Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy's Thursday testimony before the Senate Finance Committee began in a charged atmosphere. As RedState reported, Kennedy's firing of Center for Disease Control Director Susan Monarez, her refusal to acknowledge she had been fired, and the resignations of key CDC officials in solidarity with Monarez have disrupted the agency and caused both Senate Democrats and Republicans to call for an investigation into Kennedy's actions. Ahead of the hearing, before the Senate committee, ranking member Ron Wyden (D-OR) set the table with this statement:
“After the mass firings and resignations of respected senior scientists and public servants at CDC over the last 24 hours, it is more imperative than ever that Kennedy answer to the public and their representatives about the chaos, confusion, and harm his actions are inflicting on American families,” Wyden said. “Contrary to his promises of radical transparency, federal health agencies have been shrouded in secrecy and misinformation with no accountability to the public or Congress. Amid the largest cuts to American health care in history, Kennedy’s radical secrecy is setting up the nation for a health calamity.”
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Once Chairman Mike Crapo (R-ID) gaveled in, laid out the hearing parameters, and gave his opening statement, Wyden gave his opening statement, a partisan rant where he accused Kennedy of mounting an "unceasing crusade against vaccines," and that he has caused chaos and brought corruption to America's healthcare systems, and that Kennedy has, "elevated conspiracy theorists, crackpots, and grifters" to make healthcare decisions for Americans.
Wyden ended his diatribe by demanding that, because Kennedy lied to the Senate Finance Committee at his confirmation hearing, he should be sworn in as a witness.
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Wyden closed with his salvo, invoking Kennedy's firing of Monarez as CDC director:
It's unfortunate that I have to say this: but this is a witness who has lied to members of the Senate Finance Committee. In response to over 35 written questions, including from me, he said and I quote, "He would do nothing as HHS Secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking vaccines." That was clearly not true. His unprecedented unilateral actions to restrict access to COVID vaccines, that alone proves it. He tried to fire the Senate-approved CDC Director after she chose the truth over what I consider his delusions. His prepared testimony even today includes the debunked lie that half a million children disappeared under the Biden administration's watch. A lie that the Trump administration is using as a pre-text to hunt immigrant children and their families. So, my request, Mr. Chairman, and I think it is unfortunate that I have to do this: but given the unprecedented nature of the witness's behavior, I would ask now that the committee formerly swear Robert Kennedy is as a witness.
Chairman Crapo immediately shot this request down, saying he would "let the Secretary make his own case in his opening statement."
Kennedy was composed and thanked Chairman Crapo and Wyden for allowing him to speak before the committee. Kennedy first offered condolences to the family of Officer David Rose, who was murdered on August 9 in the line of duty at CDC headquarters, before diving into his prepared remarks.
Let me start with the big picture: Under President Trump's leadership, we are enacting a once in a generation shift from a sick care system to a true Health care system that tackles the root causes of chronic disease. Chronic disease has reached crisis proportions in our country and finally we have an administration that is taking action.
The MAHA Report assessment which the White House released in May was the first government analysis of the key drivers of childhood chronic disease: Ultra-processed foods, chemical exposures, physical inactivity, and over medicalization. This month we will follow with the MAHA Report strategy the Trump administration solution for addressing each cause.
At HHS we haven't just been writing reports: We have been the busiest, most proactive administration in HHS history. In just half a year we've taken on food dyes, baby formula contamination, the Grass loophole, Flouride in our drinking water, gas station heroin, electronic cigarettes, drug prices, prior authorization, information blocking...
A protester chose this moment to interrupt Kennedy's statement; her comments involved "prior authorization," but were mostly unintelligible. A Capitol police officer calmly escorted her out.
After Crapo gave a warning about any more inappropriate behavior, he directed Kennedy to continue.
Prior authorization, information blocking, and health care inoperability. We are ending gain of function research, child mutilation, and reducing animal testing. We are addressing cell phone use in schools, excessive screen time for youths, the lack of nutrition education in our medical schools, sickle cell anemia, Hepatitis C, the East Palestine chemical spill, and many, many others.
At the FDA we are now on track to approve more drugs this year than at any time in history. I am also proud to say that HHS under President Trump is doing more with less.
We have taken measures to fight waste, fraud, and abuse. Just by eliminating duplicative enrollments in CMS we are saving taxpayers 14 billion dollars a year. Meanwhile, we are expanding access for people who need it. We are ending racist diversity, equity and inclusion practices and instead focusing on aiding low income and vulnerable families regardless of their race, which was the original intent of Title X. We're also pouring a billion dollars into Head Start and the Administration for Children and Families. Compassion need not be the casualty of efficiency.
Noteworthy in Kennedy's statement is that he spotlighted gains that have been all but ignored by the legacy media: namely, the unaccompanied minors that went missing under the watch of the Biden administration, and the health conditions on Native American reservations, something that has been given lip service by the federal government, but for decades remains largely unaddressed.
I'd like to highlight some issues that have not gotten media attention: First, we are doing our part to fulfill the president's commitment to stop human trafficking, especially of children. We inherited a terrible humanitarian crisis from the previous administration with its open border policies which allowed the appalling loss of 476,000 unaccompanied children. We have implemented policies now to ensure that that appalling tragedy can never happen again. We have knocked on 82,000 doors and located 22,000 of those children. I promise you that we will do more in the next three years.
We are also addressing the disastrous health conditions in Tribal communities on Native American reservations. I've met face to face with tribal leaders on dozens of communities and tribes in Alaska, Arizona, Idaho, New Mexico and elsewhere, and I Look forward to making HHS resources more available to those communities.
One of the most significant initiatives under President Trump is the Rural Health Transformation Fund. Part of the president's Big, Beautiful Bill (Law) which will provide the greatest investment of federal money into rural healthcare in history.
Kennedy then addressed the elephant in the room: The shakeup at the CDC.
Finally, I would like to address the recent shakeups at CDC. These changes were absolutely necessary adjustments to restore the agency to its role as the world's gold-standard public health agency with the central mission of protecting Americans from infectious disease. CDC failed that responsibility miserably during COVID: when it's disastrous and nonsensical policies destroyed small businesses, violated civil liberties, closed our schools, caused generational damage in doing so. Masked infants with no science and and heightened economic inequality. And yet all those oppressive and unscientific interventions failed to do anything about the disease itself.
America is home to 4.2 percent of the world's population, yet we had nearly 20 percent of the COVID deaths. We literally did worse than any country in the world. And the people at CDC who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools are the people who will be leaving.
And that's why we need bold, competent, and creative new leadership at CDC. People who are able and willing to chart a new course. As my father once said, "Progress is a nice word. A change is its motivator." And change has its enemies. That's why we need new blood at CDC. That's also why it's imperative that we removed officials with conflicts of interest and catastrophically bad judgment and political agendas. We need unbiased, politics-free, transparent, evidence-based science in the public interest. Those are the guiding principles behind the changes at the CDC and that is what you can expect all across our agency for the next three years.
As my colleagues have covered and will continue to cover, the questions and interchange during this Senate Finance Committee meeting have been contentious and have bordered on rancorous. As usual, Kennedy has ably held his own.
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