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Floor Speech

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Mr. BLUMENTHAL. Mr. President, I come to the floor with sadness and anger because we are here to consider the nomination of a person who, very practically and unfortunately, is unworthy and unqualified and unprepared for this position.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., will, in fact, betray the trust and credibility of the office he has been nominated to fill. He has already shown that he lacks the trust in science and the adherence to the truth that is so important because this office is, fundamentally, about advocating for public health, informing the public, and speaking truth to the American people when there is so much misinformation and disinformation about what will keep Americans healthy and make them healthier.

And he threatens, literally, to make America sick. Whether it is ``Make America Sick Again'' or just ``Make America Sicker,'' the fact is he has supported conspiracy theories and distorted views of what is important in public health that threaten the American people.

The Nobel laureates, the healthcare professionals, the members of his own family--and, in a certain way, I would say, if you have any question about Mr. Kennedy's qualifications, you should listen to Caroline Kennedy and her very powerful comments on his nomination. The fact is that her comments are an indictment. They are literally a warning against his nomination, stating that he is ``addicted to attention and power'' and that he has already denigrated our healthcare system by championing beliefs that cost lives.

Ultimately, the confirmation process so far has confirmed what we already know: that as a source of information, advocacy, and truth, he is less than Americans deserve.

Americans deserve someone who believes in the Affordable Care Act and its premium tax credits that reduce healthcare costs for millions of Americans who otherwise would be left uninsured and unable to afford healthcare. Americans deserve a Secretary who will advance research into lifesaving medicines, treatments, and vaccination.

He is not that person.

Americans deserve a Secretary who will protect Medicaid, which provides healthcare to nearly 1 million Connecticut residents, including 350,000 children--at the very least, someone who knows the difference between Medicaid and Medicare.

He is not that person.

And Americans deserve a Secretary who will protect the sensitive health data of millions of people across the country. When the Department of Government Efficiency, which is an unregulated and potentially unsanctioned organization, gained access to millions of seniors' records at Medicare, Mr. Kennedy purposefully said nothing.

And, at the very least, we need someone who will stand up to President Trump when he spreads misinformation from the White House, someone who will stand up to him when he asks that his Secretary of Health and Human Services do something illegal or immoral. And, clearly, Mr. Kennedy is not that person.

There is a reason that he lacks support from all of these professional organizations and is actively opposed by them--by healthcare professionals, Nobel laureates, and his own family--and that is that he fails the basic test of what Americans deserve: a Secretary that believes in science and advances in modern medicine; a Secretary who won't profit off of the lies he tells about vaccines and science; a Secretary who will not instigate fears of lifesaving vaccinations, while, at the same time, ensuring that his own children are vaccinated and protected; a Secretary who will protect women and reproductive rights; and someone who knows the difference between Medicare and Medicaid.

The kind of leadership that is required from the Secretary of Health and Human Services has never been more important, and that truth- telling advocacy, informing of the public, is more vital than ever.

Now, HHS is a massive Department. The management challenges alone are fierce. He has no qualifications or experience that would justify his appointment.

He would oversee health insurance for millions of people through Medicare, Medicaid, the Children's Health Insurance Program, and the Affordable Care Act. He is responsible for promoting the economic and social well-being of children and families, combating the opioid epidemic, supporting people with disabilities, and strengthening the Nation's public health system and emergency response.

The HHS Secretary is responsible for advancing innovative medical research through the National Institutes of Health; the Food and Drug Administration, responsible for ensuring our food and drugs and medical devices are safe and effective; and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which strengthens our public health system and responds to disease outbreaks.

This Agency is a sprawling, massive, challenging management task, and his nomination has spotlighted not only his lack of experience in management but also his long history of dangerous, delusional, and misguided beliefs that would be detrimental to the public and, in fact, a betrayal of public health.

The focus has been on Mr. Kennedy's views on vaccinations and his public denial of well-recognized science. His-- really--frightening views, which he has used to make money and have endangered the lives of countless children and families, ought to be disqualifying on their own. He admits to vaccinating his own children. Vaccines are safe and effective enough for his family but not others, it seems.

The fact is, vaccines are safe and effective. To be clear, over the last 50 years, vaccines have prevented 154 million deaths, including 146 million among children younger than 5 years old. They undergo exhaustive tests and trials and independent review to determine whether they are safe and effective, and they continue to undergo rigorous review even after approval.

This system works, but Mr. Kennedy has a long history of weakening and weaponizing parental instincts to protect their children and to spread disingenuous and life-threatening misinformation. These lies are attributable to his bad judgment as well as self-enrichment--exactly the opposite of what a Secretary of HHS should exemplify.

He has supported the dangerous, unproven lie that African Americans can use weaker vaccine schedules because Black people have stronger immune systems. This disgusting, appalling claim has been disavowed by the medical community and renounced by the authors of the studies that Mr. Kennedy has incorrectly cited in espousing these lies. But these lies exacerbate racism, and it is a weakness in our public health system that this racism may continue to exist. To exacerbate it threatens people's lives.

The anti-vaccine group he founded has maintained that the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine is linked to higher rates of autism in Black children--again, a flat-out lie, racialized comments that are intended to stoke fear in the public health system and exploit the very caution that many communities of color approach the healthcare system with. His lies will, again, exacerbate the clear disparities that exist in healthcare for different racial groups, and the inequity of those disparities is a glaring weakness in our current healthcare system.

But he will be spouting those kinds of disinformation--spouting on podcasts, espousing in the media as the highest ranking health official in our country. The notion that the public health of the Nation-- credibility, trust, truth-telling--would be put in the hands of this man is truly frightening.

Now, he has attempted to backtrack since his nomination. He is claiming he is not anti-vaccine. But when he was asked point-blank, under oath, during confirmation hearings, in effect, he ducked and dodged.

Some of my colleagues have claimed that Mr. Kennedy privately told them he will work with existing vaccine approvals and safety networks and that he won't undermine vaccines in his role overseeing them. In private, that is what he said. Why wouldn't he make these commitments during public confirmation hearings? Why couldn't he make them when he was under oath?

The threat is that he will do exactly the contrary.

The American people deserve more than back-door, private, confidential conversations and quiet promises about what the HHS Secretary will do. And the fact is, he has pushed these kinds of debunked theories linking childhood vaccinations to autism, claiming that COVID-19 vaccines were weaponized against specific ethnic and socioeconomic groups, and profiting off lawsuits against lifesaving vaccines that prevent deadly diseases like cervical cancer, measles, tetanus, and chickenpox.

There is no argument from me that there needs to be testing and review and clinical trials for vaccines to be proven safe and effective. But once those tests and trials and independent review take place and are judged to be sufficient to show a vaccine is safe and effective, undermining them is simply contrary to public health.

Now, Mr. Kennedy would also threaten reproductive care and reproductive freedom. During his 2024 Presidential campaign, he consistently downplayed the importance of reproductive health, claiming that abortion was ``just a little issue.''

Abortion was hardly ``a little issue'' for women across the country, especially women who have literally died or come close to death as a result of denial of this essential healthcare and freedom.

The Americans deserve a Secretary of Health and Human Services who respects women and who works against politicians telling women what they can do with their bodies and trusts women to make decisions about what is right for them.

The HHS Secretary, as a matter of fact, oversees the Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act, a Federal law that mandates that women who need emergency care are entitled to it, whether that emergency care be an abortion or some other treatment.

When he was asked if a woman bleeding out in an emergency room is entitled to emergency care under this law, Mr. Kennedy responded, ``I don't know.'' He should know. Whether sheer incompetence, utter confusion, or just an unwillingness to agree to uphold Federal laws protecting women, that comment and response alone should be disqualifying. It is dangerous, and confirming him in this position could be deadly to women who depend on that program.

He has refused to say that he will protect access to medication abortion. Instead, he has said he would reevaluate the drug. Now, this drug has been safely and effectively used by millions of women for decades. His response is code for making it harder to access or ban it altogether.

He won't commit to protecting women who need emergency medical care. He will not commit to keeping safe and effective abortion medication available. He will limit access to abortion services. His confirmation poses the danger of catastrophic consequences for women.

How can women trust him to protect their interests and safeguard their health? The women of America deserve better.

Mr. Kennedy has a long history of making baseless and damaging claims about the LGBTQ+ community, including the absurd lie that environmental chemical exposure somehow causes children to become gay or transgender. Boggles the mind. Incredibly dangerous to the health and safety of LGBTQ+ youth, but it is his stated belief or has been at various times in the past, and adding to those harmful ideas is his belief that HIV does not cause AIDS.

He has supported bans on gender-affirming healthcare for transgender individuals and spread misinformation about what gender-affirming care actually looks like in the real world. If he continues to spread this unscientific rhetoric as Secretary of HHS, he will cost people their lives.

Members of the LGBTQ community already experience significant health disparities, and Mr. Kennedy's false views on health, sexual orientation, and gender identity would make these disparities--like racial disparity--even worse.

To serve in this position, Mr. Kennedy need not be the world's greatest scientist or the most erudite professor or the most astute researcher, but he needs to have a respect for science and medical professionals. He lacks it.

He made it abundantly clear during his confirmation hearing that he has none of those qualities and, in fact, demonstrated an inadequate understanding of the very programs he is supposed to be administering if he is confirmed, like Medicare and Medicaid.

You know, we have reviewed a lot of nominees as Senators, and we know that they are prepared--they are extensively ``murder-boarded,'' as they say--asked questions in preparation.

You would expect that the nominee to be HHS Secretary would understand the difference between two of the most important and largest health insurance programs in the country that serve millions of Americans every day. He didn't.

The American people deserve better. His decisions, if he is confirmed, will have long-lasting impacts, and he lacks the expertise to lead this Agency and lead America as an advocate, as an informer, as a truth-teller.

Lest you think he will rely on good people who will help him in administering this Agency, he has pledged to fire hundreds of National Institutes of Health employees. He told the Food and Drug Administration workers to ``pack their bags.'' He would like to clear entire Departments of the Federal Government, including the nutrition department at the FDA. He is in no way going to rely on career professionals who truly understand the policies behind the programs that he knows so little about.

Mr. Kennedy claims to support improving nutrition and combatting chronic diseases, and many of us support those programs to eliminate additives, for example, or provide better nutritional information, front-of-package labels showing nutritional content, and enabling Americans to be healthier by eating better and by being better informed. But instead of surrounding himself with experts, his potential top advisers include people who want to change or abolish the nutrition guidelines, like the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which will bolster industry profits, not health.

The Dietary Guidelines for Americans provides science-based advice on what to drink and eat to meet nutrient needs. They promote health. They reduce the risk of chronic disease. This dietary guidance is critically important because three in five adults live with chronic disease. Let me repeat. Three in five adults live with chronic disease that could be improved with better nutrition.

It informs all Federal nutrition programs, meaning that these dietary guidelines impact one in four Americans through programs like the National School Lunch Program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as SNAP, and the Child and Adult Care Food Program. These programs follow those dietary guidelines because they are based on science. But Mr. Kennedy lacks respect for science. The fact that he espouses better nutrition isn't translated into real-world support for actions that benefit Americans. His opposition to those guidelines benefits the food industry.

Having a science denier surrounded by potentially lobbyists at the helm of this Agency is not going to make Americans healthy again; it is going to make them sicker. It is going to potentially sell them out for profit.

I am disappointed that we are here, as I said at the outset, to be considering someone who is so deeply unqualified and unprepared for a position that is an enormous potential opportunity to improve the health of America. His advocacy could spread the truth, could hold the food industry or pharmaceutical drug industry to higher standards to provide more medicine and treatments and cures at lower prices. He could support research through the NIH instead of advocating that it be cut. He could enable women to have reproductive care instead of dodging or diminishing its importance. He could help eliminate racism and bias against LBGTQ+ people in our healthcare system. There is so much opportunity squandered in this nomination.

I will vote no on Robert Kennedy, Jr. I urge my colleagues to heed the warnings from Americans much better qualified than I am to make this judgment--those Nobel laureates; the professional organizations; the healthcare experts; and, of course, his family, who knows him best--Caroline Kennedy, who spoke with such eloquence and insight. Her incisive and heartbreaking video should be watched by everyone who is about to vote on this nomination.

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