they put on the supreme court the justices who overturned roe v. wade. and at the state level, they have instituted draconian abortion bans that threaten the lives of mothers. women are literally dying, dying from a lack of care because of these bans on our health. this is 2025. how did we get here some i remember before roe v. wade. i remember when hundreds of thousands of women died from back alley abortions. and are we back to that point? everyone knows that banning abortion and making women seek dangerous options does not stop abortions. it makes them more deadly. but with rfk at the helm, that's the grim reality we face. he's not someone i trust to defend a woman's right to access reproductive health care. he is not someone i want leading

health and human services. now, one of the few issues that we have some actual insight into are his views on public health. his dangerous, radical and wrong beliefs about vaccines are well documented. every child that gets sick or dies from a disease that could be prevented by a vaccine is a tragedy. rfk will not only undermine public confidence in vaccines, he indicated that he intends to continue to profit from antivaccine lawsuits. it's shameful and it's corrupt. now, we've also heard reports that the trump administration plans to cut as much as 50% of health and human services staff and decimate the work of the centers for disease control and prevention. the cdc is our first line of defense for public health, most important tracking and responding to outbreaks of

diseases, not only domestically but abroad as well. the trump administration has already taken steps to gut our global health and aid efforts, from withdrawing from the world health organization to cutting the cdc and u.s. agency for international development. they argue that these efforts are wasteful and unnecessary. but just last friday we were notified in new hampshire that we had only the third confirmed case ever in the u.s. of clad 1 monkey pox, or mpox. the case is travel-related, meaning the patient caught the disease abroad and brought it home. sadly, these things, these diseases don't just stop at countries' borders. they don't just happen overseas. they affect us here at home. the trump administration's efforts to eliminate our public

health infrastructure doesn't make america safer, it doesn't make america stronger, and it doesn't make america more prosperous. it does the exact opposite. and robert f. kennedy jr. is complicit. he's complicit in these efforts, and he will only continue them should he be confirmed. america deserves a leader at hhs who values science, who protects public health, who defends women's rights to reproductive care, to the full range of reproductive care, and to upholds the integrity of our country's core health systems. rfk jr. has shown time and again that he is not that leader. his dangerous rhetoric on vaccines, his reckless plans to gut critical agencies, and lack of understanding of basic health care make him uniquely unqualified to advance the

well-being of all americans. i urge my colleagues to reject his nomination for secretary of health and human services. i yield back. thank you, mr. president. mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mrs. shaheen: i yield 30 minutes of postcloture debate time to the democratic leader. the presiding officer: the senator has that right.

the presiding officer: the senator from michigan. mr. peters: mr. president, i rise today in opposition to robert f. kennedy jr.'s nomination to serve as secretary of the department of health and human services, also known as hhs. throughout his entire nomination process, it has become clear that mr. kennedy is wholly unprepared to lead this department, which is charged with promoting as well as protecting the health of all americans. if confirmed as secretary, he would be tasked with managing programs that millions of americans depend on each and every day, including medicaid and medicare, the centers for

disease control, or cdc, the food and drug administration, or fda, the national institutes of health, or nih, as well as a number of other initiatives aimed at preparing for and responding to public health and medical emergencies. in total, hhs has nearly $2 trillion budget and manages more than 90,000 employees. hhs is an extremely, extremely complex organization that requires a leader where expertise on how these critically, critically important programs are actually administered. yet, during his hearings before the senate finance and help committees, mr. kennedy showed his severe lack of knowledge and understanding about the most basic of federal health programs. mr. kennedy could not answer the most basic questions about how

the medicaid program works or how it benefits more than 70 million americans who depend on health insurance. at a time when republicans are proposing drastic cuts to the medicaid program to pay for their tax cuts to billionaires, we need a secretary who will not only know how the program works but will protect the access to health care services it provides for children and some of the most vulnerable people in our country. it's very clear robert f. kennedy jr. is not that secretary. during his nomination process, mr. kennedy also made it clear he does not understand the differences between the various components of medicare, a program that keeps our seniors cared for well into their golden years, and often plays a key

role in a person's decision about whether or not they can retire with dignity. amid ongoing threats from republicans to privatize medicare, we need a secretary who will protect this program that generations of seniors have counted on to get care, and generations to come that are paying into that fund for their future. mr. kennedy's lack of experience and basic understanding of our nation's health care system is, to say the least, extremely alarming. we cannot confirm a nominee who doesn't even know the most basic answers about programs that he's actually in charge of administering. since mr. kennedy was nominated to lead hhs, i've heard from thousands of my constituents from every corner of michigan, from densely pop leapted cities to -- pop leapted sit -- populated cities to the most

rural parts of the state, who are deeply concerned with how plans for the department would impact families. for example, i've heard from countless folks about the rising costs of health care that is squeezing michigan families' budgets. health care prices are rising faster than inflation, making it even harder for people to get the care that they need. i've heard from a constituent who has operated a food pantry in her community for 13 years. she worries about what will happen to the people that she serves if they do not have access to the food security programs made possible by hhs. in her letter she shared that most of the people in her pantry services are literally one e.r. visit or one car breakdown away from being able to feed themselves or their families. public health initiatives are a lifeline for so many in michigan as well as across our country. when our neighbors have access

to basic health resources, it allowed them to focus on improving their lives, whether that's gaining meaningful employment or getting an education. so we need an hhs secretary who is focused on improving access to medicaid and expanding the premium tax credits for the affordable care act that allows millions of americans to access affordable health care. that clearly is not robert kennedy. he would not be that secretary. instead he believes americans would rather be privatized for-profit care. hhs is also in charge of providing mental health services and support to communities all across our country. unfortunately, we have a melt crisis impacting -- a mental health crisis impacting americans today, with record high levels of mental illness and suicides, especially among our youth. i received a letter from a social worker in michigan who

helps students traumatized by the horrific shootings at oxford high school in michigan and michigan state university. she is worried that without proper mental health resources, americans who've been impacted by senseless gun violence, whether it's school, their places of worship, nightclubs or shopping malls, they will grieve and struggle alone. unfortunately, mr. kennedy has only further stigmatized these important resources, even making comments during his confirmation hearing linking an increase in school shootings to an increased use of antidepressants. mr. kennedy's ideas would only worsen the mental health crisis we're seeing today. instead, we need a secretary who will invest in samhsa, the substance abuse and mental health services administration. we need a secretary who will ensure everyone has access to the programs and health

professionals needed to address this mental health crisis. robert kennedy jr. is not that secretary. hhs oversees our nation's major medical research, helping to advance breakthroughs in science and development of new treatments for deadly diseases, from childhood cancers to alzheimer's. research institutions across my home state of michigan are conducting critically important research to improve health outcomes for americans who suffer from these diseases. a michigan scientist who specializes in cdc research contacted my office. they fear if mr. kennedy is confirmed it could impact their ability and the ability of thousands of researchers all across our country to conduct medical research that is literally saving lives. in a matter of weeks, we have

already seen the trump administration freeze funding and halt critical work at the national institutes of health and its research partners across the country. we need a secretary who will fight to do this important research moving forward, research to cure cancer, to treat deadly viruses, and to address cardiovascular disease. mr. kennedy is not, he is not that secretary. advancing medical research is especially important today as we face increased cases of vac vaccine-preventable infectious diseases like measles. and despite this, mr. kennedy has, time and time again, sown doubt and promoted dangerous lies about the safety of vaccines. and my constituents are alarmed at what that will mean for their families. a concerned mother wrote me and

my office that when she was 38 weeks pregnant, and told me mr. kennedy's long history of spreading dangerous medical disinformation and undermining public health initiatives is directly at odds with how she plans to keep her future child from infectious disease. i also heard from a constituent who was born before the polio vaccine was approved. she said that to this day she can still remember the relief on her mother's face when the polio vaccine became available. this moment has stuck with her throughout her 30-year career as a registered nurse where she has made it her life's work to study and safely administer vaccines in her community. and let's be clear, let's be absolutely clear, vaccines are scientificically proven to protect against diseases like chicken pox, polio, influenza,

and yes, covid-19. we have eradicated deadly diseases and protected our children due to incredible scientific advances in vaccine research. but now vak skeptics like mr. kennedy have risen to prominence, discouraging people from getting safe, proven vaccines and putting every american's health at risk when it comes to infectious diseases. we need a secretary who understands the effectiveness of vaccines and will do more to prevent these diseases through routine childhood immunizations. mr. kennedy is not that secretary, and if confirmed, mr. kennedy has made it perfectly clear that he will stand in direct opposition to this evidence-based medicine. mr. kennedy's falsehood about basic public health practices have impacts that stretch far

beyond our physical health. another constituent, a clinical therapist said she has seen firsthand the devastating impacts that misinformation can have on mental health, adherence to treatment, and overall patient well-being. specifically, she mentioned that the spread of falsehoods about vaccines, psychiatric care, and medical service fuels distrust in lifesaving interventions, exacerbates existing mental health crises and hinders efforts to connect patients with effective evidence-based treatments. i've even heard from parents who are concerned about mr. kennedy's narrative suggesting vaccines cause autism, because he has given credibility to these lies and questioned facts from scientists and doctors, these parents worry that their children will not receive the most basic routine care that they deserve.

and in the midst of so many health care challenges from prescription drugs to mental health to various public health threats, we cannot afford to have someone as unprepared as robert f. kennedy jr. in charge of all these public health agencies. even well respected organizations know that mr. kennedy would be an absolute disaster for our public health. take the american health association, in a letter they said, quote, to effectively lead our nation's top health agency, a candidate should be trained in health administration, clinical care or related field and must believe in and follow the scientific evidence that serves as the basis of our nation's system to protect and promote the public health from all the threats we face, end of quote. we cannot afford to have someone as unqualified as robert kennedy

jr. to be in charge of our top public health agency. he has failed to exhibit even the most basic knowledge of how hhs programs are administered to the millions of americans who depend on them each and every day. he has misrepresented scientific evidence that is at the foundation of what hhs sets out to accomplish, which is keeping americans healthy and protected from disease. he has demonizing doc doctors, researchers and medical professionals who have done the important work to keep our communities safe. i urge my colleagues to judge mr. kennedy on his lack of qualifications. it is clear he simply does not have the expertise, the training, or even the leadership skills necessary to lead a department as important as hhs.

we need a secretary who will protect the health of americans. robert kennedy is not that secretary. and if he is confirmed to lead the department of health and human services, the american people will ultimately pay the price with their health. i urge my colleagues to join me in voting no. # a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new mexico. mr. heinrich: mr. president, just over five years ago robert

f. kennedy jr. traveled to the pacific island of somoa. mr. kennedy was on a mission to spread conspiracy theories about the safety and efficacy of children's vaccines. trading in his esteemed family name and peddling himself as some sort of expert, mr. kennedy discouraged parents in somoa from vaccinating their children. the impact of mr. kennedy's visit was undeniable. health providers in somoa reported that antivaccine voices got louder after his visit is and the rate of measles vaccinations for eligible one-year olds in somoa fell below 33%, well below herd immunity. five months after mr. kennedy's visit somoa had a massive measles outbreak with 5,000 of

its citizens contracting the disease and 83 samoans dying, the vast the majority of which were children under the age of 5. during his senate confirmation hearings mr. kennedy doubled down on his denialism claiming that, quote, we don't know what was killing those children in somoa. mr. kennedy also claimed in written responses to senate questions that my words had nothing to do with vaccine uptake in somoa or with the 2019 epidemic. but the current top health official in somoa has denounced mr. kennedy's characterization of the measles outbreak in his country and mr. kennedy's role in it as an outright lie and a total fabrication. as someone with a background in science, but more importantly, just as a father of two young men, i am hof phied by this --

horrified by this story. the measles vaccine has been one of the most successful public health stories in this country. one vaccine administered in two doses now provides protection against four devastating diseases -- measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox. in the late 1950's and early 1960's nearly twice as many young people died from measles as from polio. and thanks to incredible scientific research and medical advances, we now have a vaccine that has proven to be safe and effective at protecting our kids from these deadly diseases. this vaccine has largely eradicated the measles outbreaks that used to result in the devastating loss of babies and young children. that is until antivaccine

crusaders like mr. kennedy started promoting conspiracy theories in places like somoa. over the last two decades thanks in large part to mr. kennedy, this antiscience movement moved from the darkest corners of the internet into the mainstream. and the samoan story provides us a heartbreaking example of what is at stake if we give this movement's leader a national platform to spread his junk science. i hope all of my colleagues take seriously what it would mean to confirm this antivaccine, antiscience snake oil salesman as our next secretary of health and human services. as the leader of the largest antivaccine organization in the country, the so-called children's defense fund -- and i use air quotes for a reason -- mr. kennedy has repeatedly

pushed junk science studies to spread fear and skepticism of vaccines. it's not limited to the measles. mr. kennedy has repeatedly and falsely alleged that safe and effective vaccines for tetanus, for the flu, for covid, for hpv are dangerous to human health. mr. kennedy has even promoted the completely discredited conspiracy theory that vaccines lead to autism. and i want to be real clear that decades, decades of extensive peer-reviewed scientific studies have found no connection, zero connection between vaccines and autism. when he was pressed about this during his confirmation hearings, mr. kennedy continued to promote junk science studies rather than walk back his misinformation. in response to mr. kennedy's words in his confirmation

hearing, christopher banks, the president and ceo of the autism society of america, said the autism community deserves leadership that prioritizes evidence-based policies and respects the lived experiences of autistic individuals and their families. the continued profession of debunked vaccine theories only serves as a distraction from the critical research needed to better understand autism and provide support for the autism community today. i completely agree with mr. banks. financial did disclosures from his confirmation process have also revealed that mr. kennedy has made millions, millions of dollars in referral fees from law firms suing vaccine manufacturers based on baseless conspiracy theories.

if confirmed, his own personal financial interests could still be tied to these antivaccin ant lawsuits. at the height of the covid-19, mr. kennedy wanted to end the vaccination effort that helped saved millions more lives. he continued his well-worn and again completely evidence-free message that no vaccine is safe and effective. and just like with all vaccines, the covid vaccines went through independent review and extensive trials to ensure that they were safe and effective. if mr. kennedy had had his way, we might still be losing thousands and thousands of our family members and neighbors to that virus. mr. kennedy has, again, without any sound evidence also pushed

conspiracy theories claiming that antidepressant medications cause mass shootings and chemicals in our water make children gay. if those claims sound nuts, it's because they are. mr. kennedy has said that he is opposed to promoting prescription medications to treat chronic diseases including antiobesity medications like ozempic current used by millions of americans. mr. kennedy has said that he would eliminate the entire nutrition department at the food and drug administration, jeopardizing the safety of our nation's food supplies. mr. kennedy has said that he supports gutting the national institutes of health, which supports the development of medicines to treat diseases and delivers untold resources to health care institutions in new mexico and every other state in this country. during his confirmation process,

mr. kennedy also repeatedly made commitments to my republican colleagues to support restrictions on mifepristone, a medication abortion and miscarriaging management drug. mifepristone has been approved by the fda for 25 years. it's true that mr. kennedy has made a number of conflicting statements in the past about his personal views on women's reproductive health care, but during his confirmation process, mr. kennedy has signaled to republican senators that he will go along with whatever president trump wants to further roll back women's reproductive rights. mr. kennedy is not who any of us should want to put in charge of our nation's health and food safety. the department of health and human services oversees health coverage programs that serve

half, half of all americans. hhs plays a critical role in overseeing medicare, overseeing medicaid, and the affordable care act. hhs also supports the medical research that helps us to develop the next vaccines, prevent the next pandemic, and find cures to cancer and chronic diseases like diabetes. we have already seen president trump, elon musk, and his doge minions target scientific and medical research at agencies like the national institutes of health. just last week they announced an estimated $4 billion cut for health research at universities across the nation, including the university of new mexico. just like many of the unilateral and illegal actions of this

emboldened trump administration, this one received a temporary halt from a federal judge two days ago. but whether this particular attack holds up in court or not, the trump administration's intention is clear -- dramatic cuts to medical research into treatments and cures that countless americans are depending on to save their lives. mr. kennedy plans to lead this effort and even to expand on it. mr. kennedy is not who my constituents in new mexico want to see leading our nation's health agency. in fact, new mexicans have raised their concerns in letters and e-mails and phone calls day in and day out. i'm going to take a few minutes to read to you from some of these new mexicans who are terrified about the danger that mr. kennedy would pose as our nation's health care agency leader.

melissa from albuquerque is concerned that mr. kennedy's past of promoting misinformation about vaccines and his lack of experience will endanger americans. melissa said, this role demands a leader who relies on evidence-based decision-making, upholds public trust, prioritizes the health and safety of all americans. rfk jr.'s history of promoting conspiracy theories makes him fundamentally unfit for this critical position. if rfk jr. were confirmed to head hhs, millions of americans' lives would be put at risk. his policies would jeopardize public health and undermine efforts to protect our communities from preventable diseases and health crises. william from albuquerque, a retired university of new mexico health communications professor and longtime nih principal

investigator, knows that mr. kennedy's harmful rhetoric and lies will hurt public health efforts and lead to unnecessary deaths. william said, my research team and i have had to continually battle anti-vac misinformation. robert f. kennedy jr. is often at the center of that misinformation. i urge you in the strongest possible terms to oppose his nomination as secretary of had. hs. the damage he would do will take decades to undo and will lead undoubtedly to u.s. morbidity and mortality increasing due to infectious diseases. jane from albuquerque is concerned that mr. kennedy's lack of experience will negatively impact the health of new mexicans. she said, the administration has nominated manifestly unqualified individuals, and those openly hostile to evidence to head the department of health and human

services and the individual agencies that are charged with protecting the health of everyone in the united states. this abdication of responsibility will undoubtedly impact vulnerable populations most profoundly, including those living in new mexico. mark from albuquerque, a survivor of polio, knows that the polio vaccine effectively eradicated this relentless and deadly disease. he is worried that mr. kennedy's confirmation could stifle future vaccinations like the one that saved his life. mark said, i am a polio survivor. i know that i was very fortunate in my recovery, and i also know that the vaccines effectively eradicated this relentless and deadly disease. soy i ask that you -- so i ask that you do whatever you can to prevent rfk jr. from overseeing the health care of all americans.

laurie from las cruces is worried that mr. kennedy's history of spreading misinformation could harm americans. if the senate confirms rfk jr. to lead the department of health and human services, americans' health care will be put at risk and will be ill-prepared for another public health catastrophe. we need to push for a qualified, trust-worthy nominee to lead america's health policy. megan from albuquerque, a primary care physician, is worried that mr. kennedy's lack of experience, disregard for evidence-based medicines pose a danger to americans. megan said, as a primary care physician in new mexico, i am also very worried about the possibility of rfk jr. being confirmed as hhs secretary. his past actions have shown that he has little regard for research, evidence-based medicine, or the expertise of

scientists and physicians. he is dangerous to the american people. i agree with these new mexicans that mr. kennedy is unprepared, he is unqualified, and he is dangerously unfit to be confirmed as our next health secretary. unfit to protect our kids' health from debunked congress spiracy theories, unif i think to defend women's reproductive rights, unfit to safeguard the future of medicare and medicaid. and unfit to continue lifesaving medical research and medical care in my state and across the country. and for all of these reasons, i would urge all of my colleagues to join me in voting no on confirming robert f. kennedy jr.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from arizona. mr. kelly: mr. president, i really care about science. i spent my career as an engineer, as a navy pilot, and a test pilot, and as an astronaut. three jobs where facts matter, where you make decisions based on science, not superstition. because when you're launching off of an aircraft carrier or orbiting the earth at 17,500 miles an hour, there's no room for conspiracy theories. you have to deal in reality. in my career, relying on science literally meant the difference between life and death. and the same is true for the

person who is responsible for our nation's health. the secretary of health and human services is responsible for making sure that the best science guides our health care, from developing lifesaving medicines to preventing deadly diseases. this job requires a commitment to science, facts, and to public health. but the nominee before us today, robert f. kennedy jr., has spent much of his career doing the exact opposite. rejecting science, spreading conspiracy theories, and putting public health at risk. that's not someone that i want in charge of keeping arizonans healthy. and that would be his job, by

the way -- responding to disease outbreaks, approving new medicines and treatments, overseeing health care coverage for millions of arizonans and millions more americans. so this isn't just some bureaucratic decision that we're about to make. this is about whether the next hhs secretary will protect public health or undermine it with dangerous misinformation. let's be clear about mr. kennedy's record. this is not someone who is simply asking questions about vaccines. healthy skepticism is one thing, and i always told my space shuttle crewmembers to tell me when they thought i was wrong, to constantly question the way that we were doing things. we should be doing the same thing here in the senate.

but what mr. kennedy has engaged in goes far beyond that. far beyond it. even when presented with definitive science, he's doubled down on conspiracy theories. because, for him, that is what paid the bills. he was the chairman of the most we will-funded antivaccine organization in the country. the group he led has spread false claims that vaccines cause autism, that vaccines cause cancer, and they cause autoimmune disease. this organization, they filed lawsuits to block children from getting vaccinated. and what happens when people believe that? we get outbreaks of disease that

we thought was long gone in the rearview mirror. in american is a mowia, he -- samoa, he spread misinformation during a measle utbreak that killed 32 people. instead of helping families get lifesaving care, mr. kennedy sowed doubt, and then he had the audacity to question whether measles was really the cause of those 83 deaths. in texas right now, right now today, there is a measles outbreak. it's in a county that has low vaccination rates. so far all of the cases are in unvaccinated people. now, we know exactly what causes these outbreaks. it's not science.

it's misinformation. it's people like mr. kennedy telling parents that they can't trust their doctors. mr. president, i'm thinking about this nomination, not as a senator but as a father and a grandparent. i know how much arizona families care about their kids' health. all they want to do is do what is right for their family and for their kids. and i know what if means to trust doctors, to trust medicine, to trust science. i want my granddaughter, sage, to grow up in a world that is safer and healthier than the one before her, where we don't have to worry about diseases that we already know how to prevent. and i think about my daughter,

her mom, who like any first-time parent is doing everything she possibly can to make the best decisions for her child. and that's already hard enough. the last thing parents need is one more loud voice, especially one in a position of authority pushing conspiracy theories that make it harder to know what is true. it's bad for kids across arizona and across the country. and when he spreads these conspiracy theories about vaccines and autism, it has cascading effects. senator hassan made this point i think better than anybody else could just last week, or the week before. after speaking about her son who ha

