Wednesday, Dec. 24, 2025 | 2 a.m.
When voters returned Donald Trump to the White House, they did so believing he would strengthen the economy. Supposedly, workers who form the backbone of this country were to be front and center.
Ironic, then, that arguably this administration’s most visible Cabinet official is Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a man whose career has been defined not by building up working-class Americans but by using them as props on his way to enriching himself and the trial lawyer lobby he represents.
At the “Make America Healthy Again” summit, the administration doubled down on the alliance. Vice President JD Vance praised Kennedy’s “outside-the-box” thinking and even invoked his Appalachian roots to suggest that Kennedy was finally putting “his people first.”
A nice sentiment, except that Kennedy’s record directly contradicts it.
For decades, Kennedy has employed a disturbing playbook: arrive in a struggling community promising justice, extract maximum publicity and legal fees and then disappear once the cameras stop rolling.
In 2007, Kennedy traveled to Boone County, W.Va., declaring he would fight until mountaintop removal mining ended. He participated in a documentary, rallied national environmental groups, and then, after settling a class-action lawsuit for pennies on the dollar, never returned. The mountain he vowed to save was blown apart.
That naked exploitation prompted lifelong Boone County resident Maria Gunnoe to comment: “(Kennedy) took advantage of some of the poorest people in our country. He left a very bad taste in the mouths of many Appalachians.”
The same story played out in New Jersey. Kennedy’s law firm joined a lawsuit on behalf of the Ramapough Lenape Nation against Ford Motor Co. Tribal leaders hoped the Kennedy name would finally deliver justice and real compensation. Instead, they received photo ops and a modest…
