At a pair of congressional hearings on Thursday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sought to defend his tumultuous leadership of the department and the widely criticized changes he has made at the nation’s health agencies.
Appearing before Congress for the first time since a fiery grilling in September, Kennedy testified before the House Ways and Means Committee in the morning before taking questions from the House Appropriations Labor-HHS-Education subcommittee in the afternoon. He is slated to testify at five more congressional hearings over the coming week.
“Most of the questioning from members of Congress on Thursday fell predictably along party lines, with Republicans mostly praising Kennedy and Trump’s leadership with regard to public health, including HHS’ focus on nutrition and promises to target fraud and abuse within the agency,” Brandy Zadrozny writes at MS Now. “Democrats, meanwhile, hammered Kennedy as a dangerous, self-aggrandizing conspiracy theorist, and criticized his stewardship, including the cutting of public service marketing during measles outbreaks in lieu of campaigns that promoted Kennedy himself.”
Squaring off with Democrats in sometimes feisty exchanges, Kennedy tried to tout “MAHA wins” in areas including new dietary guidelines and prescription drug pricing while also championing President Trump’s proposed cuts to the HHS budget. The president has requested a $15.8 billion cut to the HHS budget for fiscal 2027, a 12.5% reduction compared with this year. The proposed cuts would provide $5 billion less for the National Institutes of Health.
“The Administration continues to align the budget with the proposed reorganization [of the department],” Kennedy said in prepared remarks. “The structural reforms will reduce duplication, improve accountability, and maximize the impact of limited resources. By consolidating overlapping functions, strengthening prevention-focused programs, eliminating fraud and abuse, and targeting investments toward primary care, maternal and child health, mental health, substance use prevention and treatment, environmental health, and workforce development, HHS aims to slow long-term cost growth while improving health outcomes. These reforms are designed to ensure that federal health dollars are spent more efficiently.”
‘I’m not happy about the cuts’: Trump administration officials and political allies have reportedly steered their health messaging away from Kennedy’s divisive vaccine skepticism, seen as a risky subject ahead of the midterm elections, but Democrats challenged the secretary on that topic, too, as they challenged Kennedy’s spending decisions.
Democratic Rep. Linda Sánchez of California confronted Kennedy about a rise in measles outbreaks and a decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to end a campaign promoting flu vaccination. “The anti-vaccine rhetoric you ran on and the anti-vaccine actions you have taken over the last year clearly correlates with the dramatic increases, again, in preventable diseases,” she said. “As a mother, this horrifies me. Stopping the spread of communicable diseases is one of HHS’s primary responsibilities.”
As he clashed with Sánchez, Kennedy argued that the United States has done better in fighting measles that any other country, but did not address the rising numbers of measles cases since early 2025 — more than 2,200 last year and more than 1,700 already in 2026 — that could put the U.S. at risk of losing its status as having officially eliminated measles, which it has had since 2000.
Sánchez questioned Kennedy’s priorities. “You suspended this pro-vaccine messaging campaign, but somehow you're spending taxpayer dollars to drink milk, shirtless in a hot tub with Kid Rock?” she said, referring to a wild promotional video that Kennedy and HHS released in February. (She failed to note that Kennedy, though shirtless for much of the video, famously was wearing jeans throughout, even as he took a dip in a bathtub and jumped into a pool.)
Rep. Gwen Moore, a Wisconsin Democrat, asked whether proposed cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program and the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children would undermine Kennedy’s MAHA goals.
“Am I happy about the cuts? No, I’m not happy about the cuts,” Kennedy replied. “Nobody wants to make the cuts. [OMB Director] Russ Vought doesn’t want to make the cuts. President Trump doesn’t. But we’ve got a $39 trillion debt, and that’s costing every American child $6,600 a year.”
A new nominee for the CDC: Trump on Thursday nominated Dr. Erica Schwartz, a deputy surgeon general during his first administration, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has gone without a permanent director since Kennedy fired Susan Monarez last August over vaccine policy differences. Schwartz is seen as an experienced public health leader who doesn’t carry a record of opposing vaccines. “She is a STAR!” Trump wrote on social media. Schwartz needs to be confirmed by the Senate. Meanwhile, Trump’s nomination of Casey Means as surgeon general has stalled after she wavered during questioning about recommending vaccines.
What’s next: Kennedy has five hearings to go as he runs the congressional gantlet and the political world watches to see how well he can avoid messaging blowups as the Trump administration tries to promote health policy wins and steer clear of anti-vax controversy.