Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose antipathy toward vaccines and messages about healthy living helped him build a large national following, faced bruising questions from Democratic senators in his first confirmation hearing on Wednesday.
He displayed limited knowledge of critical programs at times and struggled to convince skeptical lawmakers that he was not “anti-vaccine.”
“I am pro-safety,” Mr. Kennedy, President Trump’s nominee for health secretary, declared in his opening remarks. He insisted that he had been mistakenly labeled anti-vaccine in news reports, despite years of comments raising suspicions about the safety of inoculations. He was quickly interrupted by a protester in the audience who shouted, “He lies!”
Mr. Kennedy’s contentious appearance before the Senate Finance Committee, his first of two confirmation hearings, was filled with angry, argumentative exchanges with Democrats on the panel who read his old comments back to him, their voices raised. Mr. Kennedy insisted that many of the statements had been taken out of context and that he had been called a conspiracy theorist “mainly to keep me from asking difficult questions of powerful interests.”
Republicans, and Mr. Kennedy himself, sought to put the spotlight on issues that have bipartisan consensus, such as his pledge to reverse the chronic-disease epidemic and his commitment to promoting nutrition and healthy eating. When the hearing was over, the chairman of the committee, Senator Mike Crapo, Republican of Idaho, said Mr. Kennedy had “done well” and deserved to be confirmed.
The hearing was a remarkable moment for adherents of the so-called medical-freedom movement, a right-left coalition of “crunchy granola moms” and libertarians whose voices for years were on the fringes of American society. Mr. Kennedy’s rise during the coronavirus pandemic, and his subsequent embrace of Mr. Trump, have landed the movement — which he has christened “Make America Healthy Again” — on the verge of power in Washington.
It was also an extraordinary spectacle in American politics, as Mr. Kennedy, a member of the royal family of the Democratic Party, was assailed by Democrats who revere the Kennedys’ long history of public service. Less than a year ago, Mr. Kennedy was mounting a long-shot bid for the presidency against a Democratic president. That, and his alliance with Mr. Trump, have angered some of his relatives, including his cousin Caroline, who issued a letter on Tuesday calling him a “predator” and unfit to serve.
There were two outbursts from Kennedy detractors, both of whom were escorted from the room. But the audience was packed with vocal supporters, some wearing hats that said “M.A.H.A.” or “CONFIRM R.F.K. Jr.” When Mr. Kennedy entered, to the sound of dozens of camera shutters clicking, the audience — many of them mothers — cheered and applauded. “Bobby! Bobby! Bobby!” they chanted. Mr. Kennedy acknowledged them with a brief wave.
For more than three hours, he parried tough questions from Democrats and, for the most part, softballs from Republicans, many of whom praised Mr. Kennedy as a rebellious truth teller. Allies of Mr. Kennedy came into the hearing worried that the intense press attention on vaccination, and in particular on the polio vaccine, could derail his nomination.
Mr. Kennedy was also confronted over his shifting views on abortion; he has said in the past that “bodily autonomy” is one of his core values, and that women should be trusted to choose whether to have an abortion or not. Now he says he will follow Mr. Trump’s lead on abortion policy — a statement that drew a sharp rebuke from Senator Maggie Hassan, Democrat of New Hampshire.
“When was it that you decided to sell out the values you’ve had your whole life in order to be given power by President Trump?” the senator asked. Mr. Kennedy said he agreed with Mr. Trump that “every abortion is a tragedy.”
For some Americans, it might have been the first time they had heard Mr. Kennedy’s raspy voice. He has spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological condition that causes certain muscles in the voice box, or larynx, to spasm.
It appeared that few minds on the committee had been changed, and Mr. Kennedy seems headed for a partisan vote when the panel considers whether to send the nomination to the Senate floor for a final vote on his confirmation. There is, however, one possible exception: Senator Bill Cassidy, Republican of Louisiana. Mr. Cassidy, a doctor, leads the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which will question Mr. Kennedy on Thursday.
Mr. Cassidy pressed Mr. Kennedy on his knowledge of Medicare and Medicaid, which cover over 100 million older and low-income Americans. But Mr. Kennedy appeared to have little familiarity with the enormous health insurance programs that he would oversee as health secretary.
Discussing Medicaid, for example, Mr. Kennedy said, “The premiums are too high, the deductibles are too high.” But the vast majority of Medicaid enrollees do not pay any premiums or deductibles. Federal law prohibits premiums for the lowest-income Medicaid enrollees. Mr. Cassidy looked skeptical. But no Republicans criticized Mr. Kennedy outright.
Calley Means, a health care entrepreneur who has been an adviser to Mr. Kennedy and was instrumental in connecting him to Mr. Trump, dismissed Mr. Kennedy’s stumbles, saying that senators were focusing on minutiae that Mr. Kennedy could easily learn, while Mr. Kennedy was focused on the big picture — improving health for all Americans.
“They’re speaking different languages,” Mr. Means said after the hearing. “Bobby is a leader who is putting a stake in the ground in a world where kids aren’t continuing to get sick.”
Mr. Kennedy also faced tough questions on abortion from Senator Steve Daines, Republican of Montana. Mr. Daines brought up the abortion pill mifepristone; he has supported efforts by abortion rights opponents to restrict access to the pill.
Mr. Daines asked Mr. Kennedy what he would do about mifepristone. Mr. Kennedy hedged. “President Trump has asked me to study the safety of mifepristone,” he said. “He has not yet taken a stand on how to regulate it. Whatever he does, I will implement those policies.”
If confirmed, Mr. Kennedy would oversee the federal Department of Health and Human Services, a vast agency with more than 80,000 employees and 13 operating divisions. He would be in charge of some of the premier agencies and programs responsible for protecting the health and safety of Americans, including Medicare and Medicaid, the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Throughout the hearing, Mr. Kennedy sought to steer the discussion away from his history of questioning vaccines and toward his promise to combat chronic disease and to curb ultra-processed foods and obesity. He also said he was “supportive of vaccines.”
But Democrats came prepared with statements Mr. Kennedy had made over the years doubting the science behind vaccines.
During one combative exchange, Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat of Colorado, accused Mr. Kennedy of “peddling in half-truths” and “false statements,” and pressed him to acknowledge some of his previous claims on health issues.
He pointed to Mr. Kennedy’s suggestion that Covid-19 was “targeted to attack” Caucasians and Black people and to spare Chinese people and Ashkenazi Jews, and that Lyme disease was “highly likely” to be an engineered bioweapon.
“I probably did say that,” Kennedy said about Lyme disease. But he tried to push back on his Covid-19 claim, telling Mr. Bennet that he had not said that the virus was “deliberately targeted.”
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the panel, said that Mr. Kennedy had “embraced conspiracy theories, quacks, charlatans.”
“He has made it his life’s work to sow doubt and discourage parents from getting their kids lifesaving vaccines,” Mr. Wyden said. “It has been lucrative for him, and put him on the verge of immense power.”
But the most memorable moment of the hearing came from Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent and former chair of the Health Committee, who displayed posters of baby onesies sold by Children’s Health Defense, the nonprofit Mr. Kennedy founded. They carried words like “No Vax No Problem” and “Unvaxxed Unafraid.”
Mr. Sanders asked Mr. Kennedy if he would order the group, which he used as a platform to sow doubts about vaccination, to stop selling the onesies. Mr. Kennedy said he had resigned from the nonprofit and had “no power” over it. Mr. Sanders, unsatisfied, pressed ahead. “Are you supportive of these onesies?” Mr. Sanders demanded. The room erupted in laughter. “I want good science,” Mr. Kennedy replied.
