Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was repeatedly thwarted during a speech critical of childhood vaccines by a reading lamp that kept falling from the podium and resisting his efforts to operate it, often drawing laughter from the friendly audience.
Kennedy delivered the address Thursday afternoon at the Grand Hyatt Washington, where Children’s Health Defense held a one-day conference, according to the group. The group is the anti-vaccine organization Kennedy co-founded and chaired until 2024, and the speech was his first at one of its events since he became health secretary.
Kennedy was describing changes to federal food subsidy programs when the lamp on his lectern caught his attention, conference video shows. His attention drifted as he began tapping the light with his fingers.
“Luckily, I’m not using much of this written speech because I can’t read any of it,” Kennedy muttered to the audience.
The light wobbled loose as he adjusted it. Kennedy tapped it a few more times, then called an aide to the stage.
“I need some help with this light again, just in case I run out of stuff to say,” Kennedy said, noting that he could not read his prepared remarks.
The aide jogged over and lightly tapped the top of the light once with a fingertip. She jogged away as the audience laughed.
“Show me how to do that next time you come up here!” Kennedy called after her, flashing a guilty smile.
That joke about running short of material came roughly 30 minutes into an address that ran more than an hour and 15 minutes.
Kennedy went back to his script, describing changes to the federal nutrition program for pregnant women, infants, and young children, then turned to vaccines before getting sidetracked again.
“President Trump will not allow the government to treat parents who question vaccine orthodoxies as lepers,” Kennedy said.
“We have not taken vaccines away from anyone. We have preserved access,” he continued, adding that the establishment “has pushed back very hard.”
Kennedy was midway through a sentence about Trump pressing the work forward when the light came loose. It clanked against the podium.
“Okay!” he said, taking hold of the lamp, which had now completely separated from the lectern.
“I need help again,” Kennedy said. He fell silent, turning the base over in his hands and studying it. “Is there a button on this?” he asked, as if speaking to himself rather than the room.
“Thank you. Thank you for the tip,” Kennedy said to an aide off camera after pressing a spot at the tip of the lamp, which lit up as the audience cheered.
“It’s committing to civil disobedience against me,” he griped, adjusting the light once more.
Kennedy then restarted the sentence he had abandoned, saying Trump had issued repeated directives on childhood vaccine safety research, transparency and parental choice.
“Let me be clear. Let me be clear,” Kennedy said. “You have a strong and steadfast friend at the White House.”
The lamp soon began swaying again while Kennedy said the administration had accomplished in 19 months what would have seemed unthinkable two years earlier.
He told the audience he had reconstituted the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices last year. As he started a sentence about the panel’s work, the lamp fell off the podium and out of the camera frame.
“Oh, boy,” Kennedy huffed, staring at the floor as the audience chuckled.
He turned and bent at the waist as if to retrieve it, then straightened and looked back at his notes. Kennedy bent down a second time and came up holding the lamp limply in one hand.
A second aide hurried over with a roll of duct tape, tore off a strip, and began fastening the light to the podium as the audience applauded in relief.
“Hey,” Kennedy said as the aide carefully taped the light. The laughter soon faded into awkward silence. The light switched off as the aide finished.
Struggling to revive the light, the aide tapped the tip repeatedly without success, and the two men stood staring at it. Kennedy took the lamp and got it lit himself with a tap, and the aide left the stage to thin applause.
“OK, thanks,” Kennedy said.
“Last year, we reconstituted ACIP,” Kennedy said, starting the sentence over. “The committee subsequently considered questions involving thimerosal-containing vaccines.”
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