Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. walked into the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday knowing the reception would be hostile. What he got was a hearing marked by sharp rebukes, bitter exchanges, and a sense that even some Republicans were beginning to lose patience with the secretary’s approach to public health.
Democrats came out swinging. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon said Kennedy shouldn’t be “within a million miles of this job.” Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington called him a “charlatan.” On the other side of the aisle, Republicans remarked that they’re uneasy with the vast changes that Kennedy has made in his short time in office. At the center of the storm was the recent shake-up at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which Kennedy defended as “absolutely necessary” after what he described as years of failure during the pandemic.
The hearing quickly turned into a battle over vaccines, both past and present. Several senators accused Kennedy of quietly narrowing access to COVID-19 shots for children by pushing the Food and Drug Administration to change its guidelines. Sen. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire pressed Kennedy on whether children without high-risk conditions could still get vaccinated without going “off label.” Kennedy denied playing any role, insisting the FDA made the call and accusing Hassan of “making stuff up.”
The back-and-forth grew heated. “Everybody can get the vaccine,” Kennedy said, raising his voice. “You’re making things up to scare people and it’s a lie.” Hassan shot back that Kennedy was the one spreading misinformation.
Republicans tried to pin Kennedy down on his views of Operation Warp Speed, the 2020 effort to fast-track vaccine development. Trump has called it a “monumental national achievement,” and Kennedy, after some back-and-forth, reluctantly agreed. But then he backtracked by questioning how many lives were actually saved by the vaccine. Studies have suggested the number is at least three million in the United States alone, but Kennedy dismissed those findings as “modeling.”
That answer frustrated senators on both sides, who reminded Kennedy that the process leading to the initial vaccine approval had been public and heavily scrutinized. What has not been public, they argued, were the moves Kennedy has made since taking office. “Your own process has not been transparent,” one senator told him flatly.
Senator Hassan’s confrontation with Kennedy shows just how frustrated Capitol Hill is with Kennedy at this very moment. It’s clear that there’s a bipartisan belief that the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services is unfit fot his role, especially as he tries to navigate a new COVID wave while speaking out of both sides of his mouth about the vaccine. As if that weren’t enough, he was appointed by a president whose thoughts on the vaccine that he ordered into being change from day to day.
If nothing else is clear, we can say that Kennedy’s tenure at HHS will remain one of the most divisive in history.
