President Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., faced sharp questioning and intense criticism from Democratic U.S. Senators during his confirmation hearing on Wednesday. Throughout the hearing, the right-wing anti-vaccine activist was pressed on his past statements, some of which he denied making, forcing challenges to the veracity and consistency of his positions.
One focal point of the hearing was Kennedy’s stance on abortion. During an exchange with Senator James Lankford (R-OK), Kennedy stated, “I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy. I agree with him that we cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2 million abortions a year. I agree with him that the states should control abortion. President Trump has told me he wants to end late-term abortions, and he wants to protect conscience exemptions, and that he wants to end federal funding for abortions.”
Those comments, one example of his shifting views, quickly made headlines Wednesday, given his prior positions on abortion.
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Minutes before that, U.S. Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO) had pummeled Kennedy with his lengthy history of comments on a wide range of public policy issues — including abortion.
Bennet at one point asked, “did you say on a podcast, and I quote, I wouldn’t leave it — abortion — to the states. My belief is we should leave it to the woman. We shouldn’t have the government involved, even if it’s full term.”
“Did you say that, Mr. Kennedy?”
“Senator, I believe that every abortion is a tragedy —” Kennedy replied.
“Did you say it, Mr. Kennedy?”
Senator Bennet appeared gravely frustrated.
“This matters!” he exclaimed loudly. “It doesn’t matter what you come here and say that isn’t true, that’s not reflective of what you really believe, that you haven’t said over decade after decade after decade, because unlike other jobs we’re confirming around this place, this is a job where it is life and death for the kids that I used to work for in the Denver Public school, and for families all over this country, that are suffering from living in the richest country of the world that can’t deliver basic health care and basic mental health here to them.”
“It’s too important for the games that you’re playing, Mr. Kennedy. And I hope my colleagues will say to the president, I have no influence over him. I hope my colleagues will say to the president out of 330 million Americans, we can do better than this.”
Kennedy also falsely claimed the majority of Americans are dissatisfied with Medicaid and Medicare, both of which he repeatedly confused, wrongly naming one for the other.
The latest KFF Health Tracking Poll reports that “about eight in ten (82%) Americans hold favorable views of Medicare and more than three-fourths (77%) hold favorable views of Medicaid.”
Elsewhere, Kennedy was accused of making false statements on a wide variety of issues.
Mother Jones’ David Corn wrote: “It took RFK Jr. just six minutes into his opening statement to lie to Congress…and then came other falsehoods and misrepresentations.”
Democratic strategist and consultant Sawyer Hackett on social media observed: “We’re an hour into the RFK Jr hearing and he’s lied under oath about:
– claiming he’s ‘pro-vaccine’
– saying exposure to pesticides causes children to become trans
– being pro-choice as recently as last year
– saying he had ‘nothing to do’ with measles outbreak in America Samoa”
Watch the video above or at this link.
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