Some Republican senators, it seems, have begun to fret that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was not being entirely honest when he sought their votes to confirm him as secretary of Health and Human Services. Back in January, Kennedy reassured lawmaker after lawmaker that he would not limit access to vaccines. But today, before the Senate Finance Committee, he aggressively defended anti-vaccine talking points, alarming Democrats and Republicans alike. “You promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines,” Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, a Republican, told Kennedy today. “Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.”
Today’s hearing was always going to be tumultuous. Although the panel was pitched as an opportunity to hear about President Donald Trump’s health-care agenda, it was a rare opportunity for senators to publicly question the secretary about his recent attacks on the U.S. vaccination system. In the past 200 days, Kennedy has terminated mRNA-research grants, stuffed a CDC advisory panel with anti-vaccine activists, and propped up unproven treatments during a deadly measles outbreak. Last week, he pushed out CDC Director Susan Monarez, whom senators had confirmed to her position less than a month prior. Lawmakers, understandably, were displeased. In today’s hearing, Kennedy claimed that Monarez had told him that she was untrustworthy after taking the job, to which Republican Senator Thom Tillis replied, “I would suggest in the interview you ask them if they’re truthful, rather than four weeks after we took the time of the U.S. Senate to confirm the person.”
All the while, Kennedy has insisted that these actions haven’t harmed the United States’ vaccination system. At today’s hearing, Senator Bill Cassidy said he had heard from a fellow doctor that the Trump administration’s recent decision to narrow eligibility for COVID vaccines was causing confusion. CVS, acting on the CDC’s recommendations, is now requiring prescriptions for COVID shots in certain areas of the country, and has simply stopped offering them in a few states. Walgreens appears to have a similar policy. “I would say, effectively, we are denying people vaccine,” Cassidy said. Kennedy replied to him: “You’re wrong.”
That curt response was cordial compared with how Kennedy addressed several Democratic senators who had similar questions. Just a few minutes after shooting down Cassidy’s concerns, he was yelling at Democratic Senator Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire for alleging that people who want COVID vaccines are being denied them because of the Trump administration’s actions. “Everybody can get the vaccine. You’re just making things up. You’re making things up to scare people, and it’s a lie,” Kennedy told her. Kennedy also defended his previous concerns about the COVID shots, citing the risk that some people who get the shot may develop a potentially deadly inflammation of the heart known as myocarditis. (That risk is real, but very small.) He told Senator Michael Bennet that he agreed with Retsef Levi, a doctor he’d elevated to the CDC’s vaccine-advisory panel earlier this year, who has claimed that “evidence is mounting and indisputable that mRNA vaccines cause serious harm including death, especially among young people.” After Bennett said that he was lying, Kennedy shouted back: “Are you saying the mRNA vaccine has never been associated with myocarditis or pericarditis in teenagers? Is that what you’re trying to tell us?” (“Secretary Kennedy was debunking false claims and reminding everyone that the COVID-19 vaccine continues to be available to anyone who chooses it,” an HHS spokesperson told me in an email.)
Kennedy is a longtime anti-vaccine activist who has made a career out of going after corporations and politicians. On his path to becoming health secretary, however, he showed only glimpses of this combative side. During his confirmation hearing, for example, he accused Bernie Sanders of corruption because of campaign donations that Sanders had allegedly received from pharmaceutical companies. (According to Sanders, the donations were small and came from pharma employees.) But on the issue of vaccines, Kennedy previously seemed eager to avoid a fight. When Cassidy outlined during Kennedy’s confirmation hearing the numerous studies disproving a link between vaccines and autism, Kennedy responded, “You show me those scientific studies, and you and I can meet about it.” Today, one of the few lawmakers Kennedy seemed content to sit back and listen to was Ron Johnson, arguably the most anti-vaccine member of the Senate. Kennedy nodded as Johnson laid out his case for why he believes that COVID vaccines are associated with thousands of deaths. (In fact, Johnson is basing his claim on a government database where anyone can report a potential side effect from a vaccine, which is not meant to demonstrate a causal link between the vaccine and death.)
This sort of aggression from a Cabinet secretary could seem like political suicide. The lawmakers Kennedy was chiding not only have the power to investigate his work at HHS; they also control the funds he needs to keep his agency running. But Congress has never removed a Cabinet secretary from office. And even if some Republican senators are starting to raise concerns, one very prominent Republican still seems to remain in Kennedy’s corner. Earlier this week, Trump questioned the value of COVID vaccines and the massive effort that his first administration orchestrated to bring them quickly to the public in 2020. “I hope OPERATION WARP SPEED was as ‘BRILLIANT’ as many say it was,” he wrote on Truth Social. “If not, we all want to know about it, and why???”
As Kennedy grows bolder in his attacks, Trump has been his greatest enabler. Trump achieved the rapid delivery of vaccines during the pandemic with Operation Warp Speed, yet he seems to be happily cheering Kennedy on in dismantling that legacy. He might share Kennedy’s views, or perhaps he sees the pitfalls of dismissing a secretary who has some of the highest favorability ratings in the Cabinet. Even recent speculation that Kennedy plans to run for president in 2028 failed to generate a public rebuke from Trump. (Kennedy has since denied that he’s running.) At least for the time being, Kennedy looks invincible. He knows it.
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