RFK Jr. spills on ‘deep state,’ calls FDA ‘a sock puppet’ of industry in face of anonymous attack

As Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called out the “deep state” during a speech to the downsized FDA, allegations flew of the use of a derogatory term.

Friday, Kennedy made his first joint appearance with the new Food and Drug Administration commissioner, Dr. Marty Makary, during a trip to the agency’s Maryland headquarters. While the secretary sought to reverse the course that led it and other agencies to “become a sock puppet for the industry,” anonymous complaints accused the cabinet official of inappropriate use of the word “retarded.”

“President Trump always talks about the deep state, and the media disparages him and says that he is paranoid or a conspiracy theorist,” said Kennedy, according to transcripts obtained by multiple media outlets. “But the deep state is real and it’s not, you know, just George Soros and Bill Gates and a bunch of nefarious individuals sitting together in a room and plotting the destruction of humanity. It’s more insidious than that. It’s institutional pressures.”

“Like every agency,” the secretary lamented amid references to experiments conducted by the CIA, the FDA, “at one point really became a sock puppet for the industry it was supposed to regulate.”

RFK Jr. says Deep State ‘is real,’ called FDA employees ‘sock puppet’ of industry:

“HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s visit to the FDA Friday was supposed to introduce him as a trusted leader to agency employees.”

“Over the course of 40 minutes, Kennedy asserted that the… pic.twitter.com/3M2r0XCypt

— American Values (@AVPac_US) April 11, 2025

“All of us are subject to those gravities of agency capture,” he went on as he warned the FDA employees to “be conscious of that gravity because it’s going to be pulling you every single day of your career. We want to break away from this so we can make our kids healthy.”

The remarks came the day after Kennedy had participated in President Donald Trump’s latest cabinet meeting and asserted the cause of the autism epidemic would be confirmed by September. He also promised new data would be released to show that the number of children diagnosed had climbed to 1 in 31 rather than 1 in 36 and that HHS’s findings would allow for the dangerous exposures to be eliminated.

While the secretary offered other promises of a bright outlook, anonymous FDA staffers coupled with corporate media found a route to attack the comments.

Later updated to provide the full context of Kennedy’s statement, staffers initially presented the secretary’s use of the term “retarded” to Politico in a derogatory fashion as the quote removed the name of New York’s Wassaic State School for the Mentally Retarded from his remarks.

“Because of my family’s commitment to these issues, I spent 200 hours at Wassaic Home for the retarded when I was in high school,” he had said as other outlets advanced the notion that he’d said he spent “200 hours … with the retarded” during high school. “So I was seeing people with intellectual disabilities all the time. I never saw anybody with autism.”

Likewise, FDA staffers who spoke with NBC News said at least one attendee had walked out when Kennedy brought up the deep state, as one said, “Sadly, the rhetoric is likely to continue for his entire tenure because he believes that we’re all sellouts for industry.”

“In reality, many industries dislike the level of safety that we hold submissions to,” contended the anonymous employee.

The spin against Kennedy’s remarks negated the positive outlook in the wake of roughly 10,000 layoffs under HHS as part of efforts to streamline efficiency and root out bad actors in the federal government.

“If your boss is making a mistake, if they’re approving something that shouldn’t be approved, we want to hear it,” Kennedy told FDA employees. “We want to honor whistleblowers in this administration.”

“I want to really empower you,” he added.

The secretary also shared on X, “I want to empower each and every @US_FDA employee to not see themselves as bureaucrats, but as leaders in an inspired and engaged workforce whose goal is to improve the health of this nation, particularly for our children.”

I want to empower each and every @US_FDA employee to not see themselves as bureaucrats, but as leaders in an inspired and engaged workforce whose goal is to improve the health of this nation, particularly for our children. https://t.co/XtSHdsswyb pic.twitter.com/NaYeKFztFP

— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) April 11, 2025

Pushing back on the negative spin, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon asserted in a statement that Kennedy “is telling the truth that many Americans already know.”

“For too long, the FDA has been captured by the very industries it is supposed to regulate,” he continued. “Calling this out and encouraging radical transparency is not controversial — it’s leadership.”

“The era of rubber-stamping and silence,” assured Nixon, “is over.”

Staff Writer

Native of Brooklyn, NY, Kevin Haggerty is a graduate of Hunter College where he studied Cultural Anthropology and Geography. An avid reader and truth seeker, he currently resides in Texas with his wife and their dog and, when he isn’t researching current events and their impacts, you’ll find him spending time with friends and family or working on his next novel.

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