Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was grilled by Senators in his first confirmation hearing for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Wednesday, during which he struggled to convince lawmakers that he is not “anti-vaccine” and appeared unfamiliar with key aspects of healthcare insurance programs and other policies he would oversee.
Appearing before the Senate Finance Committee, President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead the nation’s leading health agency insisted that he has been mistakenly labeled as anti-vaccine, despite his past remarks where he spread misinformation about the safety and effectiveness of immunization. “I am pro-safety,” said Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer who ran as a Democrat and then independent candidate in the 2024 presidential election before endorsing Trump.
“All of my kids are vaccinated,” he said. “I’ve written many books on vaccines. My first book in 2014, the first line of it is, ‘I am not anti-vaccine’ and the last line is, ‘I am not anti-vaccine.’”
Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top ranking Democrat on the committee, referenced Kennedy’s appearances on multiple podcasts, in which Kennedy falsely claimed that no vaccine was safe or effective and said he regretted vaccinating his children. “Mr. Kennedy, all of these things cannot be true. So are you lying to Congress today when you say you are pro-vaccine, or did you lie on all those podcasts?” Wyden asked.
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While Kennedy faced critical questioning from Democrats, he and other cabinet nominees have benefited from solid support among Republicans, who hold a 53-47 majority in the Senate. Trump’s nominee to lead the Defense Department, Pete Hegseth, was confirmed despite widely being considered one of the most controversial picks. Kennedy’s appointment has sparked widespread debate, with opponents, including members of his own family, warning that his views could undermine public health efforts. On the eve of his first confirmation hearing, his cousin, Caroline Kennedy, accused him of “preying on the desperation of parents and sick children,” citing his role in stoking vaccine skepticism in the U.S. and abroad. But it’s not clear that more than three Republicans will vote against his confirmation, which is what would be required to sink it if all the Democrats vote together.
Here are some of the key moments in Kennedy’s first day of confirmation hearings.
Vaccines
Democrats raised Kennedy’s controversial history with Samoa, accusing him of traveling to the country and spreading anti-vaccine misinformation after the government had temporarily paused on distributing vaccines for measles, mumps, and rubella when two babies died in 2018 after receiving improperly prepared shots. Soon after Kennedy’s visit, a measles outbreak in Samoa killed 83 people, most of them children. Kennedy denied the allegations, saying he “went there, nothing to do with vaccines” and insisting, “You cannot find a single Samoan who will say, ‘I didn’t get a vaccine because of Bobby Kennedy.’”
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Kennedy said that he supported the measles and polio vaccines and vowed that he would not do anything that would make it difficult for or discourage people from getting immunized. But Democrats continued to push back, listing their concerns with his previous controversial statements on vaccines.
“We’ve just had a measles case in Rhode Island, the first since 2013, and frankly, you frighten people,” said Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat from Rhode Island.
Health insurance
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent who caucuses with the Democrats and was viewed as a potential swing vote on Kennedy’s nomination, began his questioning by saying that he agrees with Kennedy’s “Make America Health Again” slogan. But as he pressed the nominee on his health insurance views, he appeared disappointed when Kennedy refused to say that healthcare is a human right.
Kennedy has, in the past, said little about the health insurance programs that make up roughly a quarter of the federal budget and cover more than 150 million Americans. During Wednesday’s hearing, he appeared to sometimes confuse Medicaid and Medicare (Medicaid is a state-federal program that provides coverage for low-income people, whereas Medicare is a federal program that offers coverage for older and disabled people).
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician considered a vote Kennedy needs to win confirmation, repeatedly asked Kennedy to share how he would reform Medicaid, a taxpayer funded program that could be subject to budget cuts to fund Trump’s agenda. “I don’t have a broad proposal for dismantling the program,” Kennedy said.
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Kennedy said that “most people who are on Medicaid are not happy” because the premiums and deductibles are “too high.” But most people enrolled in Medicaid don’t pay premiums or deductibles. He also suggested that most Americans would prefer private insurance, eliciting laughter from Democratic Sens. Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire and Sanders.
“I would ask any of the Democrats who are chuckling just now: Do you think all that money, the $900 billion that we’re sending to Medicaid every year, has made Americans healthy? Do we think it’s working for anybody? Are the premiums low enough?” Kennedy said.
Abortion
Kennedy also faced questioning from Senators of both parties about his flip-flopping stance on abortion. When Sen. James Lankford, a Republican from Oklahoma who has called himself “the Senate’s most pro-life member,” asked Kennedy about abortion, the nominee replied, “I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy” and that he agrees with the President that abortion policy should be left up to the states.
But many Democrats, including Hassan and Sanders, referenced Kennedy’s past comments expressing support for bodily autonomy and people’s right to choose, slamming him for what Sanders called a “major U turn” on his beliefs.
“It is remarkable that you have such a long record of fighting for women’s reproductive freedom, and really great that my Republican colleagues are so open to voting for a pro-choice HHS Secretary. So Mr. Kennedy, I’m confused,” Hassan said. “You have clearly stated in the past that bodily autonomy is one of your core values. The question is, do you stand for that value or not? When was it that you decided to sell out the values you’ve had your whole life in order to be given power by President Trump?”
Kennedy stumbled when asked about specific abortion policies he would oversee if confirmed to lead HHS. When Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, a Democrat from Nevada, asked Kennedy if he agreed that the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, a federal law requiring hospitals to stabilize patients experiencing life-threatening situations whether or not they can pay, protects a pregnant person’s right to an emergency abortion, Kennedy paused before replying, “I don’t know.”
Senators questioned Kennedy about what actions he would take on the abortion medication mifepristone. The drug, which was approved by the Food and Drug Administration for abortion purposes more than two decades ago, was recently unsuccessfully challenged in court by a group of anti-abortion doctors and organizations. The Biden Administration helped facilitate access to mifepristone by allowing it to be prescribed via telehealth and received by mail. Kennedy had a vague answer when asked about the drug, saying only that Trump asked him “to study the safety of mifepristone” but that the President “has not yet taken a stand on how to regulate it.”
Conspiracy theories
Another contentious moment ensued when Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, challenged Kennedy on his past controversial statements, including his assertions that COVID-19 was a genetically engineered bioweapon that targets Black people and spares Chinese and Ashkenazi Jews, and that Lyme Disease was an engineered bioweapon. “I probably did say that,” Kennedy said about Lyme Disease.
Democrats on the committee appeared frustrated and unconvinced by Kennedy’s insistence that he is not a conspiracy theorist, and many criticized the nominee for being unqualified and unfit to run the top health agency.
“What is so disturbing to me is that, out of 330 million Americans, we’re being asked to put somebody in this job who has spent 50 years of his life not honoring the tradition that he talked about at the beginning of this conversation, but peddling in half truths, peddling in false statements,” Bennet said.
