HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has broken a lot of the promises he made to Republican senators this year, plunging the department into turmoil. Now, he’s going to have to answer for it.
Kennedy made a series of commitments to Senate HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.) earlier this year in order to win confirmation. Since then, Kennedy has been central to one controversy after another embroiling HHS, including the firing last week of new CDC Director Susan Monarez.
Cassidy and other Senate Finance Committee members now have their first chance to publicly grill Kennedy over these controversial moves at a hearing this morning.
In the wake of the tumult at the CDC, Cassidy called for increased oversight of the agency, though he hasn’t elaborated on what that would look like. Cassidy’s office declined to comment.
Back on his word. Cassidy had received assurances from Kennedy on vaccines, particularly that the incoming HHS head would work within existing vaccine approval systems, maintain the vaccine advisory panel without changes and regularly communicate with Congress about vaccine safety programs. Then, Kennedy fired all members of a key vaccine advisory committee in June.
Yet Cassidy won’t be Kennedy’s only critic at the hearing.
“The concerns that Cassidy has expressed, I share,” Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said. “And that’s what will be covered in the hearing.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) also backed Cassidy’s calls for increased oversight. Murkowski isn’t on Finance but sits on the Senate HELP Committee, which has jurisdiction over the CDC. Murkowski said Kennedy’s actions so far on vaccines have gone against commitments he made to her and others during the confirmation process.
“I was not pleased at all when Susan Monarez was asked to step down and the vacancies in leadership that we now have at CDC,” Murkowski said. “I’m encouraged that Chairman Cassidy wants to have some level of oversight within the committee on this. I think that that’s important.”
The softballs. Kennedy will have some friendly GOP faces on the Finance panel. Despite all Republicans voting for Monarez’s confirmation, many conservatives are now falling in line behind Kennedy over her ouster.
Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.), who also sits on the Finance Committee, said there needs to be a shakeup at the CDC.
“The people that quit or were fired were not fulfilling the mission that President Trump intended,” Marshall said. “He selected Bobby Kennedy Jr. for this job because he’s a disrupter.”
Democrats’ bash fest. For Democrats, the hearing is a chance to tear into Kennedy over the turmoil at the CDC, rollback of vaccine safety measures and many other simmering controversies.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) also released a report this morning detailing the “unmitigated disaster” of Kennedy’s leadership so far.
