Trump's Trials - RFK Jr. faces questions on vaccines, measles and more at Senate hearing

Episode Date: April 23, 2026

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appeared before the Senate Finance Committee and the Senate HELP Committee Wednesday to answer questions about measles, vaccines, nutrition and budget cuts. NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin reports.Support NPR and hear every episode of Trump's Terms sponsor-free with NPR+. Sign up at plus.npr.org.See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.NPR Privacy Policy

You're listening to Trump's terms. I'm Scott Detrow. President Trump promised every single American that he would make America safe again. Every single day in the Oval Office, the president looks at us and says, why haven't we done more? This will be an entirely different country in a short period of time. Every episode, we bring you one story from NPR's recent coverage of the 47th president. With a focus on ways his administration is pushing the boundaries of presidential power. Here's the latest from NPR. From NPR news, I'm Michelle Martin.

For the past week, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been testifying on Capitol Hill. He sat for seven hearings with various House and Senate committees. The focus was supposed to be his agency's budget, but lawmakers had questions for him that went far beyond that. NPR, Selena Simmons-Duffin was watching, and she's here to give us the highlights. Good morning. Morning, Michelle. So overall, how would you describe what you saw in all these hearings? Well, there were definitely combative moments, which isn't a big surprise because Secretary Kennedy

has sparred with lawmakers many times in many hearings. I did notice a few times when Kennedy seemed to take a friendlier or even apologetic tone than he has in the past. One topic that came up frequently was measles. In the past year, the U.S. hit its highest number of cases in 30 years. Here's an exchange about that yesterday in the Health Committee with Democratic Senator Lisa Blunt Rochester of Delaware. You blame the Mennonites. You blame immigrants. You blame the globe.

We've been part of the globe. And still, we are in this situation. Do you take any responsibility in your role for the situation that we are in with this measles epidemic? As I said, the measles epidemic began before I came into office. I'm going to take that as a no. Kennedy also faced questions from Democrats about vaccine policy. Of course, he built his reputation on anti-vaccine activism before becoming health secretary. At one point, he seemed to shift his stance a little bit when he agreed with

Senator Michael Bennett of Colorado that the measles vaccine is, quote, vital to keeping American children healthy. But overall, he still seemed quite dug in on his longstanding anti-vaccine positions, even though some Republican pollsters have been warning that his positions are unpopular. Other topics that came up a lot were drug prices, the weed killer glyphosate, people losing health insurance, and grocery prices for people who would like to follow his advice on nutrition. What about Republican senators? How did they question Secretary Kennedy? You know, they were mostly friendly. They wanted to talk about specific policy issues. There was a lot of praise and agreements to work together. I was eager to hear Republican Senator Bill Cassidy

of Louisiana question Kennedy. Cassidy's a physician. He's a supports vaccines and he made Kennedy promise not to make big policy changes in exchange for his confirmation vote. Kennedy has broken those promises. I really thought that Cassidy would challenge Kennedy. And instead, Cassidy expressed concern. I am a doctor who has seen people die from vaccine preventable diseases. And when I see outbreaks numbering in the thousands and people dying once more from vaccine preventable diseases, particularly children, it seems more than tragic. Very striking for Cassidy to go relatively easy on Kennedy when it comes to vaccines. I should say that Cassidy is facing a tough primary race in Louisiana, and President Trump has endorsed a rival in that race.

Okay, so as you were telling us, the reason for the hearings was the Health and Human Services budget. Did we learn anything there? Not a lot, no. There was very little of substance about the budget in these hearings. Even though Kennedy has made huge changes to his agency, he's cut 20, thousand people from the staff of HHS. He's requesting a budget cut for next year. He's proposed eliminating whole agencies. And he was asked a few times about programs that were being zeroed out for birth control programs or support for people with disabilities, for instance. He would point to the national debt and say the cuts have to come from somewhere. But Senator Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, pushed back on that, pointing at that President Trump's budget request for 2027 would actually add to the national debt because of increases in military spending.

That is. NPR, Selena Simmons-Din. Celina, thank you. You're welcome. Before we wrap up a reminder, you can find more coverage of the Trump administration on the NPR Politics Podcast, where you can hear NPR's political reporters break down the day's biggest political news with new episodes every weekday afternoon. And thanks, as always, to our NPR Plus supporters who hear every episode of the show. without sponsor messages.

You can learn more at plus.npr.org. I'm Scott Detrow. Thanks for listening to Trump's terms from NPR.