(NewsNation) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is defending his plan to lay off 10,000 employees in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, saying the “sprawling” agency can be streamlined while maintaining its core mission.
HHS, which oversees the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health, already expects to shed 10,000 employees through a Trump administration buyout plan. If Kennedy has his way, the headcount will drop to 62,000.
He noted that HHS has 100 communications departments, 40 procurement departments and “dozens” of IT and human resources units.
“None of them talk to each other,” Kennedy told “CUOMO” on Thursday. “And what we’re trying to do now is to streamline the agency, to eliminate the redundancies and to focus the mission so that everybody at HHS is going to wake up every morning and say, ‘What am I going to do today to make America healthy again?’”
He said administrators will be targeted for the job cut:. “We’re not cutting scientists. We’re not cutting frontline workers.”
The announced layoffs at HHS, which administers Medicaid and Medicare, drew warnings from Democrats and policy experts. At a news conference, Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., said Kennedy’s plan goes beyond restructuring.
“It is a catastrophe for the health care of every American,” he said.
Kennedy was considered a controversial choice to lead HHS because of his past comments questioning the efficacy of vaccines. He was criticized for initially downplaying recent measles outbreaks in the U.S. But some of his ideas, such as urging U.S. food manufacturers to discontinue using artificial dyes, have met with wider acceptance.
The planned HHS job cuts are part of a wider effort within the Trump administration to reduce the size of government. These efforts have been spearheaded by the controversial Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, under Elon Musk.
Kennedy praised DOGE’s efforts to help reorganize HHS but conceded the job cuts will be tough for some.
“I think, in the long run, we’re going to have much greater morale in a demoralized agency,” he said.
Also Thursday, Kennedy declined to comment about the highly publicized Signal chat leak that has embroiled the U.S. Department of Defense.