RFK Jr. Faces Widespread Calls to Resign in Wake of Heated Senate Hearing

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. remained combative during an extraordinary Senate Finance Committee hearing on September 4 as Democrats grilled him about creating “chaos” at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, the committee’s ranking Democrat, said Kennedy fired career scientists at the CDC and replaced them with “cranks” and “conspiracy theorists” who promote mistrust in basic public health principles.

“His actions are endangering children, leaving parents confused and scared, and forcing families and taxpayers to pay more for their health care,” Wyden said of Kennedy in his opening statement.

Wyden is one of dozens of Democrats who have joined medical groups, including the American Association of Immunologists and the American Public Health Association, in calling for Kennedy to resign, according to The Washington Post. More than 1,000 current and former staffers at HHS, which includes the CDC, issued a public letter on September 3 demanding that Kennedy resign or be fired by Donald Trump.

Support for Kennedy, an attorney and a celebrity in the world of anti-vaxxers, appears to be wavering among a handful of key Senate Republicans, although GOP lawmakers were careful not to cross Trump while voicing concerns during the Senate hearing. All eyes were on Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Republican and physician from Louisiana who has pledged to regularly meet with Kennedy and hold him to promises made during confirmation hearings earlier this year.

Despite expressing hesitation over his ability to lead the department, Cassidy cast a key confirmation vote in February after receiving assurances that as secretary, Kennedy would not restrict access to vaccines and stoke public mistrust. When Cassidy told Kennedy on Thursday that his policies were effectively denying people COVID shots, Kennedy responded flatly, “You’re wrong.”

In fact, Kennedy’s policies are creating confusion among doctors and pharmacists and preventing pregnant women, young children, and healthy people under the age of 65 from receiving COVID booster shots at pharmacies in more than a dozen states. Depending on forthcoming recommendations from the CDC’s immunization advisory board — a panel that Kennedy recently gutted and stacked with allies and vaccine skeptics — access to COVID vaccines and public trust in disease prevention could further erode under the Trump administration.

The hearing showed that Democrats see Kennedy and the allies he is installing at powerful positions throughout his department as a direct threat to the wellbeing of their constituents. Now, coupled with drastic cuts to health care approved by Trump and Republicans in the massive budget bill passed earlier this summer, Democrats also appear to view Kennedy as a weakness within Trump’s cabinet, and the GOP’s gutting of health infrastructure as an opening for political attack.

“You are a hazard to the health of the American people,” Sen. Raphael Warnock of Georgia told Kennedy during a tense exchange before calling on him to resign.

Alarmingly, during an extraordinary exchange with Sen. Mark Warner (D-Virginia), Kennedy said he did not know how many people in the United States are estimated to have died from COVID, or whether the vaccines prevented additional deaths. Warner expressed disbelief that a sitting U.S. health secretary could be “that ignorant” about the deadliest disease outbreak in decades. Kennedy said that he doesn’t think “anybody knows” how many people died from COVID and attacked the accuracy of CDC data released regularly under President Joe Biden.

At several points during the hearing, Kennedy told lawmakers they were speaking “gibberish” when he was confronted with scientific facts and news reports about the disruption he has brought to HHS. Lisa Gilbert, president of the watchdog group Public Citizen, said Kennedy is “grossly incompetent and unqualified” to lead HHS.

“The gaslighting, the lack of health expertise and the personal pseudoscientific agenda that Kennedy continues to flout are sickening and killing Americans,” Gilbert said in a statement after the hearing. “Kennedy is throwing us into a health crisis.”

The hearing was a rundown of controversies that have erupted at federal health agencies since Kennedy’s confirmation in February. Top officials have resigned and hundreds of CDC employees staged a walkout on August 29 after Kennedy fired CDC Director Susan Monarez, who wrote in a Wall Street Journal op-ed on September 4 that Kennedy pressured her to pre-approve policies that would restrict access to COVID shots without providing scientific evidence. Kennedy told the Senate Finance Committee that Monarez is lying.

In response, Monarez’s legal team told Axios that Kennedy’s accusations were “false and, at times, patently ridiculous.”

As ranking member on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) launched an investigation into Kennedy’s decision in late July to fire all 17 members of a key vaccine policy recommendation panel and has called for a bipartisan investigation into the firings. Kennedy replaced the 17 doctors and scientists with allies and vaccine skeptics — the “cranks” and “conspiracy theorists” that Wyden and other Democrats warn about.

Kennedy has also faced intense internal pushback from hundreds of employees after a shooter opened fire outside of CDC offices in Georgia on August 8.

“The attack came amid growing mistrust in public institutions, driven by politicized rhetoric that has turned public health professionals from trusted experts into targets of villainization — and now, violence,” reads an August 20 letter to Kennedy signed by 750 federal employees.

The suspect shot more than 200 rounds at CDC’s offices in Atlanta, and a police officer was killed before the suspect was arrested. Further investigation by law enforcement revealed the suspect was fixated on COVID vaccines and misinformation about them.

“Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., is complicit in dismantling America’s public health infrastructure and endangering the nation’s health by repeatedly spreading inaccurate health information,” the signatories wrote.

In the past, Kennedy has asserted without evidence that COVID shots are “the deadliest vaccine ever made” and called the CDC a “cesspool of corruption.” Experts say serious adverse effects from COVID vaccines are rare.

Julie Rovner, a correspondent for KFF Health News, said Kennedy was unable to answer basic questions from lawmakers about how HHS and CDC function and what his controversial appointees are working on within the agencies. This reportedly includes a study attempting to link childhood autism to vaccines, an obsession of Kennedy’s that made him famous in alternative health circles but has been debunked by years of research.

“He continued to be really rude, and he continued to not know how the department works,” Rovner said during a webinar after the hearing. “Will this make it easier for Republicans to defend him? Probably not.”

“Enough is enough. It’s time for Kennedy to be ousted from his position as secretary of HHS,” Gilbert said.