Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Defends Trump HHS Budget Cuts as House Democrats Clash Over Measles

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. returned to Capitol Hill on Thursday to defend President Donald Trump’s proposed budget cuts and controversial changes at the Department of Health and Human Services, appearing before the House Ways and Means Committee after lawmakers said he had overseen sweeping changes on vaccines.

The hearing quickly turned into a clash over measles and public health messaging, with Democrats pressing Kennedy on whether the Trump administration approved decisions to end CDC “pro-vaccine public messaging.”

ABC News

In his opening remarks, Kennedy framed the moment as a pivot toward nutrition and chronic disease, saying, “We’re ending the era of federal policies that fueled the chronic disease epidemic and replacing them with policies that put the health of Americans first,” and he also told lawmakers, “We stand at a generational turning point. Our children are the sickest generation in modern history,” according to The Guardian.

ABC News reported that Democrats seized on public health policies enacted under Kennedy, attempting to pin the rise in measles cases in the U.S. on Kennedy’s vaccine-skeptical rhetoric.

The BBC described the hearing as an effort by Kennedy to shift focus away from vaccines, while still facing complaints about his cuts to HHS staff and cancer research and his changes to vaccine recommendations.

Multiple outlets also tied the hearing to a budget fight, with the BBC saying Kennedy was there to present a proposal to cut his agency’s budget by about $16bn (£11.8bn), a 12.5% decrease from last year, and other coverage describing the budget request as $111 billion for HHS.

As the session unfolded, lawmakers also pressed Kennedy on his credentials, with Mike Thompson asking whether Kennedy had a medical or public health degree and Kennedy responding he does not, while Thompson said, “Your dangerous conspiracy theories are undermining safe and effective vaccines.”

The core dispute in the hearing centered on measles and what lawmakers described as Kennedy’s undermining of vaccine guidance, with multiple outlets describing Democrats’ repeated questions about CDC messaging and vaccine recommendations.

The Guardian reported that Linda Sánchez, a Democrat from California, asked, “Did President Trump approve your decision to end CDC’s pro-vaccine public messaging campaign?” and that Kennedy responded, “You’ve got a lot of misinformation,” before a tense exchange in which Sánchez repeated the question.

Bangor Daily News

ABC News similarly described Sánchez pressing Kennedy on changes to the childhood immunization schedule by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including removing the universal recommendation for multiple shots, and it said this was later temporarily blocked by a federal judge.

The BBC said Kennedy did not discuss his vaccine agenda and instead focused on “ending the era of federal policies that fuelled the chronic disease epidemic,” while Democrats accused him of bungling the response to measles and undermining childhood immunisations.

In one of the most direct confrontations, ABC News reported that Sánchez referenced a measles outbreak that spread across West Texas last year, infecting more than 700 people and leading to the deaths of two unvaccinated school-aged children, the first U.S. deaths from measles in a decade.

The VernonReporter coverage of the hearing highlighted a standoff in which Sánchez asked whether a 6-year-old who died of measles in West Texas last year “could have potentially been saved with vaccination,” and it quoted Kennedy’s answer: “It’s possible, certainly,”.

The Health Policy Watch account added a detailed timeline of measles figures, saying, “In 2024, under the Biden administration, there were 258 cases of measles. And in 2025, under your leadership at HHS, this ballooned to over 2,000 [cases].”

Beyond measles, the budget fight also fed the confrontation, with the BBC describing the hearing as Kennedy presenting a proposal to cut HHS by about $16bn (£11.8bn), and the Bangor Daily News describing a budget request of $111 billion for HHS, a 12.5% cut, including a $5 billion cut to the National Institutes of Health and elimination of a low-income energy assistance program.

Alongside the measles dispute, the hearing was roiled by a separate confrontation over remarks Kennedy made in 2024 about Black children taking ADHD medication, with multiple outlets describing how lawmakers pressed him after a resurfaced recording.

