RFK Jr Says He’s Rehiring Thousands Of People He Mistakenly Fired

Robert F Kennedy Jr, secretary of the Health and Human Services Department, told reporters Thursday that he plans to reinstate many employees and programs he began cutting last week.

In head-scratching remarks, Kennedy said he knew he was firing more workers than necessary when he announced 10,000 job cuts by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

“There were a number of instances where studies that should have not have been cut were cut, and we’ve reinstated them. Personnel that should not have been cut were cut ― we’re reinstating them, and that was always the plan,” he claimed while speaking to a press gaggle at an elementary school in Alexandria, Virginia.

Those job losses, which left thousands of Americans scrambling for work and brought life-saving research to a standstill, are all a part of “streamlining the agencies,” he said.

“The part of that, DOGE — we talked about this from the beginning — is we’re going to do 80% cuts, but 20% of those are going to have to be reinstalled, because we’ll make mistakes,” Kennedy said. “And one of the things that President Trump has said is that if we make mistakes, we’re going to admit it and we’re going to remedy it.”

Teams hit hard by layoffs were focused on tobacco use, gun violence, air quality, occupational safety, infectious disease, HIV, hepatitis and tuberculosis.

When asked about the gutting of a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention program focused on monitoring lead exposure in children, Kennedy said he thinks that’s coming back, but isn’t actually sure.

“There were some programs that were cut that are being reinstated, and I believe that that’s one,” he said.

But Erik Svendsen, the director of the division that oversaw the lead poisoning program, told ABC News he hasn’t received any word about the program being reinstated.

Other workers, Kennedy said, he believes will be reinstated include employees working on certain studies and communications and human resources workers.

This isn’t the first time Trump officials have admitted to mistakenly cutting government jobs. In February, the Department of Agriculture said it had erred in firing employees working on the government’s response to bird flu ― a growing outbreak that’s caused egg prices to soar.

And last month, the CDC asked about 180 fired employees to come back to work.

The email to employees said, “We apologise for any disruption that this may have caused.”