GOP Senator Grills RFK Jr. on How He’s Destroying Health Department

At a Thursday Senate Finance Committee hearing, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. came under fire for his mismanagement of the Department of Health and Human Services—and the criticism didn’t just come from the Democratic side of the aisle.

Republican Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina delivered a series of withering remarks and questions to the man he—like all but one of his GOP colleagues—voted to confirm in February.

First, Tillis skewered RFK Jr.’s decision to fire Susan Monarez as head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, just weeks after her Senate confirmation. The senator quoted Kennedy’s prior praise of the official whom he’s since ousted and cast aspersions on.

“I don’t see how you go, over four weeks, from ‘a public health expert with unimpeachable scientific credentials,’ ‘a longtime champion of MAHA values,’ ‘caring’ and ‘compassionate’ and ‘a brilliant microbiologist,’ and four weeks later fire her because, at least the public reports say, because she refused to fire people that work for her,” Tillis said.

“So, as somebody who advised executives on hiring strategies, number one, I would suggest, in the interview, you ask them if they’re truthful, rather than four weeks after we took the time of the U.S. Senate to confirm the person,” the senator continued.

But he wasn’t done using Kennedy’s words against him. Whereas Kennedy vowed to “empower the scientists at HHS to do their job,” Tillis said, “I’d just like to see evidence where you’ve done that.” Whereas Kennedy promised to do nothing “that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking vaccines,” Tillis noted, “there seem to be several reports that would seem to refute that.”

And whereas Kennedy said he would not “impose my belief over any” HHS employees, Tillis observed this was contradicted by “the firing of a CDC director, the canceling of mRNA research contracts, firing advisory board members, attempting to stall [National Institutes of Health] funding, eliminating funding for, I think, a half a billion dollars for further mRNA research.”

The North Carolina Republican was not the lone GOP senator and Kennedy-confirmer to grill the health secretary on Thursday.

Republican Senator John Barrasso, a physician, told Kennedy, “In your confirmation hearing, you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned.” Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, also a doctor, questioned how Kennedy could both be staunchly anti-vaccine and sing the praises of President Trump’s Operation Warp Speed, which developed and distributed Covid-19 vaccines.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy couldn’t cough up answers when pressed about the Trump administration’s actions that would increase drug prices for seniors, leaving one senator baffled.

While testifying before the Senate Finance Committee Thursday, Kennedy was asked by Senator Catherine Cortez Masto about his support of the carve-outs for high-cost cancer drugs from Medicare price-reduction negotiations in Trump’s behemoth budget bill.

“So my question to you, Mr. Secretary, is how do you justify claiming to take on Big Pharma while supporting a bill that shields drugs, like Keytruda and other cancer drugs, from Medicare negotiation, costing seniors and taxpayers billions and risking the lives of cancer patients who cannot afford the necessary medication?”

Kennedy replied that the planned price-reduction negotiations laid out in the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act were “very well-intentioned, but they were poorly structured,” and added that previous negotiations had raised Medicare prices.

Cortez Masto interjected that Kennedy’s claims didn’t match the findings of the Congressional Budget Office. Trump and other Republicans have spent months trying to discredit the CBO’s findings as they warn of the effects of the president’s calamitous budget bill. “The CBO doesn’t say that, it’s just the opposite. So you’re saying that the CBO and independent agencies that validate the costs are wrong?”

Kennedy claimed that the data was from the Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services, or CMS.

The Nevada Democrat did not relent, and when pressed on why those drugs had been exempted by Trump’s legislation, Kennedy said he was “not sure” of that provision.

“Your agency is responsible for that negotiation, and you don’t know about it?” Cortez Masto asked incredulously.

Cortez Masto tried to get specific, asking Kennedy if he knew how much people enrolled in Medicare Part D and Part B were expected to pay for prescription drug costs next year.

Each question elicited a long pause from Kennedy. He stammered answers that included, “I think that that is in debate right now” and even, “I don’t know.”

Cortez Masto explained that prices were expected to increase for Part D enrollees by $15, up to $50 a month. Part B enrollees could expect price increases of 11.6 percent, or $21.50 more each month. Medicare premiums were expected to have the largest single-year price increase in decades because the Trump administration had cut the federal subsidy that has been keeping costs down, she said.

Cortez Masto then attempted to simplify her question even further. “My question to you is, what are you doing to keep costs down for seniors?” Cortez Masto pressed. Kennedy wilted.

“I mean, I’m already doing—I’m already keeping costs down,” he said.

“What are you doing to keep costs down for seniors, knowing that these costs are going to be increasing?” she asked again.

