In two hearings on Capitol Hill Wednesday, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced vigorous questioning from senators. He testified before the U.S. Senate Finance Committee and the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, or HELP.
While Republicans on the committees praised Kennedy for his agency’s investments in rural health and nutrition, exchanges with Democratic senators frequently became rancorous. Democrats pushed Kennedy to commit to making Trump administration deals with pharmaceutical companies public, grilled him on the measles and other vaccines, and asked him to account for the costs of recent promotional videos from his office, among other topics.
Kennedy’s appearances cap a week of testifying before various Congressional committees to discuss his leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services and his agency’s budget request for 2027.
In both hearings, Kennedy listed the work of the agency during his first 15 months leading it, saying it has “delivered historic wins.” He mentioned negotiating drug prices, releasing the new Dietary Guidelines, expanding nutrition education in medical schools, the push to phase out petroleum based food dyes and the Rural Health Transformation Fund.
Until last week, he hadn’t testified on the Hill since September.
Vaccine rhetoric and health messaging
Senators appeared to have stored up numerous comments and questions about many of Kennedy’s actions in his tenure to date.
Kennedy made dramatic, sudden changes to the childhood vaccine schedule without input from outside advisors and did not appear before lawmakers to answer questions until now. He also hasn’t testified about measles outbreaks — in 2025 the U.S. recorded more measles cases than the country has had in three decades.
Looming over Kennedy’s appearances is his standing with President Trump. Kennedy and his priorities were not mentioned in the State of the Union address this year, in contrast to many mentions in his previous year’s address to Congress. And Trump has fired three members of his cabinet in the last seven weeks: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi, and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
Asked Tuesday in the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee whether the Trump administration had told him to say less publicly about vaccines, Kennedy said no. He also said he was unaware of polling by a Republican firm suggesting his position on vaccines is unpopular and politically hazardous for the party heading into the midterm elections.
Nonetheless, when Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, pushed Kennedy in the Senate Finance Committee hearing to take a stance on the measles vaccine, Kennedy gave a firm defense of the shots. Prior to his role in the Trump administration, Kennedy built his fame and fortune on anti-vaccine activism.
Bennet asked, “Are you taking the position as your CDC director has taken, that the measles vaccine is vital to keeping American children healthy in this country?”
Kennedy replied, “We promote the measles vaccine.”
He went on to say that the measles vaccine prevents measles in 97% of the people who take it: “I’ve always said that. That’s what the science says.”
Senator Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., asked Kennedy about what she termed “vanity projects,” a series of promotional videos from HHS, including one of Kennedy with the musician Kid Rock drinking milk in a hot tub, and others of Kennedy shirtless as a WWE fighter and as a video game hero.
“I have noticed that while HHS has done relatively little promotion of the life-saving measles vaccine […] you have been doing a lot of your own self promotion using official government channels and resources,” she said.
She asked if the President had authorized him to use HHS resources for these. “I’ve never discussed it with the President,” he said.
Cassidy’s milder tone
A key member of both of those committees is Sen. Bill Cassidy, R.-La. In February of last year, Cassidy cast the tie-breaking committee vote to recommend Kennedy for the position of health secretary despite Kennedy’s longstanding history of anti-vaccine activism.
Cassidy, a physician, said he only did this after securing a commitment that the two of them would speak multiple times per month, collaborate on hiring decisions at HHS, and that Kennedy would work within the existing vaccine policy systems.
When Kennedy went back on his commitments to Cassidy by making dramatic changes to federal vaccine policies, Cassidy condemned the moves earlier this year.
But on Wednesday morning, in his first chance to publicly question Kennedy about these changes, Cassidy used his five minutes to ask about health savings accounts and Medicare Advantage.
“Affordable health care – my gosh, when I’m on the campaign trail, for example, or just speaking to folks back home, it’s all about that,” Cassidy said.
In his opening remarks on Wednesday afternoon’s Senate HELP Committee, Cassidy also struck a largely supportive tone.
But he did nudge Kennedy on vaccines. “When I see outbreaks numbering in the thousands and people dying once more from vaccine preventable diseases, particularly children, it seems more than tragic.”
He followed with a question on the new nominee for the role of director of the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention. He wanted to know if the new director, once confirmed, would “have the right to make decisions independently” of “political appointees at the CDC who have worked to undermine trust in immunizations.” This was likely a reference to former CDC director Susan Monarez, who was ousted after less than a month in the job due to disagreements with Kennedy on vaccine policy.
Cassidy is facing a tough Republican primary in Louisiana to keep his senate seat, and Kennedy’s allies at the Make America Healthy Again PAC have endorsed a challenger.
Questions about TrumpRx
Several senators asked about TrumpRx, the administration’s new drug discount site. Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., wanted to know why some of the drugs there cost more than prices available elsewhere.
Noting that Protonix, a heartburn medication, costs $200 on TrumpRx, she asked Kennedy, “Do you know what the drug costs at Costco?”
“I do not,” he replied.
She revealed it’s $16 at Costco. After a back and forth on other drugs that cost less at Costco than TrumpRx, Kennedy said the TrumpRx prices were for brand-name drugs, not generics.
“You’re comparing apples to oranges because you’re comparing the brand drug to the generic drug. We will be directing [people] to the generic.”
Warren did not appear to be appeased. “If you’re buying a drug on TrumpRX, there is a more than one in four chance that Trump’s discount is actually a price hike,” she said, saying it steers patients to more expensive drugs “that are going to pad Big Pharma’s profits.”
MAHA and toxins
Numerous Republican senators praised Kennedy for his progress on fighting to encourage healthy eating, including his work on phasing out certain synthetic food dyes. These are issues which appeal to his Make America Healthy Again base.
But he was challenged to account for President Trump’s action on a chemical some worry is contaminating the food supply.
On Wednesday afternoon, Sen. Hassan sparred with Kennedy over the issue of glyphosate, a pesticide which his supporters in the MAHA movement have rallied against. Before joining the federal government, Kennedy sued chemical maker Monsanto over the health effects of glyphosate. Hassan noted that President Trump signed an executive order to increase production of the pesticide and to grant immunity from liability to the company that makes it.
“When you were running to get the MAHA vote, you told people you would stand up to chemical companies, you would take carcinogens out of our agricultural system,” she said. She said instead of working with the president to limit the executive order, “you just stood down instead of standing up.”
Kennedy defended the executive order as necessary for national security, and said President Trump has “given me $200 million to help get America off of glyphosate.”
