JD Vance Claims Senators Questioning RFK Jr. Are “Full of Shit”

Vice President JD Vance didn’t take well to senators pressing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his wanton mismanagement of the Department of Health and Human Services. In response to the health secretary’s contentious Thursday Senate Finance hearing, the vice president lost his cool on social media.

“When I see all these senators trying to lecture and ‘gotcha’ Bobby Kennedy today all I can think is: You all support off-label, untested, and irreversible hormonal ‘therapies’ for children, mutilating our kids and enriching big pharma,” Vance wrote on X, adding, for good measure, “You’re full of shit and everyone knows it.”

Senators had questioned Kennedy’s various concerning moves since taking the helm of the Health Department—grilling him, for instance, on his firing of the director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, his anti-vaccine agenda, promises he broke from his Senate confirmation, and his general ignorance on public health matters.

Kennedy frequently flailed under the pressure, which came not only from Democrats but also Republicans—such as Thom Thillis, who highlighted Kennedy’s shady penchant for self-contradiction, and Bill Cassidy, who raised concerns about his vaccine skepticism.

But the vice president apparently can’t distinguish between conducting oversight on an official wreaking havoc on the nation’s health system and cheerleading child mutilation.

Senator Bill Cassidy deftly grilled Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a Senate hearing Thursday, forcing Kennedy to contradict himself on the topic of vaccines.

Cassidy, who chairs the Health Committee, is a Republican and a medical doctor. He’s had to walk a fine line when it comes to Kennedy, who holds many views not based in scientific fact. Cassidy wavered on confirming Kennedy, before ultimately casting a key vote in his favor after securing promises from the future health secretary on vaccines.

On Thursday, he managed to tie Kennedy in knots.

He began by praising President Donald Trump’s Covid-19 vaccine development and rollout, Operation Warp Speed. “President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed,” Cassidy said. “Mr. Secretary, you agree with me that President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?”

“Yeah, absolutely,” Kennedy replied.

“But you just told Senator Bennet that the Covid vaccine killed more people than Covid?” Cassidy asked.

Kennedy denied it. However, he did tell Senator Michael Bennet that he agrees with Dr. Retsef Levy, one of his new appointees to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine advisory committee, who said that “evidence is mounting and indisputable that mRNA vaccines cause serious harm, including death, especially among young people.” Previously, during his confirmation hearing, Kennedy had also called the Covid vaccine “the deadliest vaccine ever made”—an outright lie.

Cassidy continued to press Kennedy, saying he was “surprised” that the secretary had canceled $500 million in contracts for mRNA vaccine research—the technology that made Operation Warp Speed, and the remarkably quick development of the Covid-19 vaccine, possible.

To defend himself, Kennedy claimed that he supported the Covid-19 vaccine when Trump pioneered it because there were low levels of natural immunity to the virus and people were getting dangerously sick.

He also said that under Trump, the vaccine was “perfectly matched” to the virus, and there were no mandates—unlike under Biden.

So essentially: Trump vaccine good, Biden vaccine bad. Thanks for the clarification, Mr. Secretary!

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave an absolutely vexing answer to a basic question on why he fired Centers for Disease Control and Prevention head Susan Monarez.

“Did you tell the head of the CDC that if she refused to sign off on your changes to the childhood vaccine schedule, that she had to resign?” asked Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, cutting off the shouting RFK Jr. was doing moments before.

“No, I told her that she had to resign ’cuz I asked her, ‘Are you a trustworthy person?’ And she said ‘no.’”

“What?” Warren replied. Next to her, Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders laughed and smiled in disbelief.

“So if you had an employee who told you they weren’t trustworthy, would you ask them to resign, Senator?”

On Thursday, Monarez published a piece in The Wall Street Journal accusing RFK Jr. of firing her for refusing to preapprove the recommendations of his handpicked advisory panel.

But even the White House has admitted she was fired over a difference in opinion. Last week, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters that Monarez was fired because her views were “not aligned with [President Trump’s] mission.” That same day, former CDC director and Monarez confidant Richard Besser told the media that Monarez was fired because she had refused to capitulate to Kennedy’s MAHA agenda.

“She said that there were two things she would never do in the job,” Besser said. “She said she was asked to do both of those, one in terms of firing her leadership, who are talented civil servants like herself, and the other was to rubber-stamp [vaccine] recommendations that flew in the face of science, and she was not going to do either of those things.”

Now RFK Jr. has dumbed the excuse all the way down to “She told me I shouldn’t trust her,” framing the situation as if Monarez was begging to be fired. It’s clear that Monarez—who has a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology—was not sufficiently committed to carrying out Trump and Kennedy’s massive destabilizing attacks on our health care and vaccine systems.

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.