been missing from Capitol Hill since early March, will reportedly return to work on June 30according to a statement from his spokesperson. Neither Kean nor his office have offered any public information about why he has been away.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
The Dictatorship
Trump tries dual endorsement in South Carolina as his pick for governor flounders in polls
After President Donald Trump’s pick for governor in Iowa lost in the Republican primary earlier this month, the president argued that he “would have endorsed the other person” if he had “the proper information.”
Trump is taking no chances in the South Carolina gubernatorial primary. Over the weekend he rescinded his exclusive endorsement of Pamela Evette, the lieutenant governor, announcing instead that he would support both Evette and her runoff opponent, Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general.
The move put Evette’s political future in jeopardy: Even before Trump’s dual endorsement, she trailed in limited public polling and was seen by political observers in South Carolina as a weak candidate with little to show besides the president’s coveted endorsement.
“Her chief distinction from Alan Wilson was that Trump endorsed her,” said Dr. Dubose Kapeluck, a professor of political science at the Citadel Military College of South Carolina.
Trump’s dual endorsement “was a kiss of death,” he told MS NOW.
Evette, who moved to South Carolina from Ohio to found a successful payroll and HR company in 2000, has been lieutenant governor since 2019, serving under Gov. Henry McMaster, who is term-limited.
In office, she has pursued meaningful but little-celebrated policies, like a key tort reform bill, according to Gil Gatch, a Republican member of the South Carolina state House and an Evette supporter.
But voters could be forgiven for knowing little about Evette besides the fact that Trump endorsed her, which he did just days before the June 9 primary. Visitors to her campaign website are greeted with a full-screen message labeling Evette as “Trump-endorsed.” The first line in her X bio states the same. Pro-Evette television ads are quick to tout the endorsement.
An accomplishment like tort reform, while noted on Evette’s website, “maybe could have been something that was highlighted more heavily,” Gatch told MS NOW.
The political makeup of South Carolina nearly guarantees the next governor will be whoever emerges on Tuesday between Evette and Wilson. They survived a crowded primary field on June 9, and nearly every challenger who fell short of the runoff publicly endorsed the attorney general.
“She’s just not a good candidate,” Josh Kimbrell, a state senator who failed to make the runoff and has since said he’d back Wilson, said of Evette.
“She kind of assumed this was a coronation, and that was never going to go over that well,” he added.
Even some pro-Trump voters were confused by the president’s initial endorsement of Evette, whom he called “a good friend, fighter, and WINNER” in a social media post in May.
“I have no clue why Trump would endorse Pamela Evette,” Leland Lemmons, a 30-year-old Trump supporter told MS NOW as he exited a polling site in the Greenville suburb of Easley on June 9.
“She’s served, you know, a decent time. I just haven’t seen much fruition of what she’s done in office,” he added.
In a post on Truth Social Friday announcing his dual endorsement, Trump wrote, “I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson!”
In a subsequent statement on X, Evette said, “I was proud to come in first as [Trump’s] endorsed candidate for Governor on June 9th. Looking forward to doing it again on June 23rd.”
After The Washington Post foreshadowed the dual endorsement last Tuesday, allies of Evette were quick to denounce the possibility.
“I would guess that’s fake news,” Suzanne Pucci, a member of Evette’s finance committee, told MS NOW of the chance Trump would also endorse Wilson. “She’s probably not real worried about it.”
Another close ally and supporter told MS NOW at the time the report was “a total, fabricated lie.”
“[Trump] is invested in Pamela Evette because she invested in him. He’s a loyal guy. That kind of stuff is important to him,” added the supporter, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“With or without Trump, I think she is going to win,” they said.
On Thursday, a senior campaign aide, who spoke on condition of anonymity, brushed off the idea of a dual endorsement, telling MS NOW in a statement, “Pamela Evette has earned the complete and total endorsement of President Trump. She is the only Trump-endorsed candidate in this race and we look forward to delivering a big win for the president on Tuesday.”
Roughly 24 hours later, Trump retracted the exclusive endorsement.
Will McDuffie is a reporter for MS NOW.
As last week’s G7 summit in France got underway, a reporter asked Donald Trump whether his purported deal with Iran was final. “No, it’s not final,” the president replied. Later that day — during a visit to Versaillesof all places — he signed the framework anyway.
But moments after signing his name to the memorandum of understanding, Trump offered an unsubtle hint about what he was thinking at the time. Amid applause from those around him, the American president pointed down and then up while saying“Oil down, stocks up.”
In other words, Trump’s focus had nothing to do with natural security and everything to do with the economy. What’s more, the four-word phrase was part of a larger and underappreciated pattern. The Washington Post reported:
In the more than 100 days since President Donald Trump launched a war with Iran, he has offered a shifting list of reasons for why he started the conflict. But in explaining his push for peace, he named a priority much closer to home: protecting the stock market.
“I didn’t want to see economic catastrophe,” Trump told reporters gathered in the Alpine spa town of Évian-les-Bains, France, after the Group of Seven summit.
As the summit wrapped up, the Republican similarly said“I’ve studied presidents, some good, some bad, some great. Not too many are great and some really bad. … And the one president I did not want to be was the late, great Herbert Hoover. I didn’t want that and who knows what would have happened.”
He pushed the same point in an interview with Axios, which was released over the weekend.
“If I went further, the stock market would be much lower,” the president said. “Now think of this: I have one primary wish as president, in terms of people: I never want to be the late, great Herbert Hoover.”
The comments came days after Trump similarly argued“The alternative to this deal was a global recession. There are stupid people who want to see a global recession. They are just stupid people.”
Whether the president fully appreciates the implications of his own rhetoric, this string of comments doesn’t just shed light on his motivations for accepting a defeat, it also suggests he saw his failed policy in Iran as pushing the global economy toward a dangerous cliff.
In other words, based on Trump’s own comments, the war he started was poised to create an “economic catastrophe,” which he was desperate to avoid — and which led him to accept a framework that empowered Iran to get what it wanted in exchange for effectively no concessions at all.
Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”
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