RFK Jr. faces bipartisan heat in Senate hearing

WASHINGTON, DC - SEPTEMBER 04: Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. testifies before the Senate Finance Committee at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on September 04, 2025 in Washington, DC. The committee met to hear testimony on President Trump's 2026 health care agenda.

Kennedy continues to advance 'antivaccine policies at the federal level'

(Image credit: Andrew Harnik / Getty Images)

What happened

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced sharp questioning Thursday while testifying before the Senate Finance Committee. He defended his leadership amid turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, blamed former CDC Director Susan Monarez for her recent firing and deflected questions about the restricted availability of key vaccines.

Who said what

Kennedy was "remarkably combative and dismissive" during three hours of testimony, "refusing to budge from his stance on vaccines, autism, Medicaid and the CDC," said The New York Times. The hearing was "punctuated with heated back-and-forth exchanges," with Kennedy "effectively getting into shouting matches" with several lawmakers.

The health secretary faced "sharp questioning from both Democrats and Republicans" and endured "bipartisan criticism" for his work limiting vaccine availability, said The Wall Street Journal. Although he "rejected assertions that he was taking vaccines away," senators "pointed to examples of immunocompromised people being denied Covid vaccines under new federal limits on who can get them." Kennedy also "claimed, wrongly," that officials at the CDC "failed to do anything" about Covid during the 2020 pandemic, said The Associated Press.

What next?

The hearing showed that Republican support for Kennedy is "starting to waver" on Capitol Hill, Politico said, possibly "driven by an August memo from Trump's longtime pollster" showing that "the overwhelming majority of voters support vaccines." As Kennedy advances "antivaccine policies at the federal level," the Journal said, CDC employees are "torn on the agency's future and their own."

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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.