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Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet grills Trump's Health and Human Services nominee RFK Jr. during confirmation hearing

Sen. Michael Bennet from Colorado questions Robert F. Kennedy for Health & Human Services Secretary
Sen. Michael Bennet from Colorado questions Robert F. Kennedy for Health & Human Services Secretary 01:10

During his first confirmation hearing Wednesday, President Trump's nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced intense scrutiny from some members of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions on numerous statements he made in the past.

Sen. Michael Bennet, a Democrat and Colorado's senior senator, agreed with Kennedy's concerns that the United States is facing a health care crisis regarding ultra-processed foods but challenged him on several previous statements regarding vaccines, abortion, and other issues. He accused Kennedy of spending 50 years "peddling in half-truths."

Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) questions RFK Jr. at confirmation hearing for HHS secretary 06:23

Bennett pointed out that, despite his prior comments that vaccines are unsafe, Kennedy's own children are vaccinated, and that the guests invited to a party at Kennedy's home in Los Angeles were also vaccinated.

When asked if he claimed that COVID-19 was a genetically engineered bioweapon that targets Black and White people -- but spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people -- Kennedy neither confirmed nor denied his comments, simply stating, "I just quoted an NIH funded, an NIH published study."

Kennedy responded that he "probably" said that Lyme disease is highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon, claiming "that's what the developer of finance said."

According to researchers at Yale University, the Lyme disease bacterium has existed in North American forests, "for at least 60,000 years-long before the disease was first described in Lyme, Connecticut, in 1976 and long before the arrival of humans."

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US Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on his nomination to be Health and Human Services Secretary, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, January 29, 2025. ALEX WROBLEWSKI/AFP via Getty Images

When asked about previous comments on the effects of pesticides, Kennedy said he never claimed that exposure to pesticides causes children to become transgender.

On an episode of his podcast in June 2022, Kennedy discussed what he called "chemical attacks on our children" with Dr. David Carpenter. He referenced an Environmental Protection Agency study on the effects of Atrazine causing some male frogs to change sex and produce eggs.

"The capacity for these chemicals that we are just raining down on our children right now to induce these very profound sexual changes in them is something we need to be thinking about as a society," Kennedy asserted.

Kennedy said he was unsure when asked if he wrote in his book, "It's undeniable that African American AIDS is an entirely different disease from Western AIDS." To which Bennet said he would give the information to the Chairman.

Bennet then shared a comment Kennedy reportedly made on a podcast stating he wouldn't leave abortion to the states and it should be a decision made by the woman without government involvement. When asked for confirmation that he made the comments, Kennedy did not answer, instead stating, "I believe every abortion is a tragedy."

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US Senator Michael Bennet, Democrat from Colorado, questions Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Kennedy's nomination to be Health and Human Services Secretary, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, January 29, 2025. ANDREW CABALLERO-REYNOLDS/AFP via Getty Images

At that point, Bennet began a fiery speech, shouting, "This matters! It doesn't matter what you come here and say that isn't true, that's not reflective of what you really believe, that you haven't said over decade after decade after decade. Because unlike other jobs we're confirming around this place, this is a job where it is life and death for the kids that I used to work for in the Denver Public Schools and for families all over this country that are suffering from living in the richest country of the world that can't deliver basic health care and basic mental health care to them."

He accused Kennedy of playing games and said, "I hope my colleagues will say to the President, out of 330 million Americans, we can do better than this."

Kennedy was unable to respond to Bennet's accusations before the hearing moved on.

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