“Lawmakers clash with RFK Jr as he shifts focus away from vaccines Lawmakers grilled Robert F Kennedy Jr's handling of the worst measles outbreak in decades, as the US health secretary tried to shift focus away from his vaccine stances during his first hearing before Congress in months”

BBC

The Guardian reported that previous racist comments Kennedy made about Black children resurfaced in the hearing, and it quoted Mike Thompson saying Kennedy’s “overruling doctors, scientists and public health experts across our country” was paired with “Your dangerous conspiracy theories are undermining safe and effective vaccines.”

The VernonReporter account described the clash as a fight between Kennedy and Rep. Terri Sewell, a Democrat from Alabama, when Kennedy “vehemently denied making remarks he’d said in 2024,” and it included the podcast quote Sewell used: “Psychiatric drugs — which every Black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence, and those kids are going to have a chance to go somewhere and get re-parented to live in a community where there’ll be no cellphones, no screens, you’ll actually have to talk to people.”

In that same account, Sewell asked, “Have you ever re-parented, or parented, I should say, a Black child?” and Kennedy replied, “I don’t even know what that phrase means,” before later claiming, “I’m not going to answer something I didn’t say.”

The Health Policy Watch account framed the exchange as part of a “barrage of questions,” quoting Sewell’s challenge that Kennedy said, “You said every black kid is now just standardly put on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence, and that those children are going to have to go somewhere to get reparented,” and it said Kennedy denied making them and said he “doesn’t even know what reparenting means”.

Latin Times described the same hearing as “one of the sharpest Capitol Hill clashes of the day,” saying Kennedy denied ever calling for Black children to be “re-parented” only for lawmakers and social media users to point to a resurfaced recording.

That outlet quoted the exact phrase from the June 2024 appearance on the 19Keys podcast: “Every Black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, on SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence, and those kids are going to have a chance to go somewhere and get re-parented, to live in a community where there'll be no cellphones, no screens.”

The VernonReporter account further said HHS spokesperson Emily Hilliard explained Kennedy’s reference as a psychotherapy term for “developing the emotional regulation, discipline, boundaries, and self-worth that may not have been established in childhood.”

The hearing also became a referendum on the scale of the proposed HHS budget cuts and how lawmakers said those cuts would affect health programs, while Kennedy defended his agenda and tried to keep the focus on nutrition and fraud prevention.

The BBC said Kennedy was at the hearing to present the Trump administration’s proposal to cut his agency’s budget in the coming fiscal year by about $16bn (£11.8bn), a 12.5% decrease from last year, and it described the three-hour appearance as including complaints about cuts to HHS staff and cancer research and his changes to vaccine recommendations.

Health Policy Watch

Scripps News reported that Kennedy returned to Capitol Hill to defend the proposed budget cuts and “controversial changes” at HHS, and it said he highlighted his Make America Health Again (MAHA) initiative, including new dietary guidelines that prioritize whole foods.

The Bangor Daily News described the budget request as $111 billion for HHS, a 12.5% cut from current levels, including a $5 billion cut to the National Institutes of Health and elimination of a low-income energy assistance program.

That same Reuters-sourced account said several key Republicans, including Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Susan Collins of Maine, criticized the cuts as unnecessary, and it said Democratic lawmakers rallied at the U.S. Capitol against the proposed budget cuts ahead of Kennedy’s Thursday hearings.

In the hearing itself, Kennedy emphasized achievements and said, “We’re ending the era of federal policies that fueled the chronic disease epidemic,” while Democrats pressed him on vaccine-preventable diseases and health care costs.

The Washington Post coverage, though framed as “Four takeaways from RFK Jr.’s contentious House committee hearings,” described Democrats arguing his changes on vaccines threatened public health in America and pushed back against his proposed budget cuts.

Beyond the budget and vaccines, the hearing included disputes over fraud and Medicaid and Medicare, with The Guardian reporting that Lloyd Doggett, a Democrat from Texas, pointed to “Some 850 agents and brokers suspected of fraud” being reinstated under the Trump administration, and Kennedy spoke over Doggett as he accused the administration of letting them go back to work.