-- who has cerebral palsy, senator hassan said, quote, the problem with this witness's response on the autism case -- or the autism cause and the relationship to vaccines is because he's relitigating and churning settled science, so we can't go forward and find out what the cause of autism is and treat these kids and help these families. she continued, she went on and said, sometimes science is wrong, but we do make progress and we build upon the work and we become more successful. but when you continue to sow doubt about settled science, it makes it impossible for us to move forward, and it freezes us in place. so, you see, the job of hhs secretary isn't about chasing conspiracy theories. it's about making sure families

get the best care possible based on the best science available. so we can make progress and live healthy lives. and here's -- folks, here is what makes this even worse, like a lot worse. mr. kennedy -- get this. mr. kennedy vaccinated his own kids while telling other parents not to. his own cousin, ambassador caroline kennedy, called him a predator for what he has done. that's not leadership, folks. that's hypocrisy. and here is what ambassador kennedy wrote, bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children, vaccinating his own children while building a following by hypocritically

discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs. she went on, his constant denigration of our health care system and the conspiratorial half truths he has told about vaccines including the samoa 2019 measles outbreaks has caused lives. now we know that bobby's cruise against vaccinations has benefited him other ways too. his ethics report makes cheer that he will keep against the nih vaccine. in other words, he is willing to enrich himself by denying access to a vaccine that can prevent almost all forms of cervical cancer and which has been safely

administered to millions of boys and girls. that was a quote from his own cousin. the senate, mr. president, the senate cannot ignore this massive conflict of interest. mr. kennedy has personally made millions of dollars from lawsuits attacking vaccines, including the hpv vaccine, which prevents cervical cancer. if confirmed, he would oversee the fda, the very agency that regulates the vaccines that he is suing over. that's a direct financial incentive to undermine vaccines even if it puts people's lives at risk. and he wouldn't commit to removing himself from this

equation. it's not just vaccines. mr. kennedy has made a career of embracing conspiracy theories over facts. he claims -- it's almost -- would be funny in another context, but mr. kennedy, get this, he claims wi-fi and 5g cause cancer. he thinks the covid vaccine is part of a government plot. he suggested that vaccines are a holocaust. but of course when he was confronted about that, he said he didn't recall saying it. he believes that the people who are running our vaccine programs should be in jail. and when asked about 9/11, one of the most defining moments in our nation's history, he refused

to say who was responsible. and his response -- he said it's hard to tell what's a conspiracy theory and what isn't. well, mr. president, we cannot put somebody in charge of our nation's health care who doesn't know how to separate fact from fiction. no one in the senate should be comfortable with that. but the dangerous misinformation, it doesn't stop with vaccines. mr. kennedy claimed that anti-depressants, not guns, are to blame for scoot shootings -- school shootings. let's be clear, folks, there is zero -- zero evidence to support that. none. what we do know and what the data tells us is that every other developed country, they also have anti-depressants. what they don't have is

america's level of gun violence. the difference is not mental health treatment, it's easy access to guns for kids, for criminals and dangerous people who shouldn't have them. mr. president, my family and i have lived with the consequences of gun violence. my wife gabby giffords was nearly killed by a gunman while meeting with constituents outside a grocery store in 2011. six people died, 12 were injured. you won't find anyone at that grocery store who believes that an excess of mental health treatment was responsible for that tragedy, not one. gabby and i have sat in living rooms of parents who have lost their children in mass shootings, and we have fought

for real commonsense gun safety laws that can save lives. just like senator hassan, i will not stand here and let conspiracy theories distract from real solutions. this is the core of the problem. mr. kennedy treats health care like it's a conspiracy theory. mr. kennedy is not the person who should be running the department of health and human ser services. it's very clear. now, if mr. kennedy was simply a private citizen saying these things, that would be one thing. it would still be a problem, by the way. but this is someone who wants to be in charge of all of our health care. and if his dangerous views weren't enough, he doesn't even understand the weight of the job he is applying for. in his confirmation hearing, he

didn't know the difference between medicare and medicaid. he didn't understand the different parts of medicare and what they provide for seniors. he didn't know what a community health center was. he couldn't articulate a basic managing plan for hhs's $2 trillion budget. he wouldn't answer as to whether he'll negotiate for lower drug prices for seniors, and that means if you're a senior with him in charge, you might see higher drug prices. mr. kennedy does not have a medical degree and he has no experience, zero experience in health care policy. so this isn't just about bad

ideas, it's about dangerous ideas and the fact that he is completely unprepared to do this job. we learned that at his confirmation hearing, we also learned mr. kennedy won't make decisions based on science data and facts or what is best for our public health. instead, he will do whatever president trump tells him to do. over and over again when asked about his policies, he didn't give answers based on what he believes is right. he said, quote, president trump has not told me what his policy. on reproductive health, quote, trump has told me to look into it, but i don't know what his policy is. this is a nominee who traffics

in conspiracy who doesn't know much about the agency he's nominated to lead and who will just do whatever he is told. considering what we heard all along, president trump, you know, he has a concept of a health care plan, not a real plan, but we still don't know what that is. now, that to me feels like a big problem. mr. president, we need an hhs secretary who will lead with facts not fear. to lower -- to lower the price of prescription drugs or fight to do that and fight to reduce health care costs and not go along with the effort of taking health care insurance away from kids and people with disabilities, who will build trust in the health care system, not undermine it.

mr. president kennedy has built a career out of rejecting science, spreading misinformation and profiting off of fear. he has compared vaccine scientists to nazis, he has refused to say if 9/11 was a conspiracy theory. he has no knowledge and no independence and he says he will do whatever president trump tells him to do. so, my colleagues, we all have to ask ourselves are we really willing to put the health of american families in his hands? are we? mr. president, i know my answer,

and i urge everyone in this chamber to think very hard about theirs. and, mr. president, i yield 30 minutes of post-cloture debate time to the democratic leader. the presiding officer: the senator has that right. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from illinois. ms. duckworth: mr. president, if you go back exactly 20 years ago today, i could tell you exactly where i was. i was a patient at walter reed army medical center, i was staring at the beige-colored wall and amidst the main in every inch of my body i was trying to muster the strength to sit up or to take a step or even just to breathe. i spent months and months and months in that hospital room hooked up to machines, getting wheeled in and out of surgeries, learning how to live again in my

new post shoot-down world. despite it all, looking back, i consider every one of those days in that hospital room lucky days. because when the worst happened to me, when the rpg exploded in my lap in iraq and i needed serious medical attention to survive the hour, the day, the year, i had health care i could rely on. the same could not be said for countless americans. americans whose health care costs have already been too high and whose access to care is at even greater dangerer if -- dangerer if this chamber is foolish enough to confirm mr. kennedy as director of hhs. he cannot be trusted with the responsibility that comes with this job. he cannot be trusted with our lives. he is focused on your pushing -- on pushing his agenda.

if this man is confirmed, more americans will die preventible deaths because of his policies. next month will mark the five-year anniversary of what covid shut down our nation. in this moment it is dangerous, reckless, and heartless to everyone who lost a loved one in the pandemic to -- if our health and human services refuse to ensure children are protected against preventible yet deadly diseases like measles, rsv or whooping cough or polio, it will be our kids, not mr. kennedy who will pay the price. i have gotten letters from my constituents to do whatever i can to prevent a man -- this man from holding a position of power over our children's next

breltsdz. one pediatrician in illinois wrote to me, and i quote, i will always remember the nine-month old infant with whooping cough who cannot be saved despite all of -- despite everything we had available. i remember a father screaming when his 4-year-old son died of chicken pox. the stories, the letters, the avoidable tragedies go on and on. imagine how much worse the heartbreak will become under a guy who acts like the term vaccine is a swear word. look, the only reason that kennedy is even up for confirmation is because he, like elon musk, decided to throw his dignity to the wind and bow down to trump's altar. because of that he gets to be another rich guy with too few qualifications and too much power somehow charged with leading our government. trump is leading the leading the

government like it's the mob. it's just this -- this time you get made into a cabinet secretary. why would any of us think he would have the courage to stand up to trump if the president issues an order that actively harms every day americans. how can any of us believe that kennedy would fight back against trump's worst ing extincts when kennedy himself has proven time and again that he believes -- does not believe in science. now americans will be the ones to suffer. with kennedy's confirmation, even programs as popular and vital as medicaid will be in even greater danger. republicans told us in project 2025 that they would come for medicaid. this is a rare case when the gop has actually kept its word,

putting at risk roughly 80 million americans would rely on medicaid, americans in red states and blue, in big cities and small towns, folks who may never have heard of rfk jr. but who will certainly feel the effect when he rips away the health care their family so desperately needs. medicaid is a lifeline for kids, for pregnant women, for people in nursing homes, for americans with disabilities. but republicans don't seem to care about any of that. it's obvious that donald trump has never stayed up late at night hufrmed over the kitchen -- hunched over the kitchen table with a calculator in one hand and a medical bill in the other praying to figure out a way to afford his child's insulin. no, of course not. with every passing day, it becomes clearer and clearer that republicans care more about tax breaks for the billionaires they pal around with on a golf course than prescriptions for the middle class folks who actually work at mar-a-lago. while that teacher in peoria

lays awake at night trying to work out how she can afford her father's home care now that he can no longer get those services through medicaid, or that mom in chicago has learned she has stage 3 cancer is trying to find a second job so she can afford both diapers for her newborn and her own chemotherapy, donald trump and elon musk will be too busy lining their already full pockets to care. to my colleagues on the other side of the aisle, i am sure many of you have faced health crises of your own. i'm sure many of you have had a parent who has been sick or a nephew who has been in a car crash, a spouse who has been in need of an emergency c-section, or a child who has relied on an autoimmune injector. imagine if your loved ones hadn't cared -- imagine if your loved ones hadn't had care they could rely on in the moment and ask yourself how you can sleep soundly tonight if you vote to further the agenda of a couple

of rich guys who so clearly don't care about making america healthy. they only care about tipping it even more in favor of the wealthy. they're not bringing back the good old days of reagan. they're just bringing back the days of dying from the measles. and they're certainly not making america great again. they're making america sick again. that's the trump-kennedy promise. i care about my constituents' ability to afford their prescription medications, their ability to get the vaccines that will keep them alive through the next pandemic, their ability to survive those worst-case scenario health moments without going broke in the process. so for all those reasons and a thousand more, i will be voting no on robert f. kennedy jr.'s nomination. if my republican colleagues care about any one of those things, too, then they will have no choice but to do the same. thank you. mr. president, i have received a number of messages from my constituents describing what access to medicaid means to them

and their families. i would like to close by asking unanimous consent that they be printed in the congressional record. the presiding officer: without objection. ms. duckworth: and i yield 30 minutes of postcloture debate time to the democratic leader. the presiding officer: the senator has that right. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from nevada. ms. rosen: thank you, mr. president. today we're here to discuss president trump's nominee to lead the department of health and human services robert f. kennedy jr. if confirmed, mr. kennedy would be in charge of a department with power to -- well, regulate the food we eat, the medicines

we take, and the vaccinations we depend upon. he would oversee agencies that provide health care to almost 170 million americans, including hundreds of thousands of nevadans who are on medicare, medicaid, and the children's health insurance program. i'm here today to oppose robert f. kennedy jr. as our next secretary of health and human services. confirming him would have disastrous consequences for our public health. for our seniors who rely on medicare, for our families who get their health care through medicaid. let's start out with his lack, his lack of qualifications. mr. kennedy, he's never worked in health care or federal government. he's probably best known for his skepticism of vaccines and spreading dangerous conspiracies

and outright lies. mr. kennedy's history of promoting antivaccine misinformation, it's well documented and deeply troubling. vaccines have saved millions of lives throughout history, and they remain one of the most effective tools we have to protect public health. yet mr. kennedy has spent years promoting debunked claims linking vaccines to autism, cancer, allergies, and autoimmune diseases. he spread lies about vaccine safety, making people fearful and increasing rates of unvaccinated people which put all of us, all of us at risk. he's previously stated -- and i'm going to quote -- that no vaccine is safe and effective, end quote. he said that the polio vaccine -- i'm going to quote again -- killed many, many, many, many -- many, many, many

more people than polio ever did. end quote. and mr. kennedy has called the covid vaccine -- again, i'll quote -- the deadliest vaccine ever made. this rhetoric isn't just reckless, it's dangerous. mr. kennedy had been around during the first trump administration, he would have undermined president trump's operation war:speed -- warp speed and efforts that helped us end the pandemic. and he doubled down during his confirmation hearing, even though he was asked multiple times, mr. kennedy refused to acknowledge that vaccines don't cause autism. he's also engaged in holocaust distortion to push his dangerous views. while attending an autism conference, he was asked by the cdc wasn't acknowledging ought

twitch as an epidemic and he said -- i'm going to quote again. they are his words -- to me these are like nazi death kafrs what happened to these kids. i can't tell you why someone would do that. i can't tell you why ordinary jer p.a.n.s participated in the holocaust. end quote. frankly, mr. president, these aren't the words of someone you want to be in charge of america's public health. these are not the words of someone you want anywhere near the white house, anywhere near our health care, our safety. he's even gone so far to faultily suggest that certain anti -- so far to suggest that certain antidepressants are behind the rise in school shootings and why young people are identifying as transgender, neither of which is backed by any science. and we can't allow someone who

spreads this kind of vitriol and dangerous misinformation to lead the department of health and human services. but his problematic views are just the start. during his confirmation hearing, mr. kennedy was also asked about his understanding of medicare and medicaid. just asked if he knew about it. while he struggled, struggled i mind you, to remember which program covered older and disabled americans, struggled to remember which program provided for low-income people. this is medicare and medicaid, not something that's so brand new that even robert f. kennedy jr. shouldn't know what it is. because medicare and medicaid are not mere government programs. they are a lifeline for millions of americans, including our se seniors, our parent, our

grandparents, people with disabilities, families in need including half of all children and around 40% of all babies born in this country. why would we trust someone with the future of medicare and medicaid when he doesn't even understand the basics of the system he would oversee? this makes no sense. and we can't overlook the broader impact of mr. kennedy and president trump's proposals on medical research, safety, and innovation. we're already seeing devastating attempts to go after the national institutes of health or nih, the very institution that has pioneered lifesaving research in areas like cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. and this is not just any research. this is lifesaving research. we're talking about research and clinical trials while at my home

state of the university of las vegas and university of reno to better understand alzheimer's disease and improve care for partialings. we're talking about advancing breast cancer therapy, the university of nevada reno and clinical trials on treating and preventing cancers at the southern nevada cancer research center. you know, i lost my mother to cancer. i lost my brother to leukemia. i think it's shameful that this administration enabled by rfk jr. would target research into these deadly diseases which cost lives in my family. i don't want anyone to go through what i went through. i want other people's families, their parents, their siblings, their friends to be able to live. and we know lives are saved every day because of investments

in research. and those clinical trials and what the nih does, i want people to live because of the research. it matters. you know, mr. kennedy has also proposed radical changes to the food and drug administration, the agency in charge of, well, the food we all eat and keeping it safe. and just like many of the other reforms proposed by mr. kennedy, his suggested changes to the fda, well, they're based largely on the many conspiracy theories he peddles. these broad changes including clearing out entire departments, like the food and nutrition center, which is responsible for preventing foodborne illnesses and ensuring that chemicals in food, the food we all eat, every single one of us all around this country, every day from young to old and everywhere in between, that our food is safe.

