Overview

• During a three-hour Senate Finance Committee session, Republican Senators John Barrasso, Bill Cassidy and Thom Tillis questioned Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s vaccine moves, with Cassidy saying new limits are effectively denying some people COVID shots.
• Kennedy defended firing CDC Director Susan Monarez as necessary, even as multiple senior CDC officials resigned and Monarez’s lawyers called her ouster illegal, disputing his claim that she was untrustworthy.
• Lawmakers pressed Kennedy on sweeping changes to immunization policy, including replacing the ACIP roster with vaccine critics, cutting roughly $500 million in mRNA vaccine funding and narrowing eligibility for updated COVID boosters.
• Kennedy asserted, "We were lied to about everything" during the pandemic and said "nobody knows" how many Americans died of COVID-19, later acknowledging vaccines "saved quite a few" lives under questioning.
• President Trump and White House officials publicly backed Kennedy after the hearing, as GOP unease grew without formal calls for resignation and the Senate HELP Committee prepared follow-up oversight.