Independent presidential candidate-turned-Trump supporter Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is crisscrossing battleground states with his “Make America Healthy Again” message to persuade disaffected Democrats, moms concerned about the food supply and vaccines, libertarians, and independents to vote for President Trump.

In a wide-ranging interview with the New York Sun at Philadelphia on Monday night, Mr. Kennedy said the nation’s chronic disease epidemic and “corporate capture” of the food and pharmaceutical industries are an “existential crisis.” He said the food industry and “Big Ag” are “poisoning us” and called FDA sugar consumption recommendations for children “criminal.”

“The most profitable asset in our country is a sick child,” Mr. Kennedy said. He then added that the food and pharmaceutical industries “don’t want to kill our children, they want to keep them sick for life and dependent on pharmaceuticals.”

This type of messaging may be out there — even conspiratorial sounding — to some people, but to many in the audience Monday night, this is why they were there. One couple told the Sun they’ve been following Mr. Kennedy since their son was diagnosed with autism more than a decade ago. They said voting for Trump is “a no brainer” now that he and Mr. Kennedy are working together.

Mr. Kennedy urged the audience — and the nearly 85,000 people who tuned into a livestream of the event — to vote for Trump, who has given Mr. Kennedy a position on his transition team since the scion dropped out of the race and endorsed the former president. When pressed about whether Mr. Kennedy is eying the job of Health and Human Services Secretary in a Trump administration, Mr. Kennedy demurred.

“I haven’t spoken directly with President Trump about where I would serve,” he said.

Mr. Kennedy joked about a Times op-ed Monday morning that said he has “no meaningful claim to health expertise beyond an impressive geriatric six-pack.”

“I’ll take it,” Mr. Kennedy quipped.

“What we don’t really need at HHS is more medical expertise. What we need is expertise in decoupling the agency from institutional corruption,” he said.

Mr. Kennedy also called fluoride “a poison” and said he opposes fluoridated water. He said if he were president, he would ban pharmaceutical advertising on TV. He called the incentives in our healthcare system totally backwards and said he got great health advice years ago that he follows to this day: “Never eat anything in a package.”

Mr. Kennedy is at the helm of a political realignment this year that is expanding the MAGA tent to include crunchy natural foods advocates, vaccine skeptics, and suburban moms concerned about their children’s health — groups that used to find a home in the Democratic Party. These groups showed up to see him speak in their MAHA hats and pins. In a swing state like Pennsylvania, every conversion from a Kennedy to a Trump vote can make a difference.

The message is also attracting independents who are concerned about food additives and dyes, seed oils, early-onset puberty, and rising obesity rates and cancer in young people. These concerns cross party lines. Governor Newsom signed a bill this week barring California schools from serving foods that contain certain food dyes. 

“If Kennedy was still running, I’d be voting for him, but because of his endorsement I am definitely voting for Trump,” a mother from Bucks County sporting a MAHA hat, Alix Paul, told the Sun.

Ms. Paul says she voted for the Green Party in the last presidential election and voted for Bernie Sanders in the 2016 Democratic primary before sitting out the general election in protest. She plans to “MAHA phone bank” to convince former Kennedy campaign volunteers to vote for Trump.

“I wasn’t immediately on board with the direction, but now I understand what needs to be done, so I’m voting in the way that will get Kennedy into office and help everything and Make America Healthy Again,” a 37-year-old tech employee from Chester County, Christina Soll, told the Sun. “I always voted Democrat and I think the pandemic really woke me up to what’s going on.”

A self-described libertarian-leaning Republican, Sean Crump, donned a Kennedy T-shirt and a red MAGA hat to Monday’s event. “Trump was always my guy, but Kennedy is my guy too,” he told the Sun.