Kennedy touted a Program Integrity Bill, which CMS said could lower premiums by 5 percent (the CBO contends it’s closer to 0.6 percent). “And does that impact seniors?” Cortez Masto pressed again.

“Excuse me?” Kennedy said.

“Does that impact seniors?” she said.“Does that impact seniors? What you just talked about, you’re lowering costs, does that impact seniors?

“Does it impact … ?” Kennedy said, appearing confused even though he’d heard the same question repeated several times. “I didn’t hear your question,” he pouted.

While the senators’ microphones cut out at different moments during Kennedy’s hearing Thursday, that hadn’t been the case during Cortez Masto’s questioning. It seems clear that Kennedy heard—he just didn’t have anything smart to say.

The secretary of health and human services and noted anti-vax conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just admitted that he doesn’t know how many Americans died from Covid-19.

On Thursday, Kennedy attended a hearing of the Senate Finance Committee and answered questions about the recent turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In June, Kennedy fired an entire vaccine supervisory panel and replaced them with vaccine critics—and in August, Kennedy pushed out the recently confirmed director, Susan Monarez, causing four high-ranking CDC officials to resign in protest.

But amid attempts to navigate thornier questions about the pharmaceutical industry and Medicaid cuts, Kennedy also seemed stumped by the basics.

“I want to go back to some basic facts,” said Senator Warner, a Democrat from Virginia. “Do you accept the fact that a million Americans died through Covid?”

“I don’t know how many died,” Kennedy replied.

Seemingly astounded, Warner questioned him again: “You’re the secretary of health and human services. You don’t have any idea how many Americans died from Covid?”

“I don’t think anybody knows, because there was so much data chaos coming out of the CDC, and—”

“Sir, you don’t know the answer of how many Americans died from Covid.… Do you think the vaccine did anything to prevent additional deaths?” Warner continued.

“Again, I would like to see the data and talk about the data,” Kennedy said.

According to the World Health Organization, more than 1.2 million Americans have died of Covid, which is probably the number that Warner was referring to, though it was unclear whether Kennedy wasn’t aware of this statistic or didn’t recognize the authority of the source.

President Donald Trump and Kennedy have both made references to insufficient data about the Covid-19 vaccine, as well. But hundreds of reports have tracked the efficacy of these vaccines since their release, and they’re estimated to have saved millions of lives—something that Kennedy would not admit, even when New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan brought the point up again.

Kennedy’s refusal to accept data-driven, evidence-based conclusions when they don’t align with his views was evident throughout the hearing—even as he repeatedly claimed that he was, in fact, “depoliticizing” science.

Washington, D.C., on Thursday sued the Trump administration for the president’s “illegal” decision to send in thousands of National Guardsmen to help with his so-called “public safety emergency.”

“No American city should have the US military—particularly out-of-state military who are not accountable to the residents and untrained in local law enforcement—policing its streets,” said D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb in a statement. “We’ve filed this action to put an end to this illegal federal overreach.”

Trump used D.C.’s lack of statehood to essentially claim the district as his own, placing it under complete federal control because he felt that crime was rampant. Thousands of National Guard troops, along with federal officers from the FBI, HSI, and ICE flooded the streets of D.C. virtually overnight on Trump’s orders. And while residents have been frustrated with D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser’s capitulation to Trump, this lawsuit shows that the city is fighting back.

“None of this is lawful. For one thing, Defendants’ deployment of National Guard units to police District streets without the Mayor’s consent violates both the Home Rule Act and a congressionally approved compact governing the interstate mobilization of state National Guard troops,” the lawsuit read. “Congress gave the President no role in policing the District. What is more, the interstate compact that Congress approved entitles the District alone to determine when to ‘request’ emergency assistance, including ‘National Guard forces,’ from other states. Neither the President nor the military he controls may supplant these judgments by deciding for themselves how to police the District or by unilaterally inviting other states to send National Guard forces to ‘assist’ the District.”

The lawsuit follows a California judge ruling earlier this week that Trump’s deployment of troops in Los Angeles in June was a clear violation of the Posse Comitatus Act.

This is the second suit D.C. has filed against Trump, with the first one focusing on Trump abusing his power by attempting to take over D.C’s Metropolitan Police Department.

At his confirmation hearing, Stephen Miran, a Trump adviser nominated by the president to fill a vacancy on the Federal Reserve Board, refused to question any of Donald Trump’s main talking points when questioned by Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Warren began with an “easy yes or no”: Did Donald Trump lose the 2020 election?

Failing to activate his microphone, Miran began to answer circuitously (“Thank you Senator Warren. Let me begin by saying, although we didn’t have the chance to sit down—”) but was asked to turn on his mic as Warren repeated the question, saying, “It’s a yes or no.”

