Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was well-known and controversial for his conspiracy theories even before being appointed to head up President Donald Trump's Department of Health and Human Services, ranging from the idea that fluoride in tap water is injuring people to the long-debunked idea that vaccines are poisoning children. But now he is pushing a conspiracy theory so bizarre it's virtually incomprehensible to people not tapped into the right-wing media ecosystem, Anna Merlan wrote for Mother Jones.
Specifically, last week, Kennedy confused onlookers by proclaiming, “We have ended HHS’s role as the principal vector in this country for child trafficking. During the Biden administration, HHS became a collaborator in child trafficking for sex and for slavery, and we have ended that. We’re very aggressively going out and trying to find these 300,000 children that were lost by the Biden administration.”
This story was first reported by Mother Jones.
Not only is the idea that the Biden administration allowed 300,000 children to be "trafficked" false, but "To even remotely understand what Kennedy is talking about requires one’s brain to be thoroughly bathed in the corrosive acid of the right-wing internet, where it’s taken on faith that the Biden administration either allowed hundreds of thousands of children to be trafficked or perhaps actively participated in that trafficking themselves," wrote Merlan.
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This idea "seems to have its roots in an August 2024 report from the Department of Homeland Security’s Office of the Inspector General," wrote Merlan. "That report found the government 'could not monitor the location and status' of all unaccompanied minors known to be in the country, including some 291,000 who ICE had never made steps to remove, and another 32,000 who did not appear for court dates."
In reality, the report didn't say any of those 291,000 kids were trafficked; the agency knows where they are and placed them in the care of vetted sponsors, they just didn't serve them a notice to appear in court for a welfare check. Moreover, the time period of the report on the 291,000 kids in question ranged from 2019-2024, meaning a large share of this fell under the first Trump administration.
Nonetheless, Trump and his supporters have frequently and falsely claimed this report found hundreds of thousands of kids were missing, or possibly even trafficked.
The administration doesn't care about the facts, Merlan continued, because "embracing conspiracy theories has worked incredibly well for the current GOP and Trump administration, a way to keep their base captivated and profitably enraged" — though this has at times blown up in their face, as they are facing restlessness from Trump supporters over their promise to release a supposed trove of secret files about deceased sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.
