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Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s appearance on Capitol Hill quickly turned contentious on Tuesday, as lawmakers grilled the health and human services secretary over drastic funding cuts at the agency.
The Senate Appropriations subcommittee hearing centered on the Trump administration's proposed budget for the Department of Health and Human Services for fiscal year 2026, which would slash the agency's discretionary funding by 26%. The proposed cuts would hit offices like the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program the hardest.
Since Trump returned to the White House, HHS has cut more than 20,000 jobs and slashed billions of dollars for scientific research.
In her opening statement, Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin, the top Democrat on the subcommittee, noted that under the proposed budget, NIH funds would be cut by nearly $18 billion compared with the previous fiscal year.
“That would have a devastating impact on research into lifesaving cures and treatments,” Baldwin said, warning it would set “back medical innovations by decades.”
Baldwin said that while the hearing was meant to focus on next year’s budget, the proposal provided insight into what Kennedy was doing at the agency now, in fiscal year 2025. Since Donald Trump returned to the White House, HHS has cut more than 20,000 jobs and slashed billions of dollars for scientific research as part of the Department of Government Efficiency’s effort to reduce the federal budget.
Baldwin questioned the secretary over the department’s withholding funds that were already appropriated by Congress, including thousands of dollars in grants for research on rare diseases, Alzheimer’s and cancer. “We’re not abandoning any lifesaving research,” Kennedy answered. “We’ve cut administrators, we’re cutting waste, we’re cutting duplicative programs.”
The senator also pressed Kennedy about the proposed cuts to NIH and asked whether the lack of funding would slow the development of treatments and cures. “We are the sickest country in the world, so that money has not been well-spent,” Kennedy replied.
Later in the hearing, Kennedy had a heated exchange with Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington, who said the agency’s proposed budget for 2026 would “leave America sicker and weaker.”
Murray asked Kennedy about the department's decision to cut billions in funding for child care programs. After Murray asked him who decided to withhold those funds, the secretary lobbed a personal attack against the senator: “You’ve presided here, I think, for 32 years. You presided over the destruction of the health of the American people. Our people are now the sickest people in the world because you have not done your job.”
“You came here to argue with me. I came here to ask you questions about your budget request,” Murray told Kennedy.
The two got into a back-and-forth, forcing Republican Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, who leads the subcommittee, to intervene. Kennedy then admitted that the decision to withhold the funding “was made by my department.”
The situation remained tense for the remainder of Murray's questioning. “You came here to argue with me. I came here to ask you questions about your budget request,” she told Kennedy.
Tuesday's hearing was the third time Kennedy has appeared before Congress in recent days. Last week, he clashed with lawmakers during back-to-back hearings after Democrats questioned him about his past statements about vaccines.
Asked last week whether he would vaccinate his own child for measles, Kennedy responded “probably” before testifying: “I don’t think people should be taking medical advice from me.”