how does dismantling this keep any of us safe? how does it keep any of us healthy? mr. kennedy has an overarching plan to gut the finding for fda which will severely limit regulation and safe implementation, also of new drug trials, medications. and this could lead to dangerous drugs flooding the market putting countless lives at risk. you know, mr. president, the role of the health and human services secretary, it is one of profound responsibility. and robert f. kennedy jr. has undermined the very foundations of our public health system. mr. kennedy's vision for the future of our health care s system, well, he wants to undermine medicare and medicaid.

he wants to slash cancer research funding. he wants to push dangerous public health conspiracies. these are visions and these are things i cannot support. no one should support. we all want a healthier future for america, one that both prevents diseases and where we can think about curing diseases, where we can do preventive medicine, curative medicine, where we can have that hope for folks whose mother gets lung cancer in the future, that she might live. or leukemia in the future that their brother might live. mine didn't but i hope that they didn't die in vain because research goes on and will help others. and i want us to be able to cure diseases for the ones that we love. and so that is why i cannot in

good conscience support mr. kennedy's nomination, and i urge my colleagues to do the same. mistakes -- the stakes couldn't be higher. the very lives, the lives of our loved ones, they may just depend on it. thank you. postcloture debate time to the senior senator from oregon. . mr. markey: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. mr. markey: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i stand here in

strong opposition to the nomination of robert f. kennedy jr. to serve as the secretary of health and human resources for the united states of america. the american people know that our health care system is broken. families have to work through too much. health insurance red tape only to be denied care or forced to pay out of pocket. medical debt is deleting cost -- is the leading cause of bankruptcy in the united states. families are saddled with medical debt from prices that are too high and burdened by quality of care that is too low. when they need to get an appointment, they have to wait months, drive hours, or simply go without the care which they need. pharmacies, hospitals, community health centers struggle to keep their doors open, and communities are watching health providers and workers burn out under the strain of a health

care system that is increasingly being sold out to greedy investors and the billionaire class. the american people deserve a real health care system, not the current sick care system, and they deserve leadership which will recognize all of these problems and commit to solving them. instead, donald trump and elon musk are only making things worse. to elon musk move fast and break things is not in the united states constitution. that's why these federal district court judges are stopping your actions. in trump's first three weeks in office he has taken illegal and unconstitutional action that disrupted lifesaving health

research, sent musk and his doge acolytes to make cuts in medicare and medicaid, cut off federal funding for community health centers, used discriminatory fearmongering to threaten federal funding for hospitals and health providers just trying to provide care for their patients. every chaotic decision, every cut, every illegal action are all to make it easier for this administration to work alongside congressional republicans to slash and burn our core health care programs. they're not doing this to make things better for everyday americans. it's robin hood in reverse. they are working to take from those who need it the most just to give billions more in handouts for defense contractors and their billionaire donors. they want hundreds of billions of dollars in tax breaks for billi

billionaires. they want to increase defense spending by $150 billion, more nuclear weapons, more. but then it turns and says where are we going to get the money? and they say, oh, we're going to medicaid, we're going to the affordable care act, we're going to community health centers, we're going to go to the programs that actually do protect people. more nuclear weapons aren't going to protect people. it's having access to the health care system that can help protect their families. now, trump and musk and republicans, they're going to call it efficiency, they'll call it transparency or say it's just adding basic requirements to medicaid. this is all code, the code for cuts. efficiency, transparency, or just be honest about it, elion, just be honest about it,

president trump, cuts to programs. they keep saying there's all kinds of waste in the system. well, point it out to us. we'll cut it out for you. give us a list of the programs you want cut because they're waste and we'll do it. you want to know what they won't want to -- what they don't want po say? they don't want to say they want to cut medicaid or cut clean air, clean water, the programs to protect ordinary people. they want to call it waste, and we're going to call it out for what it is, where they're going. they're going to the programs that help provide the health care for eaordinary americans. cuts to health care that americans rely upon. when americans have to wait longer for care, they have to pay more, or watch the only hospital in their community shut down, the blame for what will happen will lay at the feet of the politicians who put self-interest above the interests of the american people. rather than consider a nominee

who would seriously protect and preserve the health of the american people, donald trump nominated yet another enabler to his cabinet, robert f. kennedy jr., who instead of standing up to the trump-musk chaos will only add fuel to donald trump's make america sick again campaign. because that's what it is, make america sick again. ralph waldo emerson from massachusetts, he said health is the first wealth. well, that first wealth is going to get looted so billionaires get even richer. serving as secretary of the department of health and human services is an immense responsibility. the agency oversees the centers for disease control and prevention, the food and drug administration, the national institutes of health, which is made up of 27 institutes and centers, and each decision that an hhs secretary makes will have

a huge impact on our health care center. hhs ensures medications are safe and effective, keeps workers, students, and seniors safe, protects the public from global pandemics or disease outbreaks, guarantees hospitals, doctors, and community health centers provide safe, quality care, and funds research that will build the foundation to accurately diagnose patients, better treatment cancer, cure alzheimer's, heart disease, diabetes, cancer. that's what it is supposed to be all about, not freezing that funding, not cutting that funding, but ensuring that the researchers have the funding they need, because research is medicine's field of dreams from which we harvest the findings that gives hope to families that we will find the cures for those diseases that have one through their families' medical

histories. we know hhs is health and human services, but it also stands for human health security, and the stakes of leadership are life and death. instead of nominating a serious and qualified candidate, trump sflekd a candidate who -- selected a candidate who questioned the well-proven conclusion that hiv causes aids, made millions spreading lies about vaccines, compared vaccine mandates to nazi germany, said wi-fi and cell phone cause leaky brains, threatened to remove fluoride from drinking water, and made baseless claims about medication or depression, that it would lead to mass shootings. well, mr. kennedy's track record shows that he is a danger to the health of america. he would make america sick again. in june of 2019, he went to samoa on a trip around by anti-vaccine activists. he used that trip to spread lies

about the measles vaccine in the samoan prime minister and director general of health. he and the organization he led amplified activists who spread false information about the measles vaccine. and after a measles outbreak in samoa and 16 people died, rather than intervene and help, mr. kennedy sent a letter to the prime minister to blame these deaths on the vaccine rather than the absence of vaccines. the death count in samoa grew to 83. volunteers in new zealand sent tiny covins to help bury the -- coffins to help bury the children who died. it was said, the impact of mr. kennedy's role in the outback was devastating. in a moment, when robert f. kennedy jr. could have used his influence for good, he fueled disinformation that cost lives.

when robert f. kennedy jr. was asked about medicare and medicaid, he could not answer questions in his hearing about the most basic questions demonstrating that he would be at hhs only to make whatever cuts that trump, musk and doge dictate at the expense of the health care of the american people. now he's in line to be the number one health care official in the united states. that would be a disaster. mr. kennedy has reportedly given reassurances on his position on vaccines or on his position on food and chronic disease. to my colleagues i would say this, we cannot address chronic disease if we are slashing medicare, medicaid, and the fr affordable care act or rec recklessly cutting off funding for hospitals and community health centers. if we're battling vaccine misinformation it makes it more difficult to take on chronic

disease like heart disease or diabetes. the long-term impact of food on children's health doesn't matter if children are dying from preventable infectious diseases, because their families believe misinformation spread by the nominee for secretary of health and human services. even with the promises he has made on the vaccine misinformation, robert f. kennedy jr. has not demonstrated that he will fulfill his promises. he has used his position to lead people down the dangerous path of vaccine misinformation, and when asked about his role in the samoa measles outbreak, he lied. the stakes are too high to take a risk on this nominee. i hear from people in massachusetts who rely on our health care system. single mothers of disabled children relying on medicaid, also called mass health in massachusetts, to make sure their child gets care. i hear from people living with cystic fibrosis or parents of

children on the autism spectrum or with down syndrome who could only afford their medication or coverage with mass health medicaid coverage. for them, medicaid is the lif lifeline, and when that lifeline is cut their lives get harder, and that's what this administration is aiming to do with robert f. kennedy jr. in the lead. the american people deserve more than what they have now. they should be able to at the time health care -- to get health care when they need it, and they should not have to worry it's available. they should be able to go to their doctor or pharmacy without running up their debt or being forced to choose between paying rent or a medical bill. they should have health providers who aren't overworked or burnldz out to provide care. they should have addiction care, dental care and more without waiting hours or months or waiting for an available

clinical trial. americans should have unquestioned health care access and quality, and i want to deliver on that for every single american, but robert f. kennedy jr. will only make this harder by embracing donald trump, elon musk and the spread of vaccine disinformation. i'm not alone in my concern. i've received over a thousand calls and e-mails to my office opposing his nomination. i've also received letters from over 20,000 physicians, including thousands of pediatricians, internal medicine, emergency medicine, doctors representing all 50 states and puerto rico, over 800 public health officials, 75 nobel laureates oppose his confirmation, chairs of pediatric departments across the country, and statements from the massachusetts teachers association representing over 11,000 educators, and from the national nurses union, representing 225,000 nurses. all opposing robert f. kennedy

jr. every single one of them expressed concern and dismay about having a secretary of health and human services that doesn't believe in vaccines that save lives. we need to listen to the people on the front lines, the health providers who have dedicated their lives to serving their patients, the researchers who have committed to finding lifesaving treatments and cures, and the educators who care for our nation's children each and every day. they're all saying no to robert f. kennedy jr. he is unqualified, and his confirmation would be dangerous to the health of our nation. with that, mr. president, i yield back.

