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MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
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's Selena Simmons-Duffin was watching, and she's here to give us the highlights. Good morning.
SELENA SIMMONS-DUFFIN, BYLINE: Morning, Michel.
MARTIN: So overall, how would you describe what you saw in all these hearings?
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: 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. had 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.
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LISA BLUNT ROCHESTER: You've blamed the Mennonites, you've blamed immigrants, you've blamed the globe. We've been part of the globe. And still, we are in this situation. Do you take...
ROBERT F KENNEDY JR: Well, there's a global epidemic. And there wasn't...
ROCHESTER: Do you take any responsibility in your role for the situation that we are in with this measles epidemic?
KENNEDY: As I said, the measles epidemic began before I came into office. The people who...
ROCHESTER: I'm going to take that as a no.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: 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 Bennet of Colorado that the measles vaccine is, quote, "vital to keeping American children healthy." But overall, he still seemed quite dug in on his long-standing 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.
MARTIN: What about Republican senators? How did they question Secretary Kennedy?
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: 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 is a physician, he 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.
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BILL CASSIDY: 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.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: 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.
MARTIN: OK. So as you were telling us, the reason for the hearings was the Health and Human Services budget. Did we learn anything there?
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: 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 20,000 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 out that President Trump's budget request for 2027 would actually add to the national debt because of increases in military spending.
MARTIN: That is NPR's Selena Simmons-Duffin. Selena, thank you.
SIMMONS-DUFFIN: You're welcome. Copyright © 2026 NPR. All rights reserved. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. Accuracy and availability of NPR transcripts may vary. Transcript text may be revised to correct errors or match updates to audio. Audio on npr.org may be edited after its original broadcast or publication. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record. Facebook Flipboard Email Read & Listen Home News Culture Music Podcasts & Shows Connect Newsletters Facebook Instagram Press Public Editor Corrections Transcripts Contact & Help About NPR Overview Diversity NPR Network Accessibility Ethics Finances Get Involved Support Public Radio Sponsor NPR NPR Careers NPR Shop NPR Extra Terms of Use Privacy Your Privacy Choices Text Only Sponsor Message Sponsor Message Become an NPR sponsor (function () { var loadPageJs = function () { (window.webpackJsonp=window.webpackJsonp||[]).push([[22],{1166:function(e,n,c){e.exports=c(321)},321:function(e,n,c){"use strict";c.p=NPR.serverVars.webpackPublicPath,Promise.all([c.e(1),c.e(2),c.e(3),c.e(4),c.e(82)]).then(function(e){c(3),c(1139),c(116),c(94),c(52),c(493),c(239),c(101),c(103),c(1140),c(144),c(1141),c(238),c(48),c(1142)}.bind(null,c)).catch(c.oe)}},[[1166,0]]]); }; if (document.readyState === 'complete') { loadPageJs(); } else { window.addEventListener('load', function load() { window.removeEventListener('load', load, false); loadPageJs(); }); } })();