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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will again be on Capitol Hill today for a second confirmation hearing to be President Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services secretary — this time with the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which will continue the intense scrutiny over his history of controversial and inflammatory comments.
Kennedy is expected to face tough questions from Democrats regarding his false claims that vaccines cause autism and his conspiratorial rhetoric on federal agencies and other health policies, while Republicans are poised to seek commitments from him over his positions on abortion rights and agriculture.
Other more incendiary comments he’s made in the past, such as comparing Covid-19 pandemic mandates to Nazi Germany and apartheid laws in South Africa, have also faced backlash from both ends of the political spectrum.
Kennedy has also baselessly suggested that human-made chemicals in water systems could turn children gay or transgender. He has long peddled AIDS denialism conspiracy theories, alleging that HIV does not cause AIDS and questioning the “theology that HIV is the sole cause of AIDS.”
Routine childhood vaccinations are projected to prevent hundreds of millions of illnesses, tens of millions of hospitalizations, and more than 1 million deaths among people born between 1994 and 2023, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Vaccines are thoroughly tested before their release, and their safety is monitored on an ongoing basis.
About Kennedy Jr.: As a member of the famed Kennedy political dynasty, he built his career as a progressive lawyer taking on pharmaceutical companies and environmental safety causes. He later founded the nonprofit Children’s Health Defense, known for spreading anti-vaccine misinformation. After he ran for president as a Democrat-turned-independent last year, Kennedy rebranded himself as a MAGA acolyte seeking to “Make America Healthy Again” and quickly endorsed Trump.
CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski contributed to this report.