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a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. 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 tragically and unfortunately is unworthy and unqualified and unprepared for this position, and robert f. kennedy jr. will in fact betray the trust and credibility of the office. he's been nominated to fill.

he has already shown that he lacks the trust in science is and the adherence to the truth that is so important, because this office is fundamentally about advocating for public health, informing the public, 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's 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 health care 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, quote, addicted to attention and power and that he has already, quote, denigrated our health care 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 health care costs for millions of americans who otherwise would be left uninsured and unable to afford health care. americans deserve a secretary who will advance research into lifesaving medicines, treatments, and vaccination.

he's not that person. americans deserve a secretary who will protect medicaid which provides health care to nearly one million connecticut residents, including 350,000 people. 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 it 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's a reason that he lacks support from all these professional organizations and is actively opposed by them, by health care 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 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's responsible for promoting the economic and social well-being of children and families, combatting the opioid epidemic and 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 in response 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 five 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 they app approve. 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 disinformation. these lies are attributable to his bad judgment as well as

self- self-enrichment, exact the opposite of what a secretary of hhs should exemplify. he 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 mr. kennedy incorrectly cited in espousing this lies. but these lies exacerbate racism, and it is a weakness in our public health system that this racism may continue to ex exist. to exacerbate it threatens people's lives.

the antivaccine group he founded has maintained that measles, mumps and rubella vaccine is limped to higher rates -- linked to hire rates of autism in black children, lies intended to exploit the very caution that many communities of color approach the health care system with. his lies will, again, exacerbate the clear disparities that exist in health care for different racial groups. and the inequity of those disparities is a glaring weakness in our current health care 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's attempted to backtrack since his nomination. he's claiming he's not antivaccine, 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'll work with existing vaccine approvals and safety networks and that he won't undermine vaccines in his role overseeing them. in private, that's 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 ethnic ands socioeconomic groups, diseases like cervical cancers, measles, tetanus and chicken pox. there is no argument from me

that there needs to be testing, 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 down played the importance of reproductive health, claiming that abortion was, quote, just a little issue, end quote. 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 health

care and freedom. 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 was entitled to emergency care under this law, mr. kennedy responded, quote, i don't know. end quote. he should know, whether it's

sure incompetence, utter confiduciariesing or just an unwillingness to uphold federal laws protecting women, that comment and response alone should be disqualifying. it's dangerous, and confirming him in this position could be deadly to women who depend on that program. he's refused to say that he'll protect access to medication abortion. instead is 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,s and 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 that 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 is not caused -- does not cause aids. he has supported bans on gender-affirming health care for transgender individuals and spread information about what gender-affirming care actually looks like in the real world. and 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 disparities, 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 abundantly clear during his confirmation hearing he has none of those qualities and, in fact, demonstrated an inadequate understanding of the very programs that he is supposed to be administering, if he's confirmed, like medicare and medicaid. you know, we have reviewed a lot of nominees as senators, and we know that they're prepared. they're extensively 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 large eight of 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 americans. as an advocate, as an informer, as a truth teller. and lest you think that he will rely on good people who will help him in administering this agency, he's pledged to fire hundreds of national institutes of health employees. he told the food and drug administration workers to, quote, pack their bags, end quote. and he'd 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 policy behind the programs that he knows so little about. mr. kennedy has claimed to support improving nutrition and combating chronic diseaseses, 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 advisors include people who want to change or abolish the nutrition guidelines, like the dietary guidelines for america, 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 heel repeat. three in -- let me repeat. three in five adults live with chronic disease that could be improved with better nutrition. and itness of all federal nutrition -- and itness of all federal nutrition programs, meaning that these dietary

programs inform things like the nutritional school program, 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 action that benefits 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'm 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. it 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 lgbtq+ people in our health care system. 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, who are much better qualified than i am to make this judgment, those nobel laureated, the health care experts and of course his family who know him best, caroline kennedy, who spoke with such eloquence and insight. her decisive and heartbreaking video should be watched by everyone who is about to vote on this nomination.

thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. ms. hirono: mr. president, in hawaii thousands of our children attend head start setting them up for a lifetime of success. after the devastating wildfire

in maui in 2023, the u.s. health service was on the ground within days providing care to survivors and first responders. on oahu, the university of hawaii's cancer center is leading critical nih-funded research on breast, liver, and lung cancer, studying diseases that disproportionately impact the native hawaiian and asian american communities. all of these programs are vital for people in hawaii. they are all made possible by the departments of health and human services, or hhs. hhs does critical work across our country, keeping communities healthy and researching deadly diseases from cancer to covid and so much more. americans trust hhs because their mission has historically been guided not by politics but by science and data.

but already donald trump is taking a sledgehammer to hhs and the essential work it does. for weeks hhs employees have been prohibited from making any external communications and have been directed to withhold grant disbursements. illegal, by the way. halting critical updates on emerging public health threats and delaying or denying funding for community health centers without explanation. these eed ikts are force -- edicts are forcing many services to be closed. eng dangering -- endangering health care access to our most vulnerable population.

nih announced it would slash indirect cost rates nationwide. funds that keep the lights on and the bills paid at america's medical schools, hospitals, and research institutions, enabling our country to lead globally on biomedical research. this is lifesaving research. these across-the-board cuts aren't hypothetical, they will harm real people in need of help. just yesterday, i spoke with a university of hawaii john a. burns school of medicine who explained the catastrophic consequences this cap would have. this illegal action, as i mentioned, would compromise plans for the u.h. cancer center to begin offering phase i clinical trials in hawaii for

the first time. what does this mean for the people of hawaii? for the first time people in hawaii will not have to go to the main land to participate in these trials but with the help of this nih funding now being slashed, for the first time people in hawaii would be able to participate in these very important clinical trials. mr. president, if allowed to stand, these actions will be catastrophic for our country and for global efforts to combat the spread of diseases. and all of these actions have been taken without a confirmed secretary in place at hhs. one would hope the president's nominee to lead such an important department would be a level-headed individual guided by science and data. instead, donald trump has nominated the total opposite,

robert f. kennedy jr. mr. kennedy is an anti-vaccine activist who peddles and profits from conspiracy theories and has a troubling history of misconduct. in his confirmation hearings, mr. kennedy appeared not to know the difference between medicare and medicaid, essential programs that 66 million and 72 million people respectively rely on for access to health care. mr. kennedy purports to be a proponent of bodily autonomy when it comes to vaccines as if we know better than scientists about the efficacy and safety of medical treatments. but mr. kennedy's commitment to bodily autonomy suddenly flies out the window when it comes to women's rights to control our

own bodies. he has shown he will do donald trump's bidding in his war on women and our freedom. where's our bodily autonomy? as they work to reverse the fda's mifepristone which has been used safely for abortion for 20 years. so much for bodily autonomy. and it is clear that mr. kennedy will be guided not by science but by the conspiracy theories from stem cell treatment and much more. vaccines are a modern miracle that have saved an estimated 154 million lives and enabled us to all but eradicate diseases like polio and smallpox. but due to the activism of

conspiracy theorists like mr. kennedy, public trust in vaccines have eroded, endangering countless lives and the immunity that protects us all. mr. president, i grew up in rural japan where we didn't have widespread access to most vaccines. as a child, i remember getting meals, mumps, whooping cough. when one kid in our village got sick, it spread like wildfire in our village and all the kids got sick. i know what it means to be vaccinated. to willingly submit our children to such a fate, like what happened to me in japan, would be cruel, counterproductive and deadly. but mr. kennedy seems not to care about those impacts.

mr. president, we all agree there are things we can do to mieshg country healthier -- things we can do to make our country healthier and i will stand with my colleagues to make that work. eliminating access to health care, conspiracy theories, firing researchers and undermining evidence-based policymaking will do nothing to medicare your healthier. it will, instead, unleash chaos on patients, providers, and countless other americans who rely on the services, funding, and research emanating from hhs. mr. kennedy will not make america healthy again, yet another empty slogan. he will, in fact, instead make us less healthy, less safe and

less prosperous. we know this because it's exactly what happened in samoa after misinformation about vaccines, pushed in part by mr. kennedy, led to a deadly meals outbreak -- measles outbreak there. hawaii's governor is a physician and he traveled to samoa at the invitation of the country's health minister to help stem the consequences of this deadly misinformation. he recently wrote about his experiences in an op-ed in "the new york times," and i would like to read portions of that op-ed now. our governor wrote, quote, when vak nation rates -- vaccination rates fall, preventible diseases can gain a foothold and pose a new danger and that's precisely what happened in samoa after

misinformation spread by an anti-vaccine activists that led to the 2019 outbreak. thousands of preventible cases of meeseles -- measles sprang up lead toing the death of 83 people, mostly children. one of the most prominent voices behind the anti-vaccine campaign was robert f. kennedy jr. the governor goes on to say that we witnessed the deadly consequences of the anti-vaccine campaign. we arrived at one home just minutes after a toddler girl had died from meeseles, her -- measles, her mother bursting into tears as we approached. the child was lying on a make-shift bed in the middle of a room -- of the room's -- her

eyes were fixed and glazed over. my stethoscope confirmed she was no longer breathing. governor greene said that mr. kennedy and others fanned the flames of fear. they said they got little news from outside their community but that in the months before the 2019 epidemic, they were bo bombarded with social media posts claiming that vaccinations were unsafe and would harm or even kill their children. activists from other countries, including mr. kennedy, claimed vaccines were dangerous. many samoans were afraid to vaccinate their children and by late 2019, the epidemic was raging overwhelming samoa's

national health care system. governor greene concluded by saying, as we look to the future, the possibility of his being confirmed, he's talking about robert kennedy, being confirmed as the secretary of health and human services is cause for grave concern. i worry he would jeopardize half a century of progress and success gained by the united states as a result of vaccination programs. too much depend on our commitment to truth and the lifesaving power of vaccines to entrust mr. kennedy with a direction of these programs. our children's lives depend on it. i thank the governor for his service to the people of samoa for so eloquently describing what's at stake with mr. kennedy's nomination.

our governor was so concerned that he recently traveled all the way from hawaii to washington, d.c., to speak to as many senators that he could directly about what's at stake. governor greene was that concerned about what this nominee could do to hhs. during his confirmation hearing, mr. kennedy had the opportunity to take responsibility for his role in samoa's measles outbreak. instead he stuck to his old tricks, blaming vaccines and spreading misinformation. governor greene is correct, our children's lives depend on our commitment to vaccinations and all of our lives depend on the science and research done by hhs. mr. kennedy poses a dire threat

to that science and, indeed, to the american people. for those reasons, i urge my colleagues to vote no on his forthcoming nomination. i yield back. ms. hirono: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from hawaii. ms. hirono: i yield 30 minutes of postcloture debate time to the senior senator from oregon. the presiding officer: the senator has that right. mr. hassan: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from new hampshire. mr. hassan: thank you, mr. president. i rise today to join my colleagues, to join the many

granite staters who have written my office and expressed their grave alarm in opposing mr. kennedy as the next secretary of health and human services. robert f. kennedy jr. is without experience or qualification for this post. he is uninformed about -- and apparently uninterested in the most basic elements of health care policy. he enter tans and -- entertains and spreads conspiracy theories that virtually everyone in this body knows to be dishonest and dangerous. in a different time, in a different political moment, with a different president, members of this chamber would have joined together to resoundingly reject mr. kennedy's nomination. in fact, in a different time where qualifications and character mattered, mr. kennedy's nomination would never have made it to the floor. but here we are. today it appears that

mr. kennedy will be confirmed and that members of the united states senate, whose so-called world's greatest deliberative body, will sacrifice the health of our fellow americans by failing to stand up for science and for the truth. for even the most skilled and experienced person running the department of health and human services is a really daunting task. we expect and trust the hhs secretary to direct the administration of critical programs like medicare or medicaid, to direct research so that we can find cures for cancer, alzheimer's, and other diseases. to help bring new lifesaving medications to market and to find ways to make medicine and care more affordable, to help ensure our children grow up healthy and that our parents age with dignity. when a crisis hits, we look to the secretary of health and human services for leadership to

help lead the fight against fentanyl or to protect our communities from a pandemic. there is perhaps no aspect of public policy as complicated as health care, and there are few aspects of life as fundamental as being healthy. and to be sure, there are grave health care challenges facing our country. the cost of health care is too high, the cost of prescriptions too steep. while we made extraordinary progress in recent generations we know too many diseases still cry out to be cured and too many people struggle to get the care they need when and where they need it. the challenges are real but progress is possible. when i wf of new hampshire, i worked with republicans and democrats in the legislature to help our state adopt medicaid expansion. and during the first trump administration, we came together to end surprise medical billing

with a new bipartisan law. of course there is much more work to do. the point is that when we work together, embrace commonsense solutions, and have the right leadership, we can forge progress. but it takes hard work. it tags seriousness -- takes seriousness to tackle a challenge as daunting as health care. it takes experience, talent, and ability. we're talking about the health of our country and of our children. this is a job that requires us to search far and wide across our country to find the right person, someone who is informed, capable, and forthright, someone who has a proven track record of leadership and someone willing to tell the truth in service to the goal of helping every american to be healthy. instead the president of the united states offered us

mr. kennedy. it's entirely unclear to me what qualifications mr. kennedy brings to this office. he's never run an organization or a business, even 100th the size of human and services. he has no background in medical, science, health policy or government. most concerning, though, is his complete and utter lack of even the most basic knowledge of the department he is supposed to lead or the health policy debates and challenges that our country has been grappling over the last several decades. it's not simply that we have been asked to hope that mr. kennedy learns on the job. it's not simply that we're being asked to grade mr. kennedy on a curve. it's worse than that because even for his confirmation hearings, mr. kennedy couldn't be bothered to even do his homework. during his confirmation hearing, i asked mr. kennedy some fairly basic questions about medicare

