Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced a bipartisan grilling Thursday in his second day of confirmation hearings to be President Donald Trump’s secretary for the Department of Health and Human Services.
From vaccine skepticism and transgender medicine to Medicare and healthcare diversity policies, Kennedy went toe-to-toe with senators for the second time in as many days in what marked his last hearing before Republicans look to advance his nomination.
Kennedy, if confirmed, would lead the 18 different agencies under the HHS umbrella, including the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Here are the key things that Kennedy said during his second hearing on Thursday before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions.
Republican holdouts spar with Kennedy on vaccines
Kennedy had tense exchanges with several Republican senators, underscoring that his nomination is the rocky ground. His vaccine skepticism was denounced by three key lawmakers who could make or break his confirmation: Sens. Susan Collins (R-ME), Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), and Bill Cassidy (R-LA).
Cassidy, chairman of the HELP committee and a gastroenterologist with 30 years of experience, said it was incumbent upon Kennedy to use his “bully pulpit” and “megaphone” of influence to not promote false or misleading information about vaccines, such as linking them to autism. Cassidy concluded he was “struggling” with whether to support Kennedy.
“If you come out unequivocally, ‘vaccines are safe, it does not cause autism,’ it would have an incredible impact. That’s your power,” Cassidy said. “So, what’s it going to be? … I got to figure that out for my vote.”
Kennedy’s confirmation odds on betting markets took an immediate nosedive following Cassidy’s remarks.
Collins and Murkowski similarly pressed Kennedy to embrace vaccines.
“We have made some considerable gains in my state of Alaska with vaccinating the many people in very rural areas where one disease outbreak can wipe out an entire village,” Murkowski said. “When there is a lack of confidence, when there is a doubt, what do I do?”
Collins shared concerns from a pediatric nurse practitioner about losing herd immunity among children due to vaccine skepticism.
Kennedy declined to retract his claim that vaccines are linked to autism, despite repeated prodding to do so from Cassidy.
“If you show me the science that says I’m wrong, I’m going to say, ‘I was wrong,’” Kennedy said. “I don’t have any problem. There’s nothing that would make me happier.”
“Settled science” vs. “show me the data”
The debate about what constituted “settled science” on controversial topics became a running theme during the hearing.
Democrats and the GOP holdouts said science showed there was nothing left to ponder about the safety of vaccines, while other Republicans and Kennedy countered there was still much to discover on the origins of chronic diseases, particularly neurological and autoimmune conditions.
“It’s all this blabber about the science. ‘The science says that.’ No, it doesn’t,” said Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), an ophthalmologist who got into a heated back-and-forth with Cassidy over when to receive the hepatitis B vaccine. “The science actually shows that no healthy child in America died from COVID.”
In an emotional appeal for Republicans to temper their accusations that Democrats are opposed to Kennedy out of partisan spite, Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH) detailed her struggles with personal guilt over her son’s cerebral palsy.
“Sometimes science is wrong. We make progress, we build on the world, and we become more successful,” Hassan said. “When you continue to sow doubt about settled science, it makes it impossible for us to move forward. So that’s what the problem is here, is the relitigating and rehashing and continuing to move forward, and it freezes us in place.”
Kennedy repeatedly said during the hearing that he would publicly apologize for his statements linking vaccines to autism if he were presented with sufficient evidence, but he said that the science is by no means settled.
Kaine presses on Kennedy’s 9/11 post
In an interlude that had little to do with public health, Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) questioned Kennedy on his July 2024 post on the social media platform X that, if elected president, he would not “take sides on 9/11.”
“It’s hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn’t,” wrote Kennedy in July, prior to dropping his independent presidential campaign and endorsing Trump.
Kaine brought up Kennedy’s 9/11 tweet in reference to the horrific mid-air plane accident that occurred late Wednesday night at the Ronald Reagan International Airport in Arlington, Virginia.
“We take that kind of stuff pretty personally, particularly the stuff that happened on 9/11,” Kaine said. “We don’t need folks giving oxygen to conspiracy theories about 9/11.”
Kennedy defended his post by highlighting that there has been a precipitous drop in trust in the federal government since 2001.
“My father told me when I was 13 years old, he said people in authority lie, and that the job of a citizen in every democracy is to take a fierce skepticism,” Kennedy said, referencing former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy.
Kennedy calls transgender medicine for minors “anti-science”
Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) questioned Kennedy about a rule established by the Biden administration HHS that required all doctors who accept federal dollars to perform transgender medical treatments on children, including the prescription of puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones.
The rule, which was finalized in May 2024, was quickly enjoined by the courts after 15 states, including Hawley’s Missouri, sued the Biden administration, saying that the law was an unconstitutional overreach.
Kennedy called the rule “anti-science” and promised to rescind it. The environmental lawyer also cited the British National Health Service Cass report, published last year, that identified that there is little medical evidence to support transgender medical treatments for children.
“We don’t let children drink. We don’t let them drive an automobile because they have bad judgement. They’re flooded with hormones. Their brains are still in formation. Their sexuality is still in formation,” said Kennedy. “To allow them to make judgements that are going to have life-changing, forever implications for the rest of their life at that age is unconscionable.”
Kennedy said that both sides of the issue need to be respected and that individuals with gender dysphoria needed to be treated with love, but “sometimes love means saying no to people.”
Kennedy address DEI in health disparities
Sen. Lisa Blunt-Rochester (D-DE) pointedly asked Kennedy, the legacy Democrat who has admitted to disagreeing with Trump on a host of issues, about the president’s recent executive order suspending all diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI federal programs and grants.
Kennedy responded that there are seven minority health departments at NIH working to “eliminate the shocking, unacceptable disparities in minority health.”
“I believe in helping all people who are vulnerable,” Kennedy said. “The DEI programs that President Trump eliminated have spent $63 million with no discernable impact, positive impact on human health in this country.”
When Blunt-Rochester repeatedly asked whether Kennedy would cut those programs at NIH and other agencies within HHS, Kennedy said that the decision for appropriations is “up to Congress, not the HHS.”
RFK Jr. fumbles on Medicare again
Kennedy repeated his largest blunder from the first hearing when asked on Thursday by Hassan about Medicare, which covers more than 66 million people in the United States.
On Wednesday, Kennedy was tripped up by Cassidy’s detailed questions about the problems of dual eligibles, those who are covered by both Medicare and Medicaid. But when Hassan asked basic definitional questions about parts A, B, C, and D of the Medicare program, Kennedy could not answer any correctly.
Medicare Part A covers in-patient and hospital visits, Part B covers doctors visits and outpatient care, Part C is Medicare Advantage private insurance, and Part D covers prescription drugs administered at home.
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“Mr. Kennedy, you want us to confirm you to be in charge of Medicare, but it appears that you don’t know the basics of this program,” said Hassan.
Although Kennedy would have direct control over Medicare and Medicaid under HHS, Trump nominated celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Oz will also undergo a likely contentious Senate confirmation process.