Top 10 moments of RFK Jr.’s reality-bending confirmation hearings

In hearings Wednesday and Thursday, senators questioned President Trump's nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., over his fitness to be the country's top health official and control the mammoth $1.7 trillion agency.

Kennedy would come to the role not with a background in medicine, public health, or science but as a former environmental lawyer who has become one of the most prominent and influential anti-vaccine advocates in the country. For decades, Kennedy has spread misinformation about lifesaving vaccines, sowed doubt about their safety, and peddled various conspiracy theories.

That includes his unwavering false claim—despite decades of research to the contrary and countless debunkings—that vaccines are linked to autism (they are not). Kennedy has also made the bizarre false claim that Lyme disease, a bacterial infection spread by tick bites, is "highly likely" to be a military bioweapon (it is not). When asked about this by Senator Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) in the Senate Finance Committee hearing Wednesday, Kennedy admitted, "I probably did say that." In the hearing Thursday, held by the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), Kennedy did not deny falsely claiming that AIDS is a different disease in Africa than it is in the US.

The hearings were predictably contentious, at times raucous and emotional, and filled with staggering, reality-bending comments and moments. Here are our top 10:

1. “I am pro-vaccine,” Kennedy tried to claim.

For much of the two hearings, Kennedy tried to walk back his decadeslong history of attacking and undermining vaccines, claiming that he is not anti-vaccine but rather in favor of following the science and ensuring safety. But, his statements in and out of the hearings were conflicting. For instance, in the hearing, he touted that all of his children were vaccinated. But in previous public statements, he has said that he would "do anything, pay anything" to go back in time and not vaccinate his children.

At numerous times, senators tried to pin Kennedy down on his stance on vaccines overall, as well as on specific vaccines. Generally, Kennedy responded that if the senators personally showed him data indicating that a vaccine is safe, he would change his views and even "publicly apologize" for being wrong. (A pledge he couldn't make if he thought they were safe now.) He refused to say that vaccines do not cause autism.

Some of the senators tried to show him data, referencing the deep scientific literature supporting the safety and efficacy of vaccines, including the Measles, Mumps, and Rubella Vaccine (MMR) and the HPV vaccine. Some even held up stacks of studies. "The evidence IS there," Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said forcefully. But Kennedy always raised quibbles with whatever studies senators presented and said he would discuss individual studies with senators after the hearing.

At the conclusion of the HELP hearing Thursday, Senator Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a former gastroenterologist, confronted Kennedy with a high-quality meta-analysis finding no link between autism and vaccines. But Kennedy again dismissed it and referred Cassidy to an article published online by an anti-vaccine advocate.

Cassidy then looked up the study while another senator questioned Kennedy and raised the issue in his closing remarks. "I looked at the article by Dr. Mawson and it seems to... have some issues," Cassidy said. "I'll just put that to the side.

"And that is why I've been struggling with your nomination," he continued. Cassidy noted that he agreed with Kennedy's comments on topics such as chronic health issues and obesity, but "as someone who had discussed immunizations with thousands of people... I have approached it using the preponderance of evidence to reassure, and you have approached it using selective evidence to cast doubt."

Cassidy wondered aloud: "Does a 71-year-old man who has spent decades criticizing vaccines and is financially invested in finding faults with vaccines, can he change his attitudes and approach now that he'll have the most important position influencing vaccine policy in the United States?... Will you overturn a new leaf?"

2. “A perfect metaphor”

Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) raised concern that Kennedy not only cast doubt on vaccine safety, but had said that the people who run the country's vaccine program should be in jail, likening them to Nazis and pedophiles. Murphy quoted Kennedy saying in 2013, "To me this is like Nazi death camps. Look at what it does to the families who participate in the vaccine program. I can't tell why someone would do something like that, I can't tell you why ordinary Germans participated in the Holocaust. I can't tell you what was going on in their minds."

Murphy also noted that Kennedy called the Catholic church's sexual abuse cases a "perfect metaphor" for the vaccine program in the US.

In his response to Murphy, Kennedy only doubled down on the claims, arguing that certain members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's vaccine program had, like members of the Catholic church, "written off a generation of kids" due to "misplaced institutional loyalty to the CDC and because of entanglements with the drug companies."

"You said it was a perfect metaphor," Murphy pressed, still alarmed by the comparison of immunization to child sex abuse.

"Well, if you have 1 in 36 kids with neurological injuries and if that is linked, then that's something we should study," Kennedy replied, referring to the rate of autism (again falsely linking the condition to vaccines).

3. “She’s not going to be a pincushion”

Despite the slips, Kennedy kept trying to convince senators that he was not anti-vaccine. Other senators, meanwhile, seemed to celebrate Kennedy's track record.

"You brought to light the vaccines over the last couple years," Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said. "I've had my first granddaughter here in a couple of weeks and my son and his wife have done their research about vaccines, and she's not going to be a pin cushion. We're not going to allow that to happen. But you brought that up... I appreciate you doing that."