and medicaid, the most well known health programs overseen by the department he seeks to lead, programs which tens of millions of americans count on for their care. he couldn't accurately identify a single part of medicare. he got every question i asked wrong. when it comes to medicaid, which among other things provides coverage for about half of the births in the united states, he wrongly said it was fully federally funded, which it isn't. let me be clear. the administration is asking the american people to place these critical health programs in the hands of a man who has no idea what they even are. that's a big ask. and it's an ask we wouldn't make of our own constituents. no one in this body would hire even an entry-level health care staffer who didn't understand the basics of medicaid and medicare. why should we exercise a

different weaker standard for the person who is supposed to be in charge of both? why would this administration -- does the bar go even lower when the office becomes even higher? if mr. kennedy cannot be bothered to learn the basics about medicare and medicaid, he will certainly not bother to stand up for them. this administration has made clear that it is willing to gut medicaid in order to pay for tax breaks for billionaires. the president's new director of the office of management and budget has in fact proposed that the administration cut medicaid, a program that provides health insurance coverage for approximately 80 million americans by more than one-third. does anyone think that mr. kennedy will be a voice of reason, that he will speak out on behalf of american families and make the case for saving medicare or medicaid? he can't even describe what they

are. mr. kennedy is an intelligent and educated man, but education and intelligence aren't a substitute for taking the job seriously. if mr. kennedy were in the running for a different post, his failure to understand the basics of our health care system might not be relevant. but it so happens to be the american people's great misfortune that he is in fact being called to serve as the highest public health official in our land. mr. kennedy's lack of qualifications and knowledge about health kcare have real consequences. if confirmed, his lack of preparation, experience, and interest in america's health care will leave our country worse off. our people will be less healthy. and nobody will feel mr. kennedy's careless disregard for the magnitude of his position more than america's

women. when i was initially considering mr. kennedy's nomination, one mark in his favor was his long record of advocacy on behalf of a woman's fundamental freedom to make her own health decisions. when mr. kennedy was in new hampshire campaigning for president, he told granite staters, quote, i'm pro-choice. i don't think the government has any business telling people what to do with their bodies, close quote. but since he came out in support of president trump, mr. kennedy has made a remarkable discovery. he decided at the age of 71 that his long held mreef in reproductive -- belief in reproductive freedom for women was wrong. tall his principles about women making their own choices were suddenly no longer true. instead as the nation's leading public health official, he has said he will faithfully and enthusiastically carry out the antichoice policies of an administration that continues to dedicate itself to undermining

and taking away a woman's fundamental freedom. this isn't a hypothetical issue. in his confirmation hearing, mr. kennedy said he and the trump administration would be examining the safety of the drug mifepristone which is used for abortions and in mis-karen care -- miscarriage care. during the hearing i showed mr. kennedy study after study, stacks, hundreds of pages of research done over the course of decades, all of which demonstrate the safety of this medication. let me be clear. the safety has been proven. if mr. kennedy and the trump administration continue to persist in studying a drug that is proven to be safe, it's clear that their objection is not with the lack of research. their objection is to the result of that research. so they want to sow doubt about it. they want to sow confusion. and once they do, they will hide behind the very doubt they've

created as a reason for denying women the most basic of human freedoms, body autonomy. -- bodily autonomy. mr. ken having sold out his pro-choice principles will surely help in that effort. he certainly will not stand in the way of it. the debate about reproductive freedom is fundamentally a debate about whether one believes in the basic promise of our declaration of independence, that all of us are free and equal. the question for mr. kennedy and all those who would deny women this basic freedom is whether they believe that women have the capacity and judgment to make their own health care and reproductive decisions just as men do. make no mistake, mr. kennedy did not have a miraculous conversion something like the apostle pauls on the road to damascus on this issue. he just made a cold-blooded expedient choice to cut a path to power. he decided that the freedom of

women was a small price to pay in order to be able to call himself a cabinet secretary. i have had good-faith disagreements with friends and colleagues on the issue of abortion. but mr. kennedy is different. mr. kennedy has spent his lifetime arguing for a woman's reproductive freedom. but he now abandons what he used to refer to as a core value for a title. and for what he apparently thinks is more important than freedom. being if donald trump's orbit. americans have a particular disdain for those who sell out the freedom of their fellow citizens in pursuit of power. we call such people many things. we seldom call them mr. secretary. even if mr. kennedy was not inexperienced, even if mr. kennedy had basic knowledge regarding our health system, even if mr. kennedy was not willing to imperil freedom for

women, members of both political parties should reject his nomination. because mr. kennedy who has forged a career of peddling cynicism and conspiracy regarding vaccines is perhaps the most uniquely dangerous man ever nominated to head america's department of health and human services. vaccines are among the greatest achievements in human history, and america has been at the center of that success. our doctors and scientists were instrumental in helping vanquish smallpox and banish polio. because of vaccines, more than 20 million people walk today who otherwise would have been stricken with polio. hundreds of millions of people are alive today because of vaccines. i'm reminded of the words of a previous hhs secretary, quote, vaccines are some of the most thoroughly tested medical products we have.

vaccines are safe, effective, and lifesaving. close quote. hhs secretary alex azar who was appointed by president trump said those words during his first term. he was right when he said this six years ago. but today mr. kennedy asserts that this statement is wrong. mr. kennedy has a long history of dealing in both outright lies and clever half truths to sow cynicism, mistrust, and confusion regarding vaccines. he has at various times discouraged people from getting vaccines for measles and polio. mr. kennedy has led litigation to discredit the hpv vaccine, a vaccine which has led to a dramatic decrease in cervical sansers among young women. when the pandemic hit, president trump helped marshall america's scientific researches at

operation warp speed to produce a covid vaccine in record time. this was in my mind one of the greatest public health achievements in decades and a real credit to president trump. but mr. kennedy helped lead efforts that attempted to revoke president trump's covid vaccines authorization. and for more than 25 years, mr. kennedy has helped perpetuate the dangerous lie that vaccines cause autism. during his kwirnls hearings -- confirmation hearings, my colleagues virtually begged mr. kennedy to recant these views but mr. kennedy would not, insisting that if he somehow saw more evidence, only then perhaps he might reverse course and tell people he was wrong. this is a dangerous game that mr. kennedy plays. he hides his antivaccine conspiracies under a cloak of

deniability. sometimes he outright lies. but most of the time he insists that he is merely raising questions and that he's simply a man looking for answers. but to borrow from benjamin franklin, quote, half the truth is often a great lie. close quote. when mr. kennedy is presented with fact, he ignores them. he ignored the conclusive data that my colleague showed proving that vaccines do not cause autism. he instead continued to rely on one tiny outdated faulty disproven study from way back in 1998, a study that the journal that originally published it has since withdrawn to support his claim. instead of relying the exhaustive studies that have been conducted since then that prove there is no link between vaccines and autism. it is fine to ask questions.

it's often urgently important. but it's not doctors and scientists who are ignoring mr. kennedy's questions. it is mr. kennedy who is ignoring their answers. mr. kennedy's vaccine conspiracies are not a quirk of personality or harmless eccentricity but with the mega phone that he will have if he's confirmed will be of grave danger to the health of our people. mr. kennedy has already spent much of his career taking legal action against safe and effective vaccines. with the full power of the department of health and human services, it stands to reason he will use his post to limit access to certain vaccines, pull fda approval of others, or change guidelines and recommendations concerning what vaccines children should receive. but more than that, with the platform of hhs secretary, mr. kennedy will undermine

public trust in vaccines and will discourage a growing number of parents from getting their children vaccinated. as for mr. kennedy's insistence that simply raising doubts about the safety of vaccines doesn't mean he's urging people not to get their children vaccinated, well, mr. kennedy may be unqualified but he is not naive. he knows full well that millions of people listen to his words, millions more will listen should he be confirmed to this office. and so what happens? how much, mr. president, does a lie about vaccines truly cost? let us say a greater number of americans become wary of vaccines due to mr. kennedy's musings from the seat of the most powerful public health perch in the world. a greater number of families decide that their kids don't need vaccines. sometimes that will mean just skipping one vaccine.

sometimes it will mean skipping all of them. these parents aren't necessarily conspiracy theorists themselves, but they've read some scary, if untrue, stories online. as they try to figure out what to do, the most important public health authority in the land chooses to give credence to the lies rather than reassure parents with the truth. or maybe, as is true with every parent, these parents are worried about their child developing a disability, and now they hear mr. kennedy suggest that vaccines maybe cause autism. so they hesitate. they don't return to the pediatrician's office for the next dose of a vaccine that will prevent their child from getting a deadly disease. and as more and more children become unprotected, as robert f. kennedy jr. fails to advocate for safe, effective, lifesaving

vaccines, children get sick, they spread the disease, and all of a sudden we are back to the kind of deadly disease outbreaks that doctors used to witness in the early decades of the 20th century, a time long enough ago that many americans don't realize what it was like to lose a loved one to an illness like mea measles. there will be more measles outbreaks like the one going on right now in west texas. or maybe instead of measles it will be polio. people will get sick, and people will die. take a look in a museum at a rusting iron lung. go to the graves of the unvaccinated measles victims in american samoa. that is the cost. that is the price of this particular lie.

i also take issue with the notion that mr. kennedy's anti-vaccine cynicism is somehow advancing scientific progress or healthy debate. the truth is mr. mr. kennedy's conspiracies are not particularly new. they're old theories that have been disproven, but that mr. kennedy keeps alive by continuing to recycle them long after the debate has been concluded. no, i don't object to engaging in new debates over unproven science. i object to rehashing old debates over proven science. remarkably, during the hearings mr. kennedy and some i my colleagues -- some of my colleagues thought to place mr. kennedy in the tradition of great scientific minds like galileo and newton who had their own provocative questions. there is, of course, a key difference. the difference is that galileo and newton were right and mr. kennedy is wrong. the evidence vindicated galileo

and newton. the evidence refutes mr. kennedy. that difference is what separated galileo from the village crank. that difference is what separates a witch doctor from a real one. this never-ending cycle of cynicism, relitigating old debates about whether vaccines cause autism, it doesn't further scientific progress, it doesn't unlock new truths or cures, it keeps us stuck in the past, stuck having the same debates over and over and over again. all that changes is that the mound of evidence disproving mr. kennedy grows higher and higher. in his hearing, mr. kennedy said that he wouldn't apologize for asking what he called uncomfortable questions because, quote, we have massive health problems in this country that we must face honestly, closed quote. the problem is not that mr. kennedy is asking uncomfortable questions. the problem is that mr. kennedy

himself is not willing to accept the answers to them. the problem is that mr. kennedy is wasting our time and our money with dishonest and already settled debates, debates that distract us from the task at hand, the task of tackling the real and significant health problems that are facing our country. because, in his lifetime of fearmongering, what good has mr. kennedy actually contributed to the mission of public health? mr. kennedy says he wishes to make america healthy again. but when mr. kennedy suggested that the polio vaccine gave people cancer, what child did he make healthier? mr. kennedy says he's trying to promote vigorous scientific debate. when mr. kennedy suggested that the united states of america developed lyme disease as a bioweapon, what medical breakthrough did that yield?

