Overview
- At a House Ways and Means hearing Thursday, Rep. Terri Sewell pressed Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about a 2024 podcast quote suggesting Black children should be 're-parented' instead of receiving standard mental-health care.
- Kennedy rejected the premise, saying he did not know what 're-parenting' means, denied using the phrase, and challenged Sewell to produce a recording while saying, 'You're just making stuff up.'
- Coverage pointed to an Earn Your Leisure interview in which Kennedy said 'every Black kid' is being put on medications like Adderall and SSRIs and that those children could 'go somewhere and get re-parented' with no phones or screens.
- Sewell argued the idea echoes a long history of forced family separations for Black Americans and criticized replacing evidence-based treatment with what she called 'wellness farms,' while noting Kennedy is not a physician.
- The clash keeps focus on Kennedy’s push for rural 'wellness farms' as drug-recovery sites and on his credibility, as outlets circulated the podcast clip to rebut his denial and no retraction or clarification was announced.