Updated September 5, 2025 at 12:23 PM MDT
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced fierce questioning from members of both parties during a Senate Finance Committee hearing Thursday, including sharp criticism from Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, who called him a "charlatan."
Cantwell criticized Kennedy's decision to cancel hundreds of millions in research funding for future mRNA vaccines, saying the research was needed for future pandemic preparedness.
Kennedy responded to Cantwell saying "I'm happy to have a detailed discussion with you about it. You're so wrong on your facts."
But even Republicans took Kennedy to task for the defunding of mRNA vaccine research. Kennedy has come under intense scrutiny from Democrats and the medical science community for actions taken since the start of the second Trump administration, including firing the entire vaccine advisory panel at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Earlier this year, the newly appointed panel revealed plans to study the safety of some childhood vaccines — a move that some health professionals worry is meant to question decades of vaccine safety research.
During a contentious three-hour hearing, Kennedy defended changes made at the CDC saying they were "necessary adjustments to restore the agency to its role as the world's gold standard public health agency."
In an interview with Morning Edition, Cantwell accused Kennedy of "not following the science."
She continued: "We just can't have a health care system being undermined by the chief architect of what our health care delivery system should look like."
Speaking to NPR's Michel Martin, Cantwell discussed the Senate hearing and why she is worried about the direction of health care in the U.S. under Kennedy's direction.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Interview highlights
Michel Martin: You were among the senators who had some choice words for Kennedy. You called him a "charlatan" at one point. Did you feel that way before you got to the hearing, or was it something he said during the hearing that brought you to that conclusion?
Sen. Maria Cantwell: Well, when I was looking at the huge cut that he is making to help us prepare for the next pandemic and drilled down on all the things he said about vaccines, the word came into my head that this is a guy who's a charlatan. He's falsely claiming expertise, knowledge, producing none of the data, and then putting us into this unbelievable disadvantaged position. As I prepared for the hearing, the word popped into my head.
Martin: By disadvantaged position, you mean compared to other countries? Compared to our preparedness for a future pandemic? What did you mean by that?
Cantwell: The five-year estimate on what COVID cost the global economy is $82 trillion. Go online and look at Bill Gates and his TED Talk in 2014. He basically said as a country, we need to prepare for pandemics. That was when Ebola was on the front. We didn't know that COVID was going to hit us right hard in the United States, and yet it did. So you have to prepare for these things. And what Kennedy is doing by pulling back this money is saying, 'I'm not going to be prepared. We, the United States, is not going to be prepared for the next pandemic.' So that's the problem.
Editor's note: A May 2020 Cambridge University economic impact report estimated that the global economy stood to lose up to $82 trillion in GDP over five years due to the pandemic.
Martin: Do you think that the moves that Secretary Kennedy has made since he was confirmed are at variance with what he said during his confirmation hearings? Do you feel that he misled the Senate about his intentions?
Cantwell: Well, absolutely. He said he was going to be the gold standard for science. And obviously he's giving us the bottom of the barrel. He's not giving us the gold standard for science. He's not producing information or individuals. He's basically trying to refute over 100 years of history on vaccines. And that's what I presented at the hearing, a chart that showed the 20th century. Here's what it looked like with all of these issues — measles, polio and a lot of things being eradicated. And yet he's now saying, 'I don't know if you should take the measles vaccine.' He's promoting a notion that maybe we shouldn't be using these vaccines. So we now have a 400% increase over last year. We're not even halfway through the year, a 400% increase in the number of measles cases. So this is not the gold standard. This is somebody who is undermining the health care system.
Martin: Some of your Republican colleagues also questioned the secretary's actions since he took office. You've said you're not going to share whatever they say to you in private. But if a significant number of you and your colleagues feel misled by what he said during his confirmation hearing and what he's done since, what can they do about it?
Cantwell: Well, we have two doctors in the Senate Republicans who basically called into question his same cutting of these funds, his lack of support for important vaccines for children. And I hope that they will prosecute this case. I hope that they will go to the president and continue to push the fact that this particular nominee did say that he was going to follow science and he's not following science. And we just can't have a health care system being undermined by the chief architect of what our health care delivery system should look like.
Martin: So based on what Kennedy said yesterday and his recent actions, like placing anti-vaccine activists on a CDC advisory panel, like terminating many research grants or promoting unproven treatments during a deadly measles outbreak, what are your concerns about the long term impact on the country's vaccination system?
Cantwell: Well, again, go back to, you know, Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation have done a lot of this work because they have a global footprint. But when you look at this, what we found with Ebola was we have to start fighting wherever it outbreaks. So the point is, you have to have a system.Why would we want to disarm for being prepared for the next pandemic and then have to rely on some foreign country to help us out if a contagion happens?
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