what disease did he help cure then? mr. kennedy's vaccine fears garner him headlines. but have they made health care more affordable for a single american family? think about the hours and resources mr. kennedy has urged his followers to invest in relitigating proven science, and what progress could instead have been made if that money were invested in finding treatments and cures to diseases. that is the price of mr. kennedy's insistence that we remain frozen in time in our understanding of science. mr. kennedy has not made america healthier in his career thus far, nor will he if he is confirmed. he will make america less healthy, more doubtful, more divided, more cynical, and further away from finding cures and making scientific progress. mr. president, we have real

health care challenges in this country. the american people want health care costs -- they need health care costs to come down. they want to stop having to make impossible choices between making ends meet and getting their children the medications that they need. they want it to be easier to get a prompt appointment with a good doctor in their neighborhood, who talks with them and doesn't rush them out the door. they want better mental health care in our schools. and they want cures. they want their loved ones to stop being held back by chronic diseases. they want to say fewer early goodbyes because of cancer, alzheimer's and other diseases. they want to be able to age at home with dignity and high-quality home care. making our country more healthy, that is no small task, but we can do it. we live in a great country. the american people are talented and imaginative, and when we work together we have the capacity to do extraordinary

things. we can make our country better. we can save more lives. but we cannot move forward if we confirm a cabinet secretary who engages in the same tired debates over and over again. if we confirm a cabinet secretary who goads us into fighting each other, rather than fighting for cures or lower health care costs. if this body confirms mr. kennedy it will, in effect, be declaring that experience doesn't matter and qualifications do not count. it will be ignoring plain truths and suspending our capacity for reason, all because a president demanded that the majority of this body do so. if this body confirms mr. kennedy, it will be betraying who we are as americans, it will be sacrificing a better future for the sake of needlessly relitigating the past. it will be confusing a charlatan with a prophet and cynicism with

wisdom. in the end, if this body confirms mr. kennedy, more parents will reject vaccinations for their children, more people will get sick, and a growing number of children will likely die. the exact impact of mr. kennedy's confirmation in terms of lives lost or progress thwarted will, of course, be hard to quantify, but regardless what we do know for certain is that senators on both sides of the aisle are willing to denounce the lies that mr. kennedy's spread. we saw that in our hearings. but colleagues, the issue in this moment isn't whether you'll stand up against lies. the issue is whether you will stand up to the man who tells them. and in this moment, in this chamber, it appears that not enough of my republican colleagues are willing to do that. i hope i'm wrong. i urge my colleagues to reject mr. kennedy's nomination. and i yield the floor.

mr. padilla: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from california. mr. padilla: mr. president, i too rise to oppose the nomination of robert f. kennedy jr. to serve as secretary of health and human services. i can only hope that i'm half as eloquent and moving as senator hassan has been, not just here on the floor today but in committee during the confirmation hearing. but mr. president, i oppose this nomination for his wildly misinformed beliefs and his utter lack of experience. i believe he is fundamentally unfit and unprepared, and americans will be less healthy if he is confirmed. now, to begin with, for years he has made conspiracy theories and

anti-vaccine misinformation his calling card. from false accusations that vaccines cause autism to lies that the covid-19 virus targeted specific racial groups, he found his own anti-vaccine organization, authored several books pushing public health conspiracies, and made millions off anti-vaccination lawsuits. it all points to a dangerous principle at the core of mr. kennedy's beliefs, and i quote, that there's no vaccine that is safe and effective. mr. president, as you know, my background is in engineering. i am not a scientist, but i am an engineer, and as an engineer i trust experts who have spent their lives researching,

conducting clinical trials and collecting data. and through the decades of life-changing discoveries and scientific breakthroughs, one thing has become increasingly and undeniably clear -- the single best way to protect the nation from viral disease is to get vaccinated. it's the reason why today hundreds of millions of americans can live freely without serious concerns of contracting polio, of contracting smallpox, or of contracting hepatitis. that used to be a source of pride for the nation. but in the face of all the proven science, proven again and again science, mr. kennedy has chosen to profit off of fear,

and countless parents are being misled into making dangerous decisions for their children. look, i get the fear. i'm proud to represent california in the senate. i'm proud to have an engineering background. but i too am a parent of three boys, and i remember what it was like to hold a baby in your arms and to worry every time there was a sniffle and a cough. i'd do anying to pro -- anything to protect my children just as you would do anything to protect yours. but where families have reasonable questions on everything from doctors to diets mr. kennedy simply sees dollar signs. now, today we find ourselves in yet another viral outbreak, a

bird flu has shown early signs of transmission to early humans. i can't think of a worse idea than to install an anti-vaxxer as secretary of health and human services. his beliefs alone make him unfit to lead hhs. but in addition to that, he's simply unprepared to lead. nearly 16 months ago i was proud to cofound the bipartisan senate mental health caucus. thank you, senator tillis, thank you, senator ernst, thank you, senator smith, for being cofounders of this caucus. in the time since then, we've made some significant strides. but before americans can ever reach out for help in a time of crisis, they have to know that they can access help.

so that's on us, making sure that the support, the services, the programs are there for americans when they need it. and we know that medicaid is the single largest payer of behavioral health services in the nation. so at a time when republicans are looking to cut funding for lifesaving services, i would rather see a fierce defender of medicaid at hhs. yet during his confirmation hearing, mr. kennedy failed to show even a basic understanding of medicaid. not the sources of funding, not the benefits, and at one point he even seemed to confuse medicaid and medicare. colleagues, i shouldn't have to

say this. this is not a learn-on-the-job nomination. president trump knows just how unprepared mr. kennedy is for this job. a report a few days ago tells us that during his confirmation hearing, president trump was watching. he saw just how poorly the confirmation hearing was going for mr. kennedy. so what did president trump do? what he does best. he led into action to distract and divide. he held a press conference to point out the latest controversy to reporters, and he took the attention off and the pressure off this dangerous nominee. that's what we're up against, colleagues. and over the next several months, our nation will face a critical test for some of the most important public health

systems in our country. is in the house, republicans are already floating cuts to medicaid to pay for even more tax breaks for the rich. in the white house, president trump and his shadow president musk have proven they'll shutter any agency that stands in their way. and today we're left wondering who will speak up to protect the health of millions of americans. unfortunately, mr. kennedy has already shown he is not up to the task. so, colleagues, i urge you to join me in fighting to protect the health of our constituents and oppose the confirmation of mr. kennedy. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. warner: mr. president, i join my last two colleagues, the

senator from new hampshire and the senator from california in echoing some of their concerns because i also rise today to oppose president trump's nomination of robert francis kennedy jr. to be secretary of health and human services. now it's been less than a month since donald trump was inaugurated. it feels a bit longer for some of us. yet already we've seen this administration attack nonpartisan civil servants, illegally freeze federal funding, and gut the independent oversight bodies that crack down and protect americans from corruption. that would mean now, more than ever, the senate needs to confirm nominees who want to make the government more efficient, yes, but are also willing to work in good faith to

advance their mission regardless of political ideology. unfortunately i don't believe that mr. kennedy is that nominee. and i fear that he will serve as a rubber stamp for the chaos and disruption that the trump-musk administration brings. the past couple of weeks have made it clear that elon musk and his doge bros have a disturbing scheme to undermine the government's ability to operate all in the name of efficiency. we've seen musk take a hatchet to usaid, ceding soft power and frankly 70 years of bipartisan leadership in the domain to china. we've seen that same attack limit our ability to fight terrorism and, unfortunately, turn our back, which we've never

done, either presidents of democrat or republican affiliation, turn our back entirely on the international community. we've seen mr. musk take a hatchet to the cfpb and leave consumers to fend for themselves, giving a pass to scammers and institutions that defraud americans. we're starting to see musk take aim at the department of education. we cannot allow this pattern to continue at the agency tasked with keeping people healthy and safe. as folks in my state may remember earlier this month the president issued an illegal order to freeze all federal spending. fortunately the funding freeze order was rescinded after a major public outcry and threat of losing in court. yet, even with the order rescinded, real people's lives

were fundamentally changed. across virginia, for example, three community health centers had to close during the funding freeze, and now they won't be reopening because of uncertainty. they're not sure the money is even coming back. these health centers, which provide primary and preventive care for the underserved populations, feel they can no longer rely on the government contract or the government to keep its word or meet its obligations. in rural buckingham county, the health center having to put off replacing the only machine in the county that provides breast cancer screening. who suffers? well, it's not mr. musk. he's the richest man in the world. imagine he and his young men who work with him get pretty good and timely care.

if it just ended there, that wouldn't be all that we're potentially putting mr. kennedy into. we've already seen some of the foreshadowing of what's to come if mr. kennedy is confirmed as hhs nominee. take the nih, for example, national institutes of health, something broadly supported in a bipartisan way. nih is one of the many important agencies that's tasked with advancing medical and public health research in the united states. literally in the years that i've been, it has been republican members who have often taken the lead in championing existing and increasing funding. unfortunately many of the medical achievements which started off as nih grants from cancer immunotherapy to heart valve replacements all started

at nih. yet, earlier this week the trump administration put forward a plan to put $4 billion in federal funding for research at hospitals and universities like those in virginia which conduct some of our nation's top research. this basically cuts the legs out of a lot of nih funding. this illegal and shortsighted maneuver could decrease the kind of work that leads to medical cures and scientific breakthroughs. it could devastate a major research ecosystem in virginia. eliminate 21st century jobs, hurt countless american families who have been touched by cancer and other devastating diseases. now i'd have no earthly idea why the president would choose to cede american r&d leadership in bioat this moment to china. but what i do know is that mr. kennedy will do nothing to stop

it. what we need at hhs is a nominee who's willing to go in with a scalpel, not a hatchet, to make our health care system better. we need someone with the preparedness and experience necessary to safeguard a woman's right to reproductive care, to support health care systems in their fight against cyberattacks, that will protect medicare and medicaid and ensure that american families can count on good health insurance. rather than focussing on any of these things, mr. kennedy, as you've heard from my colleagues, has expressed that he would like to gut our nation's top health agency. specifically, he said he would like to oust 2,200 nonpartisan health experts at hhs. at the hearing, at his hearing before senate finance committee, i asked him a very simple question -- which ones?

which are these nonpartisan health officials have you got slated for the chopping block? i wondered was it the foods, the folks who keep our food safe from salmonella? the individuals who examine medication we give our kids? he couldn't even answer the question who he wanted to cut. now i do appreciate mr. kennedy's concern with chronic illnesses and the obesity epidemic. i also agree that not enough americans have access to healthy food. however, having met with mr. kennedy in private and having questioned him in the hearing, i don't believe he's the right person to tackle these complicated issues. i don't have the confidence that he will be willing to consider the science or consult nonpartisan health experts when necessary. i certainly don't have the confidence that he would ever be willing to stand up to donald trump or elon musk.

frankly, at least in virginia, i'm not the only one who feels that way. let me take a moment to share concerns i heard from some in virginia. catherine, icu nurse, i care for critically ill patients during the covid epidemic. while theories were spread, i've seen the potentially deadly consequences of spreading misleading health and safety information. or take tayla, an alexandria resident who suffers from chronic illnesses. she wrote, quote, my ability to access effective treatments relies on accurate research and development of medicine. she fears if nominated, mr. kennedy will cut progress in science and medical research. another constituent from

nokesville wrote my mother contracted polio at age 2. she's now 92 and spent her life dealing with the pain of postpolio symptoms. rfk jr.'s stance on vaccines is dangerous to people of all ages. a doctor from alexandria wrote as a pediatric for almost 50 years i've seen many diseases nearly eradicated thanks to vaccines. mr. kennedy would reverse that trend. in my care i've seen children become profoundly impaired, unable to talk or care for themselves as l adults due it to preventible infections. i've seen children die from harmless childhood diseases like measles and chicken pox. i never wish to see that p again. a cancer survivor from virginia beach wrote, cancer survivors like myself count on public health initiatives and scientific research to ensure

the effective long term treatment and prevention of serious diseases. quote, i do not believe robert f. kennedy jr., a man who lacks credentials and credibility in this field, will have those interests in mind. mr. president, the writing is on the wall. this nominee does not have the right experience, credibility, or motivations to be running a government agency of this size and importance. that's why i will be voting no on mr. kennedy's nomination to be secretary and urge my colleagues to do the same. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

i'm humbled to be sitting here today as president trump's nominee of the department of health and human services. i want to thank president trump for entrusting me to deliver on his promise to make america healthy again. i also want to thank cheryl and kit and bobby and all my children who are here today and all the many members of my large extended family for the love that they have so generously shared. ours has always been a family that has been involved in public service and i look forward to continuing that tradition. my journey into the issue of how

began in my career as an environmental attorney working with hunters and fishermen and mothers in the small town of hudson valley along the hudson river. i learned very early on that human health and environmental injuries are intertwined. the same chemicals that kill fish make people sick also. today americans overall health is in grievous condition. over 70% of adults and one third of children are overweight or. diabetes is 10 times more prevalent than it was in the 1960s. it's rising by one or 2% a year. autoimmune diseases developmental disorders alzheimer's asthma adhd depression addiction and many other physical health conditions are all on the rise, some of

them exponentially. the united states has the worst health of any developed nation yet we spend more and health care at least in some cases triple other countries. last year we $4.8 trillion not counting the indirect cause of this work. that's almost a fifth of gdp. it's tantamount to a 20% tax on the entire economy. no wonder america has trouble competing with countries that pay a third of what we do for health and have better outcomes and a healthier workforce. but i don't want to make this too much about money. it's a human tragedy that moves us to care. president trump has promised to restore america's strength and the american dream but he understands we can't be a strong nation when our people are so sick.

