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For instance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., founder of an anti-vaccine nonprofit, is a notorious spreader of medical misinformation"he even captured the "top superspreader" title in a 2021 study of COVID-19 misinformation reshares on Twitter. This year he told the Senate Finance Committee under oath that he is not anti-vaccine and would do nothing as health secretary "that makes it difficult or discourages people" from taking vaccines. He also made several commitments to Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician, to win his support in the closely divided Senate, then went on to break them.

Among these was a promise to keep language on the Centers for Disease Control website that says vaccines do not cause autism. Kennedy personally broke that one last Wednesday, the latest of the many ways he has undermined and restricted vaccines since becoming health secretary in February, even amid ongoing measles outbreaks. And the misinformation avalanche has not abated. Last month, the man in charge of U.S. public health asserted without evidence that Tylenol and circumcision cause autism.

Then there's the defense secretary (or, as he prefers, war secretary), Pete Hegseth, who has derided the idea of women in the military and in combat. "What do you have to say to the almost 400,000 women who are serving today about your position on whether they should be capable to rise through the highest ranks?" Sen. Jeanne Shaheen asked him at his January confirmation hearing.

Hegseth said he'd tell them he'd be "honored to serve alongside you, shoulder to shoulder, men and women, black, white, all backgrounds with a shared purpose . . . and you will be treated fairly." But by February he had fired the black chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and ousted all four women who were four-star generals. Last month he said he'd hold the military to "the highest male standard" for combat positions"which would likely result in large numbers of women removed from combat roles. "So be it," he said.