Kennedy rejects criticism, data and decorum in contentious hearing

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies before the Senate Finance Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, on Thursday, Sept. 4, 2025. (Tierney L. Cross/The New York Times)

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced a withering barrage of questioning from a Senate committee on his vaccine policy and his record as President Donald Trump’s health secretary, responding at times with clear disdain for the senators, public health data and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which he oversees.

Appearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday, Kennedy blamed the CDC for the number of American deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic, and said he did not trust the data that showed vaccines saved millions of lives in the United States and elsewhere during the pandemic. Kennedy also falsely asserted that there were no cuts to Medicaid in Trump’s domestic policy bill, and rejected bipartisan criticism that his actions were making it harder for people to obtain vaccines.

Kennedy is well acquainted with Washington because of his upbringing in a Democratic dynasty. He spoke in a tone rarely used by a Senate witness — angry at times, dismissive at others — and repeatedly accused senators who belong to his family’s party of lying, telling them they were “making stuff up” and “talking gibberish.”

Some Republicans, including two doctors — Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and John Barrasso of Wyoming — also put Kennedy on the spot. Cassidy, who voted to confirm Kennedy on the condition that he wouldn’t disrupt access to vaccines, said Kennedy was in fact doing so through his actions as health secretary.

“We’re denying people vaccine,” Cassidy said as he concluded his line of questioning.

Kennedy responded: “You’re wrong.”

The hearing was focused heavily on vaccine policy, with members of both parties grilling Kennedy on whether he misled them in his confirmation hearings.

When Kennedy appeared before the committee in January, he repeatedly promised to “do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking” vaccines. Since then, he has installed skeptics to guide vaccine policy, restricted access to COVID vaccines, canceled grants and contracts for vaccine development and given a tepid endorsement of the measles vaccine.

In an exchange with Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., Kennedy said he did not know how many people died of COVID and whether the vaccines prevented COVID deaths because “they didn’t have the data.” In fact, hundreds of reports have tracked the efficacy of the vaccines since they debuted in 2021, finding that the shots have saved millions of lives in the United States and elsewhere.

The hearing came during a tumultuous period at the CDC. Lawmakers were rattled last week when the White House fired Susan Monarez, the CDC director whom Kennedy once endorsed.

Her lawyers called the dismissal unlawful and “a warning to every American: Our evidence-based systems are being undermined from within.” In an opinion essay published Thursday in The Wall Street Journal, she accused Kennedy of “a deliberate effort to weaken America’s public-health system and vaccine protections.”

Here’s what else to know:

— CDC turmoil: Experts and former high-ranking agency officials said they feared the CDC, the United States’ premier public health agency, was losing its legitimacy, with lasting consequences for public health.

— Florida: On Wednesday, Florida officials announced theirs would be the first state to end all vaccination requirements for children attending school, a long-sought goal of the medical freedom movement that Kennedy leads.

— Kennedy’s defense: In an opinion essay published in the Journal on Tuesday, Kennedy wrote that his actions would restore trust in the CDC, and blamed its failures on “politicized science, bureaucratic inertia and mission creep.” He said he aimed to “restore the CDC’s focus on infectious disease, invest in innovation, and rebuild trust through integrity and transparency.”