When Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made dramatic, sudden changes to the childhood vaccine schedule without input from outside advisers, he did not appear before lawmakers to answer questions.
When the U.S. capped off 2025 with more measles cases than the country has had in three decades, he did not come to Capitol Hill to answer lawmakers' questions.
He also didn't come to explain the unprecedented decision to withhold $250 million in Medicaid funds from Minnesota, a blue state that has been a frequent target of the Trump administration.
While the party in power is not required to call hearings, Kennedy has made consequential, norm-shattering changes to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that beckon congressional oversight.
Finally, in the past week, lawmakers have had many hours to question Kennedy through seven hearings in various congressional committees and subcommittees. The topic for all is ostensibly the department's budget request for 2027, but in the five hearings so far, questions have ranged from rural health to the new nominee to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to hospital drug-pricing policy.
On Wednesday, Kennedy finishes up his blitz of hearings at two consequential Senate committees: Finance and HELP, which stands for Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
Cassidy and Kennedy have history
A key member of both of those committees is Sen. Bill Cassidy, R.-La. In February of last year, Cassidy cast the tie-breaking committee vote to recommend Kennedy for the position of health secretary. Cassidy is a physician who supports vaccines, and Kennedy has a long history of anti-vaccine activism.
Just before the vote, Cassidy explained his decision on the Senate floor, saying: "Mr. Kennedy and the [Trump] administration committed that he and I would have an unprecedentedly close, collaborative working relationship." He said he had secured a commitment that the two of them would speak multiple times per month, that they'd collaborate on hiring decisions at HHS and that Kennedy would work within the existing vaccine policy systems. "Aside from he and I meeting regularly, he'll come before the HELP Committee on a quarterly basis if requested."
Very little of that has come to pass. Kennedy has not come in regularly to testify before the HELP Committee, despite demands from Democratic lawmakers. He has also made dramatic changes to federal vaccine policies that Cassidy has condemned.
The two men's conflicts have spilled into the public. Kennedy's allies at the Make America Healthy Again PAC have endorsed a challenger to Cassidy in his Republican primary in Louisiana. On a CDC webpage with a subheading that reads "Vaccines do not cause Autism," a footnote explains that the phrase "has not been removed due to an agreement with [Cassidy] that it would remain on the CDC website." The content on the page reflects Kennedy's decades-long insistence that there is a possible link between vaccines and autism, a claim that has been debunked by extensive research and leading health organizations.
In the hearings so far, Republicans have been generally friendly to Kennedy, while Democrats have hammered him on vaccine skepticism, maternal health and Affordable Care Act premium costs.
Trump's opinion?
Looming over Kennedy's appearances is his standing with President Trump. Kennedy and his priorities were not mentioned in the State of the Union address this year, in contrast to many mentions in Trump's previous year's address to Congress. And Trump has fired three members of his Cabinet in the last seven weeks: Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
Asked Tuesday in the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Health Subcommittee whether the Trump administration had told him to say less publicly about vaccines, Kennedy said no. He also said he was unaware of polling by a Republican firm suggesting his position on vaccines is unpopular and politically hazardous for the party heading into the midterm elections.
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