Health and Human Services secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. displayed his decades of litigation experience during three grueling hours of Senate Finance Committee interrogation on September 4. Kennedy was well prepared to counter the anticipated barrage as he fought off Democrats who clutched at slender straws in a failed effort to discredit him.
Democrat senators gathered like Cincinnati street hoodlums to thrash Kennedy for his alleged transgressions in firing the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and CDC director Susan Monarez. Yet the soft-shelled bullies got more than they anticipated, as the veteran attorney and longtime children’s health advocate took their baloney on the chin and countered repeatedly with pointed jabs of his own.
At the root of the controversy is the cult-like worship of mRNA vaccines by Democrats, pitted against the “real science” that shows that the vaunted technology didn’t work as advertised, that masks and social distancing were conjured fictions, that school closings were counterproductive, and that vaccine injuries including pericarditis and myocarditis were covered up by the regulatory agencies charged with protecting Americans’ health. Kennedy’s would-be assailants were repeatedly rebuffed, often visibly shaken that the victim they thought was an easy target responded more like an annoyed lion.
The whole kerfuffle is revealing not of Kennedy’s failures, but of the dubious motives of faux-indignant Democrats. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) kicked off the mud-slinging with shameless theatrics, moving to have the Health and Human Services secretary sworn in under oath, calling him a liar, and asserting that Kennedy wants to take vaccines away from Americans.
“I’ve made it clear,” Wyden began, “that I think that Secretary Kennedy is dead set on making it harder for children to get vaccinated and that kids are gonna die because of it.” Yet whatever Wyden might “think,” all Kennedy has done is remove mRNA COVID-19 vaccines from the lengthy list of CDC-recommended child vaccines. Reports from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System (VAERS) suggest that many children’s lives may be saved by not taking vaccines.
Backing Kennedy, Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) blew the whistle on CDC failures to warn the public or medical community about myocarditis after it became aware that mRNA vaccines could trigger the condition. Senator Johnson then highlighted the multiple reports of death by injection ignored by Wyden and his fellow vaccine adulators:
VAERS shows that there have been 30,742 deaths reported on VAERS worldwide associated with the COVID vaccine: 9,252 of those deaths occurred on the day of vaccination or within one to two days.
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) took a similar tack, criticizing Kennedy for supposedly breaking his word: “You said you wouldn’t take away vaccines.” An unruffled Kennedy scoffed at her efforts and repeatedly asked her if she would direct him to approve recommendations for mRNA vaccines without any evidence proving they were effective. Warren simply ignored his reasonable retort, as she did his reminder that “I know you’ve taken $855,000 from pharmaceutical companies.” Kennedy corrected Warren, saying, “I’m not taking away any vaccines.”
Yet perhaps he should. The core issue for the Democrats is that they want the mRNA vaccines pushed on children, including infants, yet increasing numbers of Americans do not trust the novel jabs. This hesitancy was seeded not by Kennedy, but rather by the on-the-record misinformation disseminated by the CDC and other federal agencies claiming that the mRNA vaccines were “safe and effective” when they were obviously neither. The result is widespread public distrust in the federal agencies Kennedy is trying to restore.
Polling reflects growing distrust of COVID-19 vaccines. In May 2022, ABC News reported that only 18% of parents of children under the age of five were eager to have their children vaccinated immediately. Even among adults back then, pollsters found that “for those who have yet to receive a booster ... 39% of people said they believe boosters are ineffective because some vaccinated people are still getting infected.” That’s grassroots common sense, not an anti-vaxxer conspiracy.
By August of 2024, an mRNA-fatigued public had grown yet more skeptical. Gallup reported:
Fewer Americans today consider childhood vaccines important, with 40% saying it is extremely important for parents to have their children vaccinated, down from 58% in 2019 and 64% in 2001. ... The poll finds a small but growing share of U.S. adults saying vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases they are designed to prevent — 20% now hold this view, up from 11% in 2019 and 6% in 2001.
Now come the mighty Democrats in the Senate Finance Committee, projecting responsibility onto Kennedy and Republicans for the vaccine hesitancy that was created by the cacophony of mRNA lies and fear porn. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) apoplectically launched a futile tirade against Kennedy that fell only slightly short of his epic onesie rant, ironically invoking Donald Trump as an authority for vaccine efficacy. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) called Kennedy a charlatan and tried laughably to invoke Epstein file protesters to discredit him, claiming, “Do you think they are hoaxers? ... You’re perpetrating hoaxes.”
Senator Wyden accused the secretary of “allowing conspiracy theories to dictate this country’s health.” But it was technocratic shills who dictated to Americans while their health, economy, and children’s mental states all deteriorated, and anyone who dared question the official mRNA orthodoxy was denigrated as a conspiracy theorist.
Once again, the Democrats got the truth upside-down, and their false narrative spun out of their control. Kennedy braved the onslaught and exposed the systemic perfidy of the Democrat clown show. He may as well have been talking about the Senate Finance Committee Democrats when he testified that “we are the sickest nation in the world. That’s why we have to fire people at the CDC. They did not do their job. This was their job, to keep us healthy.”
It is not Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. who needs firing.
Author, pastor, and attorney John Klar raises grass-fed beef and sheep in Vermont. His Substack, Small Farm Republic, is based on his 2023 book, Small Farm Republic: Why Conservatives Must Embrace Local Agriculture, Reject Climate Alarmism, and Lead an Environmental Revival. John is a staff writer at Liberty Nation News and a volunteer and occasional paid contributor for MAHA Action, a 501(c)(4) charity that disseminates Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s policies. MAHA Action did not commission this post.
Image: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr, CC BY-SA 2.0.