WASHINGTON – U.S. Sen. Michael Bennet joined fellow Democrats on Wednesday morning in hammering Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his changing position on abortion and his history of platforming conspiracy theories and advocating against childhood vaccines.
If confirmed, Kennedy would lead the Department of Health and Human Services, which oversees the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Medicare, Medicaid and the Food and Drug Administration, among other agencies. The FDA approves new vaccines and the CDC issues further guidance on who should receive them.
Kennedy repeatedly stressed throughout the hearing that he supports vaccines, despite his history of questioning vaccine efficacy. He also founded the anti-vaccine group The Children’s Health Defense but resigned his role as chairman in December.
Bennet acknowledged that he agreed with Kennedy about concerns over chronic illness and its connection to the American diet, but he swiftly moved to criticize Kennedy for “peddling in half-truths, peddling in false statements, peddling in theories that create doubt about whether or not things that we know are safe are unsafe.”
Bennet read from transcripts and writings from Kennedy with a raised voice, questioning him on a series of his controversial statements over the years. Bennet asked about Kennedy’s claims that COVID-19 was a “genetically engineered bioweapon that targets Black and white people while sparing Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people,” to which Kennedy responded saying he did not say the virus was “deliberately” targeted at those groups.
When Bennet asked about his claim that Lyme disease was “highly likely a militarily engineered bioweapon,” Kennedy responded that he “probably did say that.”
Kennedy did not support either claim with evidence.
Kennedy denied that he had suggested pesticides cause children to become transgender, but in a June 2022 episode on the “RFK Jr. Podcast,” he linked phthalates – a class of chemicals that disrupt the body’s hormone levels – to “sexual identification and sexual confusion among children,” saying that they induced “profound sexual changes” in children.
While those chemicals are present in many everyday products and in pesticides, Kennedy did not provide any scientific evidence to link them to being gay or transgender on the podcast.
Kennedy also fielded questions from several Democratic senators, including Bennet, about his changing position on abortion. Bennet asked about Kennedy’s previous statement that decisions about abortion should be left to women and not the government.
Kennedy dodged the question, saying “I believe every abortion is a tragedy,” a line he fell back on multiple times throughout the hearing.
Bennet was not convinced by Kennedy’s responses and raised his voice to remand him.
“This is a job where it is life and death for the kids … and for families all over this country that are suffering from living in the richest country in the world that can’t deliver basic health care” Bennet said.
On mifepristone, an abortion pill, Kennedy said Trump had asked him to investigate the safety of the pill. Mifepristone was first approved in 2000 and has since been loosely linked to 36 deaths, in which it could not be determined to be the cause of death. Trump in November 2024 committed to keeping the pills available.
“He has not yet taken a stand on how to regulate it,” Kennedy said. “Whatever he does, I will implement those policies.”
Kennedy faced questions about Medicare and Medicaid, two federal programs that he seemed unprepared to discuss. He referenced high deductibles and premiums for Medicaid, but most Medicaid patients do not pay deductibles or premiums. He also said the federal government covers the full cost of Medicaid, when states actually provide about 30% of the funding.
Most Republicans on the panel seemed to support Kennedy, focusing on his aims to combat chronic illness and improve the American diet. Notably, Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, told Kennedy that his plans to reduce processed foods available in school lunches would fall under the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and that he should leave those programs to the USDA.
On Thursday, Sen. John Hickenlooper will question RFK at a courtesy hearing with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, but Kennedy will face a vote only in the Finance Committee before the full chamber votes on his nomination. If the committee, in which Republicans hold a one-seat majority, approves him, he will then need 51 votes to be confirmed by the full Senate chamber.
After the hearing, Bennet told reporters he didn’t believe Kennedy had actually changed his positions on vaccines and abortion, saying “there’s a long record here” that Kennedy’s trying to “cover up.”
“As he has said, over and over and over again, that … you’re better off not having vaccines than having vaccines,” Bennet said. “And he comes in here and says that he's pro vaccine. I mean, that's all politics. … It is not, as he says, about science.”
He added, “I think we'd be a lot better off with somebody in that job who has to hold the science.”
Kathryn Squyres is an intern for The Durango Herald and The Journal in Cortez and a student at American University in Washington, D.C. She can be reached at ksquyres@durangoherald.com.