4. “We can’t move forward”

Without question, the most emotional moment of both hearings was during questioning by Senator Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), who spoke of how the false link between vaccines and autism had affected her and her family. "You may not know that I am the proud mother of a 36-year-old young man with severe cerebral palsy," she said, her voice cracking. "And a day does not go by when I don't think about what did I do when I was pregnant with him that might have caused the hydrocephalus that has so impacted his life. So, please do not suggest that anybody in this body of either political party doesn't want to know what the cause of autism is," she said, her voice rising.

"Mr. Kennedy, that first autism study rocked my world," Hassan continued, referring to the deeply flawed, now retracted 1998 study published in the Lancet by Andrew Wakefield, who first claimed to find a connection between the MMR vaccine and autism. "Like every mother I worried about whether in fact the vaccine had done something to my son," she said. But, the study was small (12 children, only eight with autism), and editors later found "clear evidence of falsification of data."

"Over time, the scientific community studied and studied and studied and found that it was wrong," Hassan said. The study was retracted in 2010. "Sometime science is wrong. We make progress, we build on the work, and we become more successful. And when you continue to sow doubt about settled science it makes it impossible for us to move forward. So that's what the problem is here—it's the relitigating and rehashing and continuing to sow doubt so we can't move forward. And it freezes us in place."

5. “It will cast a shadow”

In addition to stalled progress, many senators expressed deep concern that Kennedy's confirmation could lead to needless suffering and deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases. But Cassidy took the possibility one step further.

"As a patriotic American, I want President Trump's policies to succeed," Cassidy stated. "But if there is someone that is not vaccinated because of policies or attitudes you [Kennedy] bring to the department, and there's another 18-year-old who dies of a vaccine-preventable disease... it'll be blown up in the press. The greatest tragedy will be her death. But I can also tell you an associated tragedy: that will cast a shadow over President Trump's legacy."

6. “Of the ages”

During Sanders' questioning Thursday, he drew attention to another vaccine: COVID-19 vaccines. Sanders referenced a study that estimated the vaccines saved more than 3 million lives in the US and prevented more than 18 million hospitalizations. President Trump, meanwhile, once called them "one of the greatest miracles of the ages," Sanders noted.

However, Sanders pointed out that Kennedy had, during the height of the pandemic, petitioned the Food and Drug Administration to revoke authorization of COVID-19 vaccines and refrain from approving any future COVID-19 vaccines.

Sanders asked Kennedy if the scientists and the president were wrong.

"Senator I filed that lawsuit after CDC recommended the vaccine for 6-year-old children without any evidence that it would benefit them and without testing on 6-year-old children and that was my reason for filing that lawsuit," Kennedy responded.

This answer was misleading, at best. The 2021 petition Kennedy filed was specifically to revoke existing authorization and block all future COVID-19 vaccines for "all demographic groups," not just children. It further requested the FDA to prohibit minors from participating in COVID-19 vaccine trials and to refrain from issuing any authorizations for minors under age 16 to get Pfizer's vaccine or under age 18 to get any other COVID-19 vaccine.

Sanders then pressed Kennedy if the COVID-19 vaccine saved lives.

Kennedy responded: "I don't know. We don't have a good surveillance system, unfortunately."

Sanders: "We don't know?"

Kennedy: "I don't think anybody can say that. If you show me science that shows that..."

Sanders: "You know, Bobby, you say 'If I show you'—you're applying for the job. I mean, clearly, you should know this. And that is that the scientific community has established that—that [the] COVID vaccine saved millions of lives—and you're casting doubt. That is really problematic."

7. The basics

Beyond vaccination, Kennedy stumbled through basic explanations of Medicare and Medicaid, which are managed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) housed within the HHS. On Wednesday, Kennedy described Medicaid as "fully paid for" by the federal government—that is incorrect; it is jointly funded by the federal government and states. He also completely flubbed understanding that CMS has the authority to enforce the Emergency Medical Treatment & Labor Act (EMTALA).

On Thursday, Hassan asked him to define the purpose of Medicare Parts A, B, and C. Kennedy got the answers for all three wrong. He described Medicare Part A as "mainly for primary care or physicians," when the answer is that it covers inpatient care at hospitals. For Part B, Kennedy said it was "for physicians and doctors," when the correct description is coverage for outpatient care and home health. And Part C, Kennedy described as "a program where it's the full menu of all the services: A, B, C, and D." Part C covers Medicare Advantage, the private insurance option for seniors on Medicare. "It appears you don't know the basics of this program," Hassan said.

8. 5G and “other things”

In a quick exchange with Senator Andrew Kim (D-NJ), Kennedy confirmed some of his other concerning beliefs. "In the past you said 'Wi-Fi radiation does all kinds of bad things, including causing cancer,'" Kim began. "Do you still stand by that statement?"