Robert F. Kennedy Jr. struggled to defend himself before Congress on Thursday amid calls for his resignation and accusations that he is a danger to Americans’ health.
During an unusually confrontational three-hour hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, the health and human services secretary was accused of lying to senators during his confirmation hearings and harming public health by restricting access to vaccines. He responded by lashing out, accusing senators of misleading the public and corruption.
The hearing represented the harshest congressional oversight of any Cabinet official since the start of Donald Trump’s second term in January. One after the other, lawmakers — including Republicans — peppered Kennedy with questions over his chaotic leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services, including his firing of the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, his anti-vaccine record and rhetoric, and his ongoing attacks on disease-fighting treatments.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts noted that Kennedy’s new recommendations for Covid vaccines have limited their availability at pharmacies in many states. She outright accused Kennedy of lying to the committee during his nomination hearings, breaking his promises not to restrict access to vaccines.
“Last November, you said, ‘If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away,’” she said. But just last week, she noted, “You announced the Covid-19 vaccine is no longer available for healthy people under 65.”
“You are putting America’s babies’ health at risk, America’s seniors’ health at risk, all Americans’ health at risk and you should resign,” Warren said.
Changes Kennedy has made to vaccine policy, including updates to FDA labeling that was unsupported by data, have affected vaccine access in more than a dozen states, making it difficult or impossible for people excluded by Kennedy’s new recommendations—those under 65 without underlying conditions that increase Covid risk—to get shots.
Kennedy defended his actions at HHS, saying he was tasked with leading an agency that had squandered public trust with aggressive public health measures and poor messaging during the pandemic. Kennedy said he was restoring that trust.
The hearing, which was supposed to focus on Trump’s 2026 HHS budget, was punctuated by explosive exchanges between Kennedy and the senators, many of whom he accused of lying and being corrupted by pharmaceutical money.
“Every single day, there’s been an action that endangers the health and wellness of American families,” said Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the highest ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, where Kennedy testified. “Robert Kennedy has elevated conspiracy theorists, crackpots and grifters to make life-or-death decisions about the health care of the American people.”
A key Senate Republican, Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a doctor and chairman of the Senate health committee who had reluctantly voted for Kennedy’s confirmation, joined with blistering questions of his own.
Cassidy asked Kennedy to explain the inconsistencies between his support for Trump’s Operation Warp Speed — the first-term program that delivered Covid vaccines to Americans, for which Cassidy recently suggested Trump should win a Nobel prize — and Kennedy's statements saying those vaccines caused widespread injuries and deaths.
Cassidy, who also sits on the Finance Committee, noted that Kennedy’s hand-picked replacements for the vaccine experts he fired have been paid witnesses in legal cases against pharmaceutical manufacturers — a concern that Kennedy dismissed. And Cassidy cited concerns by fellow conservatives over actions taken by Kennedy that have limited access to covid vaccines.
“I would say, effectively, we’re denying people vaccine,” Cassidy charged.
“You’re wrong,” Kennedy said.
Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire echoed Cassidy’s points on Operation Warp Speed and restricted access to Covid vaccines.
“This is crazy talk,” Kennedy shot back at Hassan, in an aggressive tone uncommon for a Cabinet official testifying before Congress. “You’re making things up to scare people, and it’s a lie.”
From the outset, Wyden questioned Kennedy’s truthfulness. At the start of the hearing, he asked the committee to swear in Kennedy, so that his testimony would be under oath — a practice usually reserved for investigatory and nomination hearings — citing the HHS secretary’s previous “lies.” (During his nomination hearings, Kennedy swore he would not limit access to vaccines or dissuade Americans from taking them, both promises he has broken during his time at HHS.) Chairman Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, rejected Wyden’s request.
A former anti-vaccine activist and lawyer, Kennedy has continued his advocacy against immunizations from inside the federal government. From routine childhood vaccinations to Covid vaccines to emergency measures in the midst of a measles outbreak, he has made false claims about the dangers of vaccines and downplayed their effectiveness.
