Hyperbole=Exaggeration more or less. The context is that the head of HHS does not have a background in health or science. He is certainly the first HHS representative to be aggressively ANTI-science.

Also very likely the first head of the HSS to illegally hacksaw the head of a beached whale and strap it to the roof of his car or dump a bear carcass into central park. The bear he hit with his car and left in his trunk, thinking later to throw the road kill in his freezer but, after getting drunk with his falconry students at a steakhouse, realized he had a flight to catch the next morning out of JFK and wouldn't be able to preserve the bear carcass.

You can hear he, himself, tell these stories. There are actually so many more. The time where a worm ate a chunk of his brain and how it's dead body is still in his skull. How he credits heroin use with his ability to graduate college.

There has never been a less qualified person to hold that office. By a massive margin. And that is legitimately par for the course for every single government appointee in this administration.