A tense showdown erupted in a Senate hearing Thursday when Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) accused Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. of lying to Congress and the American people about his stance on vaccines.
“You told us, quote, I will not work to impound, divert, or otherwise reduce any funding appropriated by Congress for the purpose of vaccination programs. That’s not the truth,” Murphy charged, pointing to the sudden cancellation of $12 billion in federal vaccine grants earlier this year.
“When did I do that?” Kennedy asked, visibly rattled.
Murphy didn’t back down. He explained the funds, which were meant to help track and administer vaccines during the pandemic, disappeared under Kennedy’s leadership in March.
The senator kept going, calling out Kennedy for changing vaccine approval standards after promising not to.
“You also promised Chairman Cassidy that the FDA would not change vaccine standards from quote, historical norms. But what happened as soon as you were sworn in? You announced new standards for vaccine approvals that you proudly referred to in your own press release as a radical departure from current practice,” Murphy said. “Experts say that that departure will delay approvals.”
Then Murphy hit a nerve.
“You told the public that the vaccine wanes very quickly. You went on the Dr. Phil show and said that the measles vaccine was never fully tested for safety. You said there’s fetal debris in the measles vaccine. And this morning—”
“All true! All true!” Kennedy interrupted, raising his voice. “You want me to lie to the public?”
Murphy wasn’t having it. “None of that is true!” he fired back.
In a bizarre twist, Kennedy compared his vaccine warnings to warning someone about alligators in a lake.
“Senator, if I advise you to swim in a lake where I knew there to be alligators, wouldn’t you want me to tell you there are alligators in it?” he asked.
Murphy pressed again: “So are you recommending the measles vaccine or not?”
Kennedy dodged. “What I’ve said and what I said—”
“It doesn’t sound like you are,” Murphy snapped.
Kennedy, clearly agitated, demanded to finish: “Are you going to let me answer or are you going to keep interrupting?”
Despite the chaos, Kennedy insisted he was staying true to his promise of “radical transparency.”
“I’m going to tell the truth about everything we know and we don’t know about vaccines,” he said.
But he still wouldn’t give a straight answer on whether he supports the measles vaccine.
“I am not going to just tell people everything is safe and effective if I know that there are issues. I need to respect people’s intelligence,” Kennedy said.
Watch the video below:
