I just watched one of the most disgraceful hearings I’ve ever seen in the United States Senate, and it featured none other than Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary, RFK Jr. Trump installed a conspiracy theorist and anti-vaxxer at the helm of our nation’s public health system, and today he was humiliated in front of the entire country. But we are all paying the price for his dangerous words and actions.
This wasn’t some routine oversight session where senators politely ask questions and move on. This was a bipartisan demolition of a man so unqualified, so dishonest, and so incompetent that every minute he sits in that chair endangers the health of Americans. Watching senator after senator rip him apart laid bare just how reckless Trump’s choices are and how devastating they can be when the consequences hit real people.
Democratic Senator Michael Bennet set the tone immediately. He looked at RFK Jr. and said he was speaking on behalf of parents, teachers, and schools across the country who deserve so much better than this fraud’s so-called leadership. That line cut straight to the heart of what this hearing was about: Americans want the truth, and Trump’s appointees are incapable of providing it.
Then Senator Mark Warner pressed RFK Jr. with the most basic question imaginable. Do you accept the fact that a million Americans died from COVID? You would think the Secretary of Health and Human Services would answer instantly, with reverence for the lives lost. Instead, RFK Jr. mumbled about “data chaos” and “incentives” and finally admitted he didn’t know. He didn’t know. The man in charge of public health in America claims he doesn’t know how many Americans died in the worst health crisis of our lifetimes. And when Warner asked him if vaccines saved lives, he refused to say yes. He said he’d need to “see the data,” as if he hasn’t had eight months on the job to review it. That wasn’t ignorance, but a willful denial of reality. And it was dangerous.
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Back to my report.
Senator Maria Cantwell didn’t bother with politeness. She called him what he is: a charlatan. And she backed it up with facts. Vaccines are one of the greatest public health achievements in history. They eliminated smallpox, eradicated polio, and slashed deadly childhood illnesses by 99%. Yet the man running HHS couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge the most basic truths of modern medicine. Cantwell reminded him that science is what saves lives, not conspiracy theories, and told him directly that his lies were undermining decades of progress.
Senator Maggie Hassan hammered the point even further. She told RFK Jr. that he was simply making things up to scare people, and she called him a liar to his face. And she was right. That’s what this all boils down to: RFK Jr. is lying. And those lies cost lives because when people believe them, they refuse vaccines, they turn away from doctors, and they make decisions that hurt themselves and their families.
Then came the moment that revealed not just RFK Jr.’s incompetence but the moral rot at the center of Trump’s administration. Senator Cantwell asked RFK Jr. about the Epstein survivors who had stood on the steps of the Capitol the day before, demanding the release of the Epstein files. She asked him directly whether he thought they were a hoax, the way Trump called them a hoax. And RFK Jr.’s answer was that he didn’t even know what she was talking about. He claimed it was the first time he’d heard of it. Imagine that. The Secretary of Health and Human Services pretending he didn’t know that survivors of child rape and trafficking had just held a massive press conference in front of the U.S. Capitol. Either he was lying through his teeth, or he’s so out of touch with reality that he has no business holding office. The truth is probably both.
And if you think this was just Democrats calling him out, think again. Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, the very man whose vote made RFK Jr. Secretary, shredded him too. Cassidy confronted him with his own contradictions. On one hand, RFK Jr. praises Trump and says he deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed. On the other, he claims the vaccines from Operation Warp Speed killed more people than they saved. Cassidy asked him point-blank if that meant Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for killing people. RFK Jr. had no answer. His entire worldview collapsed under the weight of its own nonsense. Cassidy even read letters from conservative allies, including one from Erick Erickson, whose wife has stage four lung cancer and relies on vaccines for survival. Erickson said RFK Jr.’s policies were effectively killing her. When even Republicans who enabled you are forced to admit you’re a fraud, you know the jig is up.
And here’s something I couldn’t ignore as I watched: RFK Jr. could barely breathe during this hearing. His wheezing was so bad it came through every clip. At one point, an aide even had to mute his microphone because his labored breathing was so distracting. Think about the absurdity of that… A man who can’t even get through a hearing without gasping for air is lecturing the country on health. That’s the level of farce Trump has inflicted on America.
Over and over again, RFK Jr. accused others of hoaxes while spreading lies himself. Vaccines? A hoax. Science? A hoax. Survivors of Epstein’s abuse? He shrugged and said he didn’t know. This is who Trump handpicked to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. Someone who undermines science, sneers at facts, dismisses survivors, and promotes conspiracy theories while people die.
This isn’t just about RFK Jr. embarrassing himself in front of the Senate. This is about what happens when Trump is in charge. Hospitals close, vaccines are denied, science is dismantled, and Americans suffer. This is about whether we as a nation are going to choose truth or lies, science or conspiracy, compassion or cruelty. Trump has shown us exactly who he is by surrounding himself with con men like RFK Jr. And the only way to stop this madness is to stay organized, speak up, and vote them out.
As I sat there watching this hearing unfold, one thought kept coming back to me: America deserves so much better than this. We deserve leaders who know how many Americans died in a pandemic. We deserve leaders who understand that vaccines save lives. We deserve leaders who stand with survivors instead of dismissing them. We deserve better than Trump. We deserve better than RFK Jr. And together, we’re going to expose these quacks and restore sanity to our country.
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