Xavier Becerra, the man President Biden chose to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, doesn’t want to talk about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the man President-elect Donald J. Trump chose to “go wild” by remodeling it. . He also has no regrets about the pandemic-related policies that contributed to the emergence of his potential successor.
In a wide-ranging interview last week, Mr. Becerra said Mr. Biden’s coronavirus vaccine mandates, for federal employees, health care workers and large employers, were “absolutely” justified. “Should we make people wear seat belts? he asked.
This argument – that the government has the right to encroach on personal liberty when the health of its citizens is at stake – lost in last year’s election. As a presidential candidate, Mr. Kennedy campaigned aggressively against vaccination mandates; THE The Supreme Court blocked the mandate of large employers. Mr. Kennedy also sued Mr. Becerra’s department over its efforts to crack down on misinformation on social media. Voters responded enthusiastically when he merged his campaign with Mr. Trump’s.
On Friday, Mr. Becerra said what amounted to a farewell to Washington, announcing that Medicare, the government insurance program, will negotiate lower prices for the blockbuster weight-loss drugs Ozempic and Wegovy, as well as more than 20 other prescription drugs. In a conference call with reporters, Mr. Becerra called the negotiations a “big deal.”
But in the interview, he acknowledged that voters had not rewarded Mr. Biden, or Vice President Kamala Harris, for their administration’s accomplishments on health care, including lowering drug prices; increase the number of Americans with health insurance; launch a suicide prevention campaign telephone helpline; and take steps to protect abortion rights following the Supreme Court’s decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
“People are putting their attention where they need it: their family, their work, their progress,” he said, reflecting on the election. “They see the price of eggs. They see the price of gas. They don’t like it.
Sitting at a long wooden conference table in his eighth-floor office overlooking the Capitol, Mr. Becerra seemed relaxed and at ease. A former congressman and attorney general of California, he also served as the nation’s first Latino health secretary. He said he plans to return to his home state – and hinted he might run for governor.
Without mentioning Mr. Kennedy’s name, he issued a warning to whoever sits in his chair next.
“If they contradict the science, whether it’s about vaccines or the value of public health or helping communities that have been underserved for a very long time, I think the consequences will be pretty clear,” Mr. Becerra said, adding, “We will have more unnecessary deaths, we will have more illnesses.”
Mr. Becerra did not make a splash as health secretary; he kept a low profile compared to some of his predecessors. Other health officials, including Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, who retired in 2022, often overshadowed him — and thus became a target for Republicans.
Mr. Becerra strongly suggested that Mr. Biden not grant a preemptive pardon to Dr. Fauci, who has been the subject of Republican attacks and an unflattering book by Mr. Kennedy. Speaking as a former attorney general, Mr. Becerra said he believed the pardon process should not be used “in a way that would follow the whims of whoever is in the White House.”
As for the new slogan adopted by Mr. Kennedy – “Make America Healthy Again” – Mr. Becerra said the nation is healthier than it was under Mr. Trump. He pointed out that on the day Mr. Biden took office, more than 4,000 Americans died from Covid-19.
“That’s the equivalent of 10 jumbo jets crashing a day,” Mr. Becerra said. “So when people ask me, at least when it comes to health care, ‘Are we better off today than we were four years ago?’ Absolutely. “Are we a stronger, healthier nation? Absolutely.”
But on one issue — the American diet — Mr. Becerra was a lot like Mr. Kennedy, who railed against the agricultural industry and ultra-processed foods. Mr. Becerra said his ministry was working to resolve this problem through its Food is medicine program to reduce nutrition-related chronic diseases.
“We consume more processed foods than any other country per capita,” Mr. Becerra said. “I think we think of a Big Mac as a meal. We put more salt in our snacks than in Europe. So you buy a bag of Lay’s chips here in the same bag, and Europe has about two-thirds of the salt. So we need to do many things to be healthier, including eating better foods.
In some ways, Mr. Becerra may have been the right health secretary at the wrong time. Its strong point is affordability and access to health care; he helped write the Affordable Care Act while in Congress. As attorney general, he sued the Trump administration more than 100 times over its implementation of the law that created the insurance program known as Obamacare. Registration for program almost doubled during his mandate.
He was also a strong advocate for abortion rights. He is the father of three adult daughters and his wife is an obstetrician-gynecologist who cares for high-risk patients. The day Roe was overturned, Mr. Becerra was at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Missouri, which immediately stopped performing abortions.
But Mr. Becerra has been defined by the crises he inherited: a wave of unaccompanied minors crossing the country’s southern border and the coronavirus pandemic, which had already killed half a million Americans when he took office in March 2021.
Its beginning the mandate was difficult. His department was responsible for housing migrant children, including emergency shelters… cold, detention-like facilities — has become an embarrassment for Mr. Biden. Mr. Becerra took much of the blame. The response to Covid-19 has largely been managed from the White House. Mr. Becerra was not seen often. Becerra said this arrangement was made at the time he confirmed by the Senate.
He also admitted he faced challenges, including cracking down on misinformation on social media. He seemed dismayed that Mark Zuckerberg, the chief executive of Meta, Facebook’s parent company, decided to end its fact-checking operation on social media posts.
“This is the world we’re coming to, isn’t it?” » asked Mr. Becerra. “Now you understand why it is so difficult to convince people to get vaccinated. ” He added: “I don’t have a budget, like a pharmaceutical company, to publicize what I do or to combat misinformation. This makes things very difficult and it’s unfortunate.
To critics who say he was an absentee leader, Mr. Becerra says he was simply keeping his head down, working to “execute” policies on a range of issues beyond Covid-19, including the high cost of prescription drugs and the protection of the population. right to abortion.
“He did not leave a deep legacy of leadership on key issues,” said J. Stephen Morrison, director of the Global Health Policy Center at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “Major innovations have happened through White House leadership and legislative action and he was a part of it, obviously, and he deserves some credit, but I don’t think he was the spearhead His leadership style was rather calm.
But Dr. David Kessler, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner who oversaw the Biden administration’s distribution of Covid vaccines, said Mr. Becerra’s contributions, often unrecognized by the press and public, were important.
He became a “very strong advocate of the president’s progressive health care agenda,” Dr. Kessler said. “Another person wouldn’t even have survived. It was very intense, it was very rock, it wasn’t his fault.
Mr. Becerra was coy about his own future in electoral politics. The 2026 California gubernatorial race will be wide open, with a hotly contested Democratic field that could include high-profile candidates like Ms. Harris and Katie Porter, a former congresswoman. Mr. Becerra hesitated when asked about his plans.
“Ask me after the 20th,” he said, referring to Mr. Trump’s inauguration day. He smiled.