Those who believe Donald Trump truly has a vested interest in making America healthy will have a hard time squaring that claim with his recent efforts to derail policies meant to protect Americans from poisonous pollution and harmful waste.

But that’s the reality: Trump — who incorporated Robert F. Kennedy’s anti-scientific, ostensibly health-centered political movement toward the end of his 2024 campaign — has championed policies in his second term that seem likely to result in more Americans being exposed to toxins.

For example, his administration recently exempted nearly 70 coal-fired plants from Clean Air Act rules limiting air pollution involving waste such as mercury and arsenic. As The Associated Press noted, “Mercury exposure can cause brain damage, especially in children, and birth defects can occur after exposure in a mother’s womb.”

Trump’s administration also ended a settlement agreement the Justice Department reached with the state of Alabama during the Biden administration that required the state to improve the sewage system in majority-Black Lowndes County, where many residents experienced raw sewage leaking into their yards. The Trump administration said ending this agreement was part of its efforts to root “DEI” out of government, and it gave a similar excuse for its decision to drop a federal lawsuit against a Japanese petrochemical giant over its emission of cancer-causing chemicals in a majority-Black region of Louisiana known as “Cancer Alley.”

And earlier this month, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention rejected a request from the state of Milwaukee to help investigate “significant lead hazards” found at many of the city’s schools. The CDC said it couldn’t provide assistance due to recent staffing cuts Kennedy made as Trump’s secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

None of this is suggestive of an administration attempting to keep Americans healthy.

When Trump vowed during his presidential campaign to broadly deregulate American industries and target diversity initiatives, he certainly didn’t clarify that, in practice, this would mean potentially subjecting Americans to environments rife with toxins.