(NewsNation) — Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced tough bipartisan questioning Thursday before the Senate Finance Committee over turmoil at the nation’s leading public health agency and efforts to roll back COVID-19 vaccine recommendations.
Kennedy’s clashes with Democratic senators often turned heated, while some Republican senators also raised concerns about his policy changes.
Kennedy criticized Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommendations during the coronavirus pandemic, including lockdowns and masking mandates, and claimed that the agency “failed to do anything about the disease itself.”
“The people at CDC who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving,” Kennedy said, late adding that they deserved to be fired for failing to curb chronic disease.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., said Kennedy accused Kennedy of stacking a CDC vaccines advisory panel by replacing scientists with “skeptics and conspiracy theorists.”
Kennedy’s appearance comes just a week after the Food and Drug Administration restricted access to the COVID-19 vaccine — a decision that sparked the removal of newly appointed CDC Director Susan Monarez, the resignations of four senior officials and public backlash.
Senators pressed Kennedy on Monarez’s firing. He responded that she was dishonorable, lied in her Wall Street Journal op-ed explaining her departure, and said CDC leaders who resigned in protest deserved to be fired.
“Secretary Kennedy’s claims are false, and at times, patently ridiculous,” Monarez’s attorneys said in a statement after the hearing. “Dr. Monarez stands by what she said in her Wall Street Journal op-ed and continues to support the vision she outlined at her confirmation hearing that science will control her decisions.”
Kennedy is facing mounting scrutiny as multiple firings and resignations heighten alarm over a potential leadership crisis at the CDC.
More than 1,000 current and former HHS employees signed a letter this week demanding his resignation, accusing Kennedy of “compromising the health of the nation.”
The letter follows a previous call from HHS staff urging Kennedy to do more to protect public health workers after the Aug. 8 shooting at CDC headquarters in Atlanta.
The hearing made waves in Washington. Though some Republicans are critical of Kennedy’s tenure, he has not lost the faith of the Trump administration. After the hearing, Vice President JD Vance tweeted that Kennedy’s Democratic critics are “full of s—.”