Appearing before two Senate committees Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. fielded questions about a variety of issues, including President Trump's signature prescription drug program, vaccines and recent promotional videos featuring the musician Kid Rock.
In testimony before the Finance Committee and the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Kennedy faced generally supportive inquiries from Republicans and more contentious ones from the other side of the aisle.
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren asked why some of the drugs sold through Trump Rx, a government-run website that claims to offer "the world's lowest prices on prescription drugs," are sometimes priced far higher than alternative sources.
"If you're buying a drug on TrumpRX, there is a more than one in four chance that Trump's discount is actually a price hike," Warren said.
Sen. Ron Wyden, the senior Democrat on the Finance Committee, also took aim at the Trump drug exchange, which the administration launched in February. "While the American people wait for their costs at the pharmacy to go down, the administration touts TrumpRx, which actually offers higher prices for drugs than what most people can get through their insurance," Wyden said. "There is no bigger fraud on the planet when it comes to drug costs than Donald Trump."
Kennedy pushed back against the claims, saying that Warren was mixing up name-brand drugs and generics. He also defended Trump's claims about the discounts he had won on drug prices, which some critics say are exaggerated and violate the rules of math. "President Trump has a different way of calculating percentages," Kennedy said. "If you have a $600 drug and you reduce it to $10, that's a 600% reduction."
On vaccines, Kennedy defended the shot for measles, saying "We promote the measles vaccine." Kennedy, who rose to prominence in alternative health circles by questioning the safety of vaccines and other standard medical procedures, added that the science is clear that the vaccine prevents the disease with a 97% effectiveness rate.
Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician who cast the deciding vote to confirm Kennedy as health secretary, said that public faith in vaccines had suffered over the last year due to false statements about them.
"I am a doctor who has seen people die from vaccine-preventable diseases, and when I see outbreaks numbered in the thousands, and people dying once more from vaccine-preventable diseases, particularly children, it seems more than tragic," Cassidy said.
Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan questioned the claim that HHS is doing all it can to promote the measles vaccine. She asked about what she called Kennedy's "vanity projects" - a series of promotional videos featuring him, including one in which he works out shirtless with Kid Rock. "I have noticed that while HHS has done relatively little promotion of the life-saving measles vaccine ... you have been doing a lot of your own self-promotion using official government channels and resources," she said.
Hassan asked if Trump had authorized the use of public funds to pay for the videos. "I've never discussed it with the president," Kennedy said.