“It’s been obvious from the start that Robert Kennedy’s primary interest is to take vaccines away from Americans. During his confirmation process, he claimed to be pro-safety and pro-science, but his actions reveal a steadfast commitment to elevating junk science and fringe conspiracies,” Wyden said.
Kennedy began his testimony by touting what he framed as wins for his agency: meetings with Native American tribes, reducing reliance on animal testing, limiting cellphones in schools, increasing nutrition education in medical schools and tackling issues such as sickle cell anemia.
Kennedy’s breathing into the microphone was noticeably labored during his testimony, which at one point was interrupted by a protester who had to be removed. “You’re killing millions of people!” the person shouted before being escorted out of the hearing room.
Kennedy also defended his gutting of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — including the firing of Director Susan Monarez just 29 days after she was confirmed to lead the agency — and the high-profile resignations of four senior leaders, who have since launched a media blitz warning of the public health threat Kennedy’s leadership poses to the country.
During Warren’s questioning, Kennedy offered an explanation for the firing of Monarez, which drew an expression of disbelief from Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and an invitation for Monarez to appear before the committee.
“I told her that she had to resign because I asked her, ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ And she said, ‘No.’”
“These changes were absolutely necessary adjustments to restore the agency to its role as the world’s gold-standard public health agency, with the central mission of protecting Americans from infectious disease,” Kennedy said of the chaos. “CDC failed that responsibility miserably during Covid.”
Kennedy acknowledged he had rejected the expertise of veteran CDC officials.
During the hearing, Kennedy acknowledged he had rejected the expertise of veteran CDC officials. When asked who at the CDC he does rely on for vaccine expertise, Kennedy named William Thompson — a longtime CDC scientist who once claimed the agency had withheld data linking vaccines to autism and who was the central figure in the 2016 anti-vaccine documentary “Vaxxed.”
“Secretary Kennedy is dead set on making it harder for children to get vaccines, and that kids are going to die because of it,” Wyden said.
During the hearing, Wyden grew visibly angry, saying, “I hope that you will tell the American people how many preventable child deaths are an acceptable sacrifice for enacting an agenda that I think is fundamentally cruel and defies common sense.”
Responding to Wyden’s question about an opinion column in The Wall Street Journal in which Monarez said Kennedy had demanded she rubber-stamp vaccine recommendations unsupported by data, Kennedy said she was lying.
Kennedy said his ideas were widely supported, despite the widespread consensus of medical experts and former and current health officials. “I will put my mailbag against your mailbag,” he told Wyden.
In a heated exchange that ended with Kennedy pointing a finger at Sen. Michael Bennet, D-Colo., the senator questioned Kennedy’s firing of 17 experts from the CDC’s vaccine advisory panel, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, and replacing them with vaccine critics.
Bennet asked whether Kennedy agreed with some of his replacements’ former false statements, including new ACIP member, Dr. Robert Malone, whom he quoted as saying mRNA Covid vaccines caused a form of AIDS, and Retsef Levi, who said mRNA vaccines cause serious harm and death among young people.
“I wasn’t aware,” Kennedy said of the statement. “I agree with it.”
Claims that Covid vaccines cause AIDS or HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, are false.
Bennet further criticized the result that Kennedy’s new panel would have on limiting access to childhood vaccines. “This is the last thing, by the way, our parents need when their kids are going back to school, is to have the kind of confusion and expense and scarcity that you’re creating as a result of your ideology.”
Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat from Virginia, became exasperated during his questioning — at one point asking Kennedy to tell him how many Americans had died of Covid.
“I don’t know,” Kennedy replied.
Experts have estimated the pandemic has killed more than 1 million people in the U.S. — a figure Kennedy has disputed.
“The secretary of health and human services doesn’t know how many Americans died from Covid, doesn’t know if the vaccine helped prevent any deaths, and you are sitting as secretary of health and human services,” Warner said, his voice rising. “How can you be that ignorant?”