Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s pick to run the Department of Health and Human Services, squared off with Democratic senators for more than four hours in a contentious confirmation hearing before the Senate Finance Committee.
Below are some of the key exchanges from the question-and-answer period:
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) on RFK merch:
Sanders: “You have started a group called the Children’s Health Defense . . . They are selling what’s called ‘onesies’
. . . One of them is titled ‘unvaxxed, unafraid.’ Next one — and they’re sold for 26 bucks apiece, by the way — next one is ‘no vaxx, no problem.’ . . . Your organization is making money selling a product which casts fundamental doubt on the usefulness of vaccines.”
Kennedy: “Senator, I have no power over that organization. I’m not a part of it. I resigned from the board.”
Sanders: “That was just a few months ago!”
On his own struggles with drugs:
Kennedy: I was a heroin addict for 14 years. I have been 42 years in recovery. Primary care physicians should understand addiction care.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) asked about several of Kennedy’s claims:
Bennet: “Did you say that COVID-19 was a genetically engineered bioweapon that targets black and white people, but spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people?”
Kennedy: “I quoted a study, your honor. I quoted an NIH study that showed . . . certain races.”
Bennet: “Did you say Lyme disease is a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon?”
Kennedy: “I probably did say that.”
On obesity:
Kennedy: “When my uncle was president, 3% of Americans were obese. Today, 74% of Americans are obese or overweight. Epidemics are not caused by genes. Something is poisoning the American people, and we know that the primary culprit’s our changing food supply.”
On climate change:
Kennedy: “I believe [climate change] is existential. President Trump and I, from the beginning, from our first meeting, agreed to disagree on that issue.”
On artificial intelligence in medicine:
Kennedy: “The Cleveland Clinic has developed an AI nurse that . . . has diagnostics as good as any doctor.”
On Medicaid:
Kennedy: “Medicaid is not working for Americans. And it’s specifically not working for the target population. The best doctors will not accept it, the best hospitals, and particularly Medicaid was originally designed for a target population: the poorest Americans. It’s now been dramatically expanded and the irony of the expansion is that the poorest Americans are now being robbed.”
Tangling with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) over vaccines:
Wyden: “Mr. Kennedy, you have spent years pushing conflicting stories about vaccines. You say one thing and then you say another. In your testimony today, under oath, you denied that you were anti-vaccine. But during a podcast interview in July of 2023, you said, quote, “No vaccine is safe and effective. So are you lying to Congress today when you say you are pro-vaccine? Or did you lie on all those podcasts?”
Kennedy: “I said, ‘there are no vaccines that are safe and effective.’ And I was going to continue for every person, every medicine has people who are sensitive to them, including vaccines. He interrupted me at that point.”
