Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced angry protesters and aggressive questioning from Democrats about everything from his record of sowing mistrust in vaccines to massive staff cuts at the department.
Kennedy testified before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee about the Trump administration’s budget request for the 2026 fiscal year.
Almost as soon as the hearing began, protesters began to interrupt the hearing. Some held up signs as they yelled “RFK kills people with AIDS” while Ben Cohen, the co-founder of the ice cream company Ben & Jerry’s, blasted US support for the Israeli military onslaught in Gaza. At one point Kennedy seemed visibly startled by an outburst from spectators behind him, although he quickly regained his composure and smiled before continuing.
Kennedy has come under criticism for slashing the services at the department. Under his leadership, Health and Human Services has slashed multiple research grants. In March, Kennedy slashed numerous employees at various agencies at the department and began to eliminate the Administration for Community Living, which helps people with disabilities and elderly people stay in their communities rather than nursing homes.
Earlier in the day, Kennedy testified before the House appropriations subcommittee that focuses on funding HHS.
But protesters were not the only ones who pushed Kennedy, who has spent years promoting the long-debunked theory that vaccines cause autism.
Independent Senator Bernie Sanders, who leads the Democratic minority on the HELP Committee, criticized the Trump administration’s support for potential cuts to Medicaid in congressional Republicans’ massive bill which they hope to pass on a party-line vote by the end of the year.
“The cuts are not true cuts,” Kennedy said. “The cuts are elimination of waste, abuse and fraud.”
Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut had a fiery exchange with Kennedy about his comments on vaccines. Murphy, one of the most outspoken Democrats, criticized how the HHS Department canceled $12bn worth of vaccine grants.
“You also said specific to the measles vaccine that you support the measles vaccine, but you have consistently been undermining the measles vaccine,” he said. Murphy referred to Kennedy’s remarks that the vaccine wanes quickly, that it was never fully tested for safety and that it contained fetal debris.
“All true,” Kennedy said. “Do you want me to lie to the public?”
Kennedy’s comments come despite the fact that he had said amid a measles outbreak that the measles vaccine is “the most effective way to prevent the spread,” which had come after Kennedy spread doubts about vaccinations for years.
Throughout the hearing, the presiding chairman of the committee had to hit the gavel after senators and Kennedy went over their time or interrupted each other.
Other senators criticized cuts to the department led by Kennedy as well as by Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, also known as DOGE. Sen. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin said how the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention fired its entire lead poisoning staff, which meant a request from Milwaukee schools to investigate lead poisoning was denied.
“I don’t know what you would say to parents who must now test their children for lead and deal with school closures, but do you intend to eliminate this branch at CDC” she asked, which Kennedy denied. “You cannot tell us that you want to make America healthy again when you are wilfully destroying programs that keep children safe and healthy from lead poisoning .”
But Kennedy did not just face aggressive questioning from Democrats. Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine both asked Kennedy about reductions in staff to administer programs such as for Alzheimer’s research and education.
“I’m concerned that the reductions in force of approximately 10,000 staff across the HHS will completely undermine this act,” she said. She specifically cited how the Healthy Aging Branch had its staff placed on administrative leave or let go.
Kennedy responded by saying that division had been folded into another one. He added that agencies were not eliminated but just reassigned under the reorganization of HHS that Kennedy announced in March.
He also criticized a decision by the National Institutes of Health, which is under HHS, to cap the amount of indirect cost research institutions can charge the NIH to 15 percent.
“What we heard was that this cap will mean is less basic research, fewer clinical trials and that it will also cause our scientists and researchers to leave the United States and go to other countries,” she said.
Kennedy responded by saying that many universities with larger endowments received large indirect payments and that the cap was an industry standard.
“I understand the University of Maine, the University of Alabama, many other universities, state universities, were not abusing,” he said. “We have a plan for how to address issues like what’s happening at the University of Maine.”
In the same respect, Murkowski highlighted cuts to the low-income energy assistance program (LIHEAP).
“You know the temperatures can get really, really tough,” she said of Alaska. She also said that cuts to other occupational safety programs could affect fishing in Alaska and domestic violence and sexual assault funding.
Despite this, very few Republicans criticized Kennedy’s comments about vaccines, with only Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Republican chairman, pushing back against Kennedy’s claims that vaccines had not been tested against a placebo. In fact, the rotavirus, measles and HPV vaccines had been tested against one.
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