Miran took a swig of water, then prevaricated: “Joe Biden was certified by Congress as the president of the United States.” Pressed again, he again evaded, simply saying Biden “was certified by the Congress.”

“Can you say the words Donald Trump lost that election?” Warren asked. “Are you independent enough to say that?”

“The Congress certified Joe Biden,” Miran repeated, leading Warren to change the subject to Trump’s firing of the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ commissioner last month after a poor July job report.

Asked whether he agrees with Trump’s baseless claim that the BLS faked job numbers to rig the 2024 election for Kamala Harris, Miran began to answer another question entirely: “Look, the data quality from the Bureau of Labor—”

“That’s not the question, about the data quality,” Warren cut in, repeating her question. Miran replied that BLS data quality has deteriorated, to which Warren observed that Miran was mum on the issue until “the numbers started showing that Trump’s economy was headed in the wrong direction.”

Warren repeated the question for the third time, and Miran replied that the BLS failed to “take corrective action” to improve data. Asked pointedly whether the agency had “faked” numbers, Miran accused it of complacency. Asked whether he had any evidence of fake numbers, Miran again just harped on declining data quality.

“In other words, just two straightforward questions about your independence, and you’ve blown both of them,” Warren said, later adding, “Dr. Miran, you have made clear that you will do or say whatever Donald Trump wants you to do or say, and that may work in a political position, but it takes an ax to Fed independence and will make life far more expensive for American families.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. claimed that Susan Monarez, the ousted head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was lying about being threatened into rubber-stamping policies she didn’t agree with.

Testifying before the Senate Finance Committee Thursday, Kennedy was asked by Senator Rob Wyden to respond to allegations that he had told Monarez to “just go along with vaccine recommendations,” even though “she didn’t think such recommendations aligned with scientific evidence.”

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed Thursday, Monarez claimed that Kennedy had directed her to preapprove recommendations made by a “vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric.” She wrote that she’d refused, and in a meeting on August 25, Kennedy had pressured her to resign or “face termination.” Days later, she was removed. 

Kennedy, who has lied before Congress multiple times, claimed that this time, Monarez was lying. 

“No, I did not say that to her,” Kennedy said. “And I never had a private meeting with her. There are witnesses to every meeting that we have, and all of those witnesses will say that I never said that.” 

“So she’s lying today to the American people, The Wall Street Journal?” Wyden pressed. 

“Yes, sir,” Kennedy replied. 

But Monarez’s allegations don’t exactly sound outlandish. Kennedy has spent much of his career peddling dangerous misinformation about vaccines. On Wednesday, more than 1,000 current and former HHS employees wrote a letter demanding that he step down, citing his appointment of “political ideologues who pose as scientific experts,” his refusal to be briefed by CDC experts, and his rescinding of the FDA’s emergency use authorization for the Covid vaccine. 

In her op-ed, Monarez claimed that she had attempted to defend scientific review in the face of Kennedy’s overhaul of the nation’s vaccine policy.

“Those seeking to undermine vaccines use a familiar playbook: discredit research, weaken advisory committees, and use manipulated outcomes to unravel protections that generations of families have relied on to keep deadly diseases at bay,” Monarez wrote.  

“Once trusted experts are removed and advisory bodies are stacked, the results are predetermined. That isn’t reform,” she added. “It’s sabotage.”  

President Trump’s Justice Department is opening a criminal investigation into Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook in an attempt to pressure her into dropping her lawsuit against the administration, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The department has already issued grand jury subpoenas in Georgia and Michigan, according to officials familiar with the matter.

Last month, Trump fired Cook, claiming she committed mortgage fraud by listing two of her homes as primary residences. In reality, it’s most likely that Trump was upset at her for maintaining the Fed’s independence and refusing to raise interest rates to the level Trump requested.

Cook in turn sued Trump for trying to fire her, and a judge is considering her emergency request to stop her dismissal while her lawsuit continues. The Fed’s next meeting is September 16. Her lawsuit noted that the allegations against her are “pretextual, in order to effectuate her prompt removal and vacate a seat for President Trump to fill and forward his agenda to undermine the independence of the Federal Reserve.”

“President Trump has no authority to remove Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook,” her lawyer Abbe Lowell said in a statement. “His attempt to fire her, based solely on a referral letter, lacks any factual or legal basis. We will be filing a lawsuit challenging this illegal action.”

The DOJ’s criminal probe is a clear intimidation campaign that reflects Trump’s greater takeover of federal agencies, turning them from politically neutral entities that transcend politics to faceless organizations that do his bidding and his bidding only. Cook and some of her colleagues—like CDC Director Susan Monarez—haven’t caved yet. We’ll see if the criminal investigation changes that.

As President Donald Trump escalates his threats to take over Chicago, Senator Ted Cruz, ever the president’s loyal attack dog, has joined in.

The senator spoke on Newsmax Wednesday, calling Chicago Governor JB Pritzker a “disgusting, racist bigot” in response to comments Pritzker made about ICE targeting Latino Chicagoans.

Not content to merely smear the governor’s policies, Cruz turned his ire to Pritzker’s body.

“I don’t wanna get between JB Pritzker and the Domino’s pizza line, but I’ll tell you what I am willing to get between, it is him and his open doors for every human trafficker …”

Pritzker then fired back on X: “And I would never want to get between Ted and a trip to Cancun when there’s an emergency in Texas,” referencing the infamous Cancún vacation that Cruz took while his state was battered by a winter storm that killed hundreds.

Unfortunately for Cruz, the internet took Pritzker’s side and piled more insults onto the Texas senator.

Pritzker has loudly opposed Trump’s authoritarian proposals, especially as the president has continued to drag Chicago’s crime rates through the mud—despite a “historic drop in homicides” in the city that mirrors nationwide trends.

Thomas Massie, a libertarian Republican representative from Kentucky, says he is facing an “immense pressure campaign” for spearheading a bipartisan bill for transparency on the notorious late sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein.

Massie has garnered 11 other Republican co-sponsors on his and Democratic Representative Ro Khanna’s bill to force the DOJ to release the so-called Epstein files in full. They have garnered just three Republicans, plus Massie, on a discharge petition to force the bill to a vote—which President Donald Trump deemed a “hostile act.”

Meanwhile, Massie has vowed to use immunity afforded to members of Congress under the speech and debate clause to publicly read a list of Epstein’s clients being privately compiled by his victims.

Appearing on CNN Wednesday evening, the Kentucky Republican described the pressure he and the handful of other GOP lawmakers are facing by taking Trump to task on Epstein.

“There’s an immense pressure campaign from the White House on Republican members right now,” he said. In his own district, he explained, “there’s been $2.5 million of ads run against me by three billionaires who are mega-donors to the Republican Party. And one of them is actually, I’m not going to say on Epstein’s list, but he’s in Epstein’s black book.”

Massie believes the powers that be are hoping to make an example of him to dissuade any other potential Republican dissenters on Epstein.

“I think what’s being run against me is a threat to other Republicans to try to keep them from doing what I’m doing,” he said.

But he remains unfazed—citing his resounding win in his 2020 Republican primary despite Trump then calling to “throw Massie out of Republican Party!” during one of their many spats. “So in some sense, I have the Trump antibodies,” Massie said. “But I’m definitely going to get a booster shot here.”

In a conversation with a White House official, Massie said, he confessed it was a mistake to announce there were 12 Republican co-sponsors on the bill to force DOJ disclosure of the files before seeking signatures on the discharge petition, “because I just telegraphed to you the 12 people that you needed to whip.” In response, Massie said, the official “kind of laughed, and he said, ‘Yeah.’”

But he expressed confidence that he and Khanna would secure the 218 votes to force a floor vote nonetheless.

President Donald Trump’s administration appears to be changing its story to help justify an unprecedented military strike on a boat officials claim was carrying drugs.

The New York Times reported Thursday that some officials at the Department of Defense had privately expressed concerns that the government had changed details of its story about the deadly strike earlier this week, which killed 11 people.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters on Tuesday that the ship was traveling to Trinidad, Tobago, or “some other country in the Caribbean.” But after President Donald Trump claimed the ship was on course for the United States, Rubio changed his tune.

International drug traffickers “pose an immediate threat to the United States, period,” Rubio said Wednesday at a joint press conference in Mexico City. “If you’re on a boat full of cocaine or fentanyl or whatever headed to the United States, you’re an immediate threat to the United States.”

Shifting the narrative to center the United States is particularly concerning, considering the fact that the Trump administration has yet to produce a legal authority for the use of military force against cartels.

Trump claimed Tuesday that the 11 crew members were “narco terrorists” who belonged to the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang, which the executive branch has labeled a terrorist organization. But such a designation does not serve as any legal basis for a combat strike.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth claimed Wednesday that administration officials “knew exactly who was in that boat” and “exactly what they were doing.” But the government has offered no evidence to support its claim that the individuals on the boat were in fact drug traffickers.

Despite Trump posting a video of the incident to Truth Social, the actual details still remain murky beneath the Trump administration’s shifting narratives, and the government has been anything but transparent about the military strike, which may prove to have been illegal.