Hawaii Gov. Josh Green came out swinging against Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with a string of attacks Wednesday night on CNN before erupting at one of the Health and Human Services nominee’s claims during his confirmation hearing earlier in the day.
Green, a physician, spent the beginning of his appearance on CNN blasting Kennedy’s “unbelievable” performance before the Senate Finance Committee, where he struggled to answer questions about Medicare and Medicaid.
“He totally flopped in his hearing today,” Green told host Erin Burnett. “He didn't know the difference, as you reported, between Medicare and Medicaid, which is totally fundamental to Health and Human Services.”
But it was Kennedy’s denials under oath about his connection to a deadly measles outbreak in Samoa that outraged Green, who says the well-known vaccine skeptic actually “demolished the confidence in vaccines in Samoa as people were dying.”
“He’s a liar and it's bull---- because he went there and he met with the anti-vax leader, supported that person who was spreading all of this misinformation, and that guy got arrested,” Green said.
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The Democratic governor added that others in his group told him that Kennedy was posting Facebook messages “demonizing vaccination programs.”
“He started and founded and sponsored the Children's Health Defense, took $2.2 million in pay from them, and has been continuously engaging with this organization globally,” Green told viewers. “He is constantly kind of squirming around the reality, which is he did not support vaccinations, he had no reason on earth to be there and then I had to go there with, you know, with 75 doctors and nurses and vaccinate 37,000 people.”
Green concluded by his closed-door meetings with senators, including six Republicans and seven Democrats, that “they are not at all inclined to support” Kennedy’s nomination.
“But there's a ton of pressure on them,” he noted. “And I will tell you, some of them are afraid because his position on vaccinations is absurd. He obviously is anti-vax," Green said. He added: "And then there's the more conservative Republicans who are pro-life, and they want no part of him. If this thing went anonymously as a vote, it would be 70 votes against."
Watch the clip below or at this link: