Robert F. Kennedy Junior in front of Senators on Wednesday in his first confirmation session as a candidate for President Donald Trump to the Minister of Health and Humanitarian Services, and facing a barbecue on his views on vaccines and miscarriages.
Kennedy sought to defend himself in his opening statement from the expected lines of interrogation, prompting a short eruption from a demonstrator in the exhibition.
Kennedy said: “News reports have claimed that I am fighting vaccine or anti -industry,” Kennedy said.
“You!” The person shouted before leaving the room.
Kennedy continued: “I am not; I am a supporter of safety. I have worked for years to raise awareness of mercury chemicals and toxic chemicals in fish, but this did not make me fighting fish. All my children were vaccinated, and I believe that vaccines have a decisive role in health care.”
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After another disruption from the protester, the crowd was warned that the session will be postponed to allow the police to investigate whether there was another branch of the audience.
The session highlighted the sharp division between the two parties with Kennedy’s opinions, with the Republicans, thanking him for his previous work and Democrats in his previous comments that raise doubts about the effectiveness of the vaccine, and his conflicting data on abortion and millions of dollars that he made through the Al -Qahim Anti -Group as well as by conducting referrals to various companies Lawyer.
Kennedy and Senator Ron Widen, D-Ur, member of the Senate Finance Committee, participated in a hot exchange where Widen tried to shed Kennedy’s position on the measles vaccine.
“Is measles fatal, yes or not?” Widan Kennedy, who did not answer the question, asked. Kennedy again claimed that he was not a vaccine control.
Weiden pressed Kennedy on his comments on a 2023 podcasts In which he said, “There is no safe and effective vaccine.”
“Mr. Kennedy, all these things cannot be correct. Do you lie to Congress today when you say that you are a supporter of the vaccine?” Widan said.
Kennedy claimed that the statements he made on the podcasts were “exposed again and again.”
He also stressed that he will not discourage Americans from obtaining certain vaccines.
“I support the measles vaccine. I support the polio vaccine. Kennedy said:” I will not do anything as HHS minister making it difficult or people discourage him from taking anything. “
At another stage, Senator Michael Bennett, De Colo, was challenging Kennedy in some of his previous statements.
“Did you say that Lyme’s disease is very likely, a biological weapon, a physical engineer designed? Did you say that Lyme’s disease is a geometric geometric weapon that is likely to be a military engineer?”
“Maybe I said that,” Kennedy said.
Then Bennett Kennedy asked about his previous comments that support abortion rights. When Kennedy began to overcome, Bennett boycotted.
“This is important!” Bennett said, his voice rises. “This is a job where life and death are … for families all over this country.”
At another stage, when he faced an interrogation of Senator Catherine Cortez Masto, de Nev state where abortion is restricted.
“I don’t know,” Kennedy said. “The answer is I don’t know.”
While the Democrats greatly focused on Kennedy’s views on vaccines and diseases, conservatives raised concerns about his previous support for abortion rights.
Last year, while he was running as an independent candidate for the president, Kennedy The Bodcast Host said It will support allowing women to abort in full term, if there is an option.
But just after days, He walkedWriting in a post on X that “miscarriage should be legal until a certain number of weeks, and is restricted after that.”
On Wednesday, under the interrogation of Senator James Lanford, RCla, Kennedy said he believed that countries should control abortion. Then, Trump’s positions in miscarriage, including the desire to end federal funding and abortion late.
“I am working with the president. I will implement his policies.”
In one of the prominent exchange, Senator Elizabeth Warren, MB, tried to extract a promise from Kennedy that he would not leave his role in HHS and continue to profit in any way of the policies that he helped set.
“I want to know if you are now committing that you will not only go to work for pharmaceutical companies, and you will not go to work to sue pharmaceutical companies and get out of that while you were a secretary after four years?” Warren said.
Kennedy was only saying that he would not take this money while holding the position of HHS chair. Warren pressed, saying he did not answer the question.
“Senator, you ask me not to sue the vaccine – pharmaceutical companies,” Kennedy boycotted.
“No, I am not!” Warren shouted, and raised her voice.
At one time, Kennedy talked about the high chronic diseases and ingredients in the food, but he also indicated that his “boss” loves to eat the Burger McDonald and drink Coca -Cola’s diet.
“You should be able to do this,” Kennedy told some of the quiet laughter in Trump’s tendency to fast. “But you should know what the effects on your family and health are.”
While many of Trump’s cabinets have been born in controversy, Kennedy of its kind in that he has extracted outside the opposition from right and left.
The issue of negatively paid advertising campaigns was, as liberals criticized its positions to combat al -Qahim and the conservatives who move its positions on abortion. doctors and Nobel returns He warned him publicly, and accused him of politicizing science.
On the eve of the hearing before the Senate Finance Committee, he received a sharp reprimand from his family.
On Tuesday, his cousin, Caroline Kennedy, wrote a huge speech asking the Senate who refused to confirm. She described it as a “predator” that was one day “a harmful scene of despair and violence”, and putting children and mice in a mixer to feed its hawks. He also accused him of luring other family members in addiction.
“Bobby is addicted to interest and power. “Bobby highlights the despair of the parents of the sick children – the vaccination of his children while building the following by inhibiting other parents from hypocrisy from their vaccination.”
The message was sent to the chairs and members of the Finance Committee, which will vote for his nomination before he goes to the full Senate floor, and the Health, Education and Pensions Committee, which will hold a second hearing with Kennedy on Thursday.
He must erase a wide range of obstacles this week because he seeks to confirm one of the most influential positions in the American government. As president of HHS, Kennedy will supervise strong agencies, including diseases and prevention control centers, Food and Drug Administration, National Health Institutes and Medicare & Medicaid.
Kennedy can lose only three Republicans if Democrats unite against him when the full Senate votes on his nomination. So far, Republican Senators have not publicly opposed it.
