TV anchor Chris Hayes has delivered an incredulous monologue mocking Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s claim that he can tell children suffer from “mitochondrial challenges” just by looking at them.

“I know what a healthy child is supposed to look like,” Mr Kennedy said yesterday.

“I’m looking at kids as I walk through the airports today, as I walk down the street. And I see these kids that are just overburdened with mitochondrial challenges, with inflammation. You can tell from their faces, from their body movements, and from their lack of social connection. And I know that that’s not how our children are supposed to look.”

I’ve said it before and I shall do so again: he’s a weird guy.

Mr Hayes, a consistent critic of the Trump administration, expressed bafflement.

“What on Earth are you on about?” he said during today’s iteration of his show on MSNBC.

“You can see the kids have mitochondrial problems? Their lack of social connection? You can see that? Their faces aren’t healthy, to you, RFK Jr?

“Should you bring your kid to RFK Jr. with their face and say, ‘What do you think, Bobby? Healthy or not?’

“I know it’s kind of a cliche at this point, but imagine if the guy sitting next to you at the bar, or at a PTA meeting, or at your kid’s basketball game, started opining about the mitochondrial inflammation in the kids in front of you. You would move away, because the guy seems nuts.

“Well, that guy is in charge of our entire public health infrastructure, influencing policy that impacts your health. Your family’s health. Whether your kids are going to be able to get vaccines.”

He proceeded to lament that the American health system was now, in his view, subject to “the whims of one crank”.

“When I call Kennedy a dangerous crank, I’m not saying that as an insult or as hyperbole, but honestly as the most economical way of describing the man’s views,” said Mr Hayes.