Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came under bruising scrutiny in the first of two U.S. Senate confirmation hearings to possibly put him in charge of Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services.
The hearing did not go well.
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Kennedy, who is widely known as an anti-vaxxer, struggled in the hearing to reframe his opposition to vaccines as concern for “chronic disease.”
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“News reports have claimed that I am anti-vaccine or anti-industry,” Kennedy said in his opening statement. “I am neither.”
“He lies!” shouted a protester in the hearing room.
Throughout the hearing, Kennedy repeatedly flubbed and evaded the facts about HHS programs in the secretary’s remit, including those related to the department’s two largest.
When questioned by Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana about Medicare and Medicaid, which cover over 100 million older and low-income Americans, Kennedy described Medicaid’s premiums and deductibles as too high. Neither program charges those fees.
Kennedy’s past statements, some promoting conspiracy theories, haunted him throughout the questioning.
Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado (D) asked Kennedy, “Did you say that exposure to pesticides causes children to become transgender?”
Kennedy replied, “No, I never said that,” despite his repeated assertions that man-made chemicals in the environment could be making children gay and transgender and cause the feminization of boys and masculinization of girls.
Bennet also grilled Kennedy about HIV and AIDS. Kennedy has repeatedly promoted the false claim that HIV is not the cause of AIDS, instead attributing it to other factors like use of amyl nitrate, or poppers, and “lifestyle.”
“Did you write in your book it’s undeniable that African AIDS is an entirely different disease from western AIDS? Yes or no? Mr. Kennedy?”
He replied, “I’m not sure.”
Bennet also asked Kennedy about his past support for reproductive freedom, even as he’ll be complicit in eliminating those rights as Trump’s HHS Secretary.
“Did you say, ‘I wouldn’t leave abortion to the states. My belief is we should leave it to the woman. We shouldn’t have the government involved, even if it’s full term,’?” Bennet asked.
Kennedy replied, “Senator, I believe that every abortion is a tragedy,” a dodge he repeated in answer to other senators’ questions about a woman’s right to choose.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) asked Kennedy to explain his stance on the childhood measles vaccine.
“Is measles deadly, yes or no?” Wyden asked Kennedy, who wouldn’t answer the question directly while repeating that he isn’t “anti-vaccine.”
Wyden then confronted Kennedy with the transcript of a 2023 podcast in which he said, “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.”
“Mr. Kennedy, all of these things cannot be true. So are you lying to Congress today when you say you are pro-vaccine?” Wyden asked.
Kennedy only said the podcast statements have “been repeatedly debunked.”
Wyden to RFK Jr: "Are you lying to Congress today when you say you're pro-vaccine, or did you lie on all those podcasts?"
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) January 29, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Kennedy has promoted his anti-vax theories in appearances both online and in other hearing rooms more receptive to them. Louisiana recently ordered staff at the state’s Department of Health to stop advertising the availability of COVID, flu, and mpox vaccinations, a policy traced back to Kennedy’s appearance at a committee hearing in the state legislature in 2021.
Trump’s HHS pick entered today’s hearing after news broke that his cousin Caroline Kennedy wrote a scathing letter addressed to senators accusing him of being a “predator.” She described her cousin as “addicted to attention and power” and accused him of enticing family members into addiction.
“Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children — vaccinating his own kids while building a following by hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs,” she wrote.
Kennedy may have been the most forthcoming when Wyden asked about another conspiracy theory that he has spread.
“Did you say Lyme disease is a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon?” Wyden asked.
“I probably did say that,” Kennedy answered.
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