A former Republican congressman has shut down claims Robert F Kennedy Jr has “diversity of thought,” arguing that’s “like saying Jeffery Dahmer had cuisine differences.”
Denver Riggleman, the former Virginia Rep. who ran twice with Donald Trump’s backing before throwing his support behind Kamala Harris in the 2024 race, joined the mounting criticism of some of the president-elect’s cabinet picks in an appearance on CNN on Wednesday.
Pointing to RFK Jr who was tapped by Trump to be his Health and Human Services secretary, Riggleman made a bizarre comparison to cannibal serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer.
“Saying RFK Jr has diversity of thought I think is like saying Jeffrey Dahmer had cuisine differences,” the Air Force veteran told host Abby Phillip on Newsnight. “I mean it’s ridiculous, right?”
He added: “Insanity and diversity of thought are synonyms now, that’s where we’re at.”
Riggleman went on to say that Trump had learnt from his first term which saw a historic rate of turnover, losing 34 percent of staff in his first year in office.
“Past performance is indicative of future performance. Donald Trump ran all the competent people out of his last administration. I mean we’ve gone from [Jim] Mattis to [Pete] Hegseth,” he said of the Fox News host-turned-defense secretary nominee.
“So to me this isn’t really a surprise, these are loyalists.”
According to Riggleman, Trump has grown to fear people that say “‘hey, this is the s***e that’s going on right now and there’s something we’ve gotta do about it.’”
Riggleman – who became the Virginia chair of “Republicans for Harris” during the 2024 election – isn’t the only Republican to criticize Trump’s nomination of the vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist to lead America’s largest public health body.
Nikki Haley also launched into a blistering critique on her SiriusXM show Nikki Haley Live on Wednesday.
“He’s a liberal Democrat, environmental attorney, trial lawyer who will now be overseeing 25 percent of our federal budget and has no background in health care,” she said, questioning “what decisions he’s going to make behind the scenes.”
Meanwhile, South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds told the Washington Post: “Look, I believe in vaccines. I think they’ve saved millions of lives. If he has a different point of view, then he’ll have to explain them to us.”