a healthy person has a thousand dreams, a sick person has only one. over half of our countrymen and women are chronically ill. when i met with president trump last summer i discovered he is more than just concerned for this tragic situation of president trump is committed to restoring the american dream and 77 million americans delivered a mandate to him to do just that. in the elevation of the make america or health care movement led by moms from every state and you can see many of them behind us today and in lobbies is one of the most transcendent and powerful movements i have ever seen. are we currently in a quorum call? the presiding officer: we are not. mr. lankford: thank you. i ask unanimous consent to be

able to use a prop during my speech. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. lankford: thank you. mr. president, in oklahoma you can go to any house anywhere in the state right now and ask them how their money should be spent. they'd probably smile at you and say, i'd like too decide that, not -- like to decide that, not somebody else. that would be a pretty common conversation i bet in most any state. for a lot of folks in my state that make $55,000, $60,000, make enough to get by, work hard, take care of their kids and family, it is a challenge for them day to day. so every single dollar counts to them. they think about how every single dollar is spent or saved. that's why it's surprising in all the dialogue right now about government waste. there's a big dialogue about how do we handle waste? how do we cut back? and how fast should we cut back? and what should that look like?

but oklahomans that i talk to aren't offended that we're cutting back on waste. they may have questions about the speed and where it comes out. those are all questions that we should have a dialogue on. but when oklahomans hear that usaid last year did a grant of $32,000 to create a comic book about transgenders in peru, they would say to me, hey, i would like to be able to spend that myself rather than the transgender comic book in peru. if the folks in peru want that comic book, maybe they should pay for it. they would ask me questions about the $2.35 million grant that was given to vietnam to be able to fund the construction of electric vehicle battery recharge ago stations, which by the way $2.5 million that was

given by usaid to be able to do that created one charging station which so far has saved a total off 250 had,000 gallons of -- 2660,000 gallons of gas equivalent. it might have been cheaper to send them $250,000 gallons of gas. they want to be more in charge of that money not sending it to do that. they would do the same thing when they find out that $10 million in food aid was supposed to be going to syrian refugees was going to a terrorist group linked to al qaeda. they would want to ask usaid why that was done. they would ask some basic questions, why almost a million dollars was sent to a group linked to hamas a week before the october 7 attack was actually done. all these things are reasonable

conversations to have. they are not partisan conferses in this room. i don't find anyone who thinks that's a partisan issue. everyone just say, how do we go after that waste and what do we have to do to be able to stop it. for the last ten years i was stood in this room appeared talked about my "federal fumbles" book. we have just released the latest version of my "federal fumbles" book today. the "federal fumbles" book we put out each year is not overly critical of government. we release it of both democratic and republican presidents and congresses. we say, why don't we spend time, quite frankly, as i ask every year, why doesn't every single member of this body assign their staff to go look for areas of waste and regulatory inefficiency and just ask some very basic questions -- how could we do this better? every business asks that question every time. they ask that question, how can

we be more efficient? how can we do things better? but we in government ask more, what can we do next and very seldom stop to evaluate what's already been done. that's all "federal fumbles" is. saying this is the money that was allocated. how was it actually spent? over the years, we have engaged in things to be able to identify some areas of waste and to be able to put a stop to them. we stopped the funding that was going towards grassley-cruz shows in ecuador that we used to fund in american tax dollars. that's not happening anymore. we stopped the funding that was being sent to france to help preserve the secret language of french parisian butchers. we used to fund that. we don't anymore. we stopped the funding that was going to research the russian wine industry after we exposed that. we even stopped the funding that was going to the border to be able to fund shakespeare along

our border. there might be other ways to be able to spend our money better at the border other than doing performances of shakespeare with federal tax dollars. this year we're spending some time actually focusing on what can we do better? what's already been done that the money has gone out the door or how can we do things better? one thing interestingly enough is one of the areas being talked about a lot mortgage that we've already -- talked about a lot more that we've already talked about. fema. we asked a very simple question, when a community experiences a hurricane, a tornado, a flood and they want to engage with the federal government for disaster relief, this is what they confront. 30 different agencies, 30 different processes for aid coming to their community, most of them having a different way to actually sign up for them, different deadlines, different

information that is needed, and also different percentages. some of them may 90-10, them may 85-15. they got to know these intory cal set of rules. this is a disaster. and shouldn't be a partisan issue for us to be able to look at it and say, we can do better when a small rural community faces a devastating flood. why are we asking the mayor of that community to figure this out to be able to get aid? they won't be able to. they're trying to help their neighbors dig outment we can do better on this. so we expose the 30 different agencies and the spaghetti map of how to be able to get aid and to say, let's work on this. we exposed some of the inefficiencies that's out in in our federal government right now, even things like permitting. we all talk about energy

production, and i know we have differences of opinion on where that energy should come from. but when we start talking about the permitting to go get energy, whether that is lithium, whether that is natural gas, we get into a conversation about how do you permit to actually go get that resource. well, right now in the united states of america, it is taking 29 years to go from the beginning process for a critical minerals mine to actual production. we are on the same international ranking for efficiency of regulations on mining as zambia. if we go into our northern border to canada, now currently apparently referred to as the 51st state, if you go into canada, it takes three years for them to be able to permit a mine. and they go through all their environmental reviews, they go through their legal challenges. they do all of those nicks in three years. what's taking us 29 in current

structure in -- in current structure, if it ever gets done at all? we can do better than that. if we want to increase our american-made minerals and production on that, we as the federal government, we as the united states senate, have got to be able to reform the what i we're doing our permitting processes so that we can produce that american energy. if we have some belief that china or central africa or the middle east is producing energy cleaner than we are, we're kidding ourselves. we'll produce it cleaner if we can get to it at all. in this "federal fumbles" book, we've walked through a lot of areas of just waste that we've identified and said, hey, let's find some common areas of agreement that we should all be able to look at. let me raise one that's controversial. the snap program. i don't know a person in this room that would say they want to end the snap program. that's food stamps for some

people that still use the old term. but over $10 billion was actually allocated in the snap program last year of what they called improper payments. that is, we don't know if they qualified or not for the program. now, a lot of folks in oklahoma would say, i don't mind people getting some help when they need it, but for folks that don't qualify, why are they actually getting access to had that? we had the same issue in the medicaid-medicare program. we don't want to be able to do anything to hurt that program. we've a loot -- lot of things to do better in that program. a lot of money was designated as improper payments. we don't know if it is an appropriate payment that was done or not. $100 billion seems like real money to me. last year there was a billion dollars allocated in subsidies

to a chinese solar manufacturing facility. a billion in american taxpayer subsidies. if i went to the folks in oklahoma and said where should we get solar power, not one would say china and if they did they certainly wouldn't say we should give a billion dollars to a chinese company to be able to subsidize them to be able to send solar panels to us. if i were to be able to walk around washington, d.c., right know, current stats are there are 18 agencies in washington, d.c., that are using 25% or less of their real estate. 17 of our agencies using 25% or less of their occupancy building space. that is billions of dollars in costs of electricity, that is billions of dollars in costs of furniture for a simple question. because it's not a business, they're not having to pursue efficiency, we have 75% of the

building unused. that's an area that we should actually ask some very simple questions about and say what can we actually do better on this? listen, these are partisan things. if i sat down with my democratic colleagues, they would nod their head and say, let's take a look at that. let's figure it out. the most simple thing that we do every year when we bring out this federal fumble book is say, here are things that we can talk about. i understand the doge conversation has become controversial with elon musk and the speed they're moving. completely understand that. respect the conversations about that. but government inefficiency shouldn't be partisan or controversial. for those who joined all of us who worked on this for years to expose waste in government, welcome to the club. i'm not critical. i'm excited that you're here because we need more help because when the federal

government fumbles taxpayer dollars, people in oklahoma, my state, lose their hard-earned tax money on things that aren't education, aren't roads, aren't national defense. they're waste. that's what people want to see -- that's why people want to see it stop. i not only encourage people to take a glance, it's easy reading, lots of pictures. i not only encourage people to look at federal fumble book after it's released, but i encourage everybody in this body to encourage their staff to find waste and sit down act and figure out how to make it stop. we should have less waste and save more. with that, i yield the floor. mr. reed: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from rhode island. mr. reed: thank you, mr. president. mr. president, i rise today in

strong opposition for president trump's nominee for the department of health and human services, robert f. kennedy jr. the department he has picked to lead is charged with protecting the health of all americans, from safeguarding medicare and nursing home care for seniors, to investigating medical research, to safeguarding the nation's food supply, and supporting public health programs such as lead poisoning prevention and suicide prevention. one of the most important public health inventions over the last century is vaccines, making many deadly and debilitating diseases a thing of the past. the secretary of health and human services has an outside role in making vaccines available to children and adults throughout the and that is something that gives me great pause about mr. kennedy's nomination. for those of us who grew up in

the 1950's and 1906's, polio -- 60's, polio was a threat that set fear in literally every home in this country until a doctor invented a vaccine, and it literally saved the lives -- many, many lives of generations of americans. it was approved and it went forward, but i can recall lining up, in fact, my parents pulling me along and urging me to stand in line to get the first shot, and then the following year get the next shot. because for them it was not just a medical routine, it could eliminate the constant worry and concern that one day their child could be subject to polio. so this notion of a vaccines

that is prompted by mr. kennedy is i think contrary to the great experience, at least to those who have been through that period of time. mr. kennedy has spent the last decade or more spreading lies about vaccines and encouraging families not to vaccinate their children. it's not -- he's not just an advocate with a loud bullhorn spreading that message, he has made millions of dollars, no less, questioning the safety of vaccines, safety that has been proven time and time again. mr. kennedy chaired one of the most prominent anti-vaccine organization, the children's health defense. for almost a decade, stepping aside making a run for president in 2023. mr. kennedy had a long and successful career as an environmental lawyer and he has a compelling personal history overcoming addiction and should

be commended for that. however, mr. canada's only work in -- kennedy's only work in the health space has been deeply detrimental to the public health in the united states and indeed across the globe. there is nothing more stark than his work in samoa five years ago. in 2018, two infants in samoa died after receiving their measles vaccine. the vaccines had been improperly prepared with a muscle relaxer instead of water. to be clear, nothing about the vaccine itself killed these children. indeed, two nurses were in prison for five years for the mistake they made that day. children's health defense, against chaired by mr. kennedy, seized on the opportunity and began questioning the safety of the measles vaccine online.

between the tragic accident and the proceed of misinformation, the vaccine rate in samoa fell to dangerously low levels. children's health defense pressed on, paid for mr. kennedy to travel to samoa for the prominent anti-vaccine activist to meet with the prime minister and other government officials as well as other anti-vaccine activists, and the damage was done. a measles outbreak began a few months later and with such low vaccination rates spread rapidly. by january 2020, there were almost 6,000 cases of measles which resulted in the death of 83 people, and nearly all of the deaths were in children under the age of 5. two truly tragic deaths spiered into over -- spiralled into over 80 deaths of mostly young

children. really think about that. children dying from a vaccine-preventible illness with a vaccine widely available and mr. kennedy was one of the leading voices opposing vaccination, encouraging place like samoa to embrace a natural experience to see what happens when we stop routine vaccinations. we've seen what happened. children die. and on top of that, mr. kennedy not only maintains no wro wrongdoing, he takes no responsibility. he denies the reality of what happened. in his confirmation hearing, he claimed that the cause of these children's deaths were unclear. nothing could be further from the truth. we know exactly what happened. and mr. kennedy is still peddling ms. information to the united states senate and to the people of america. now, i mentioned that

mr. kennedy stepped down from children's health defense in 2023 to run for president, which leads me to my next concern. it has been reported that mr. kennedy, in fact, approached both the trump and harris campaigns offering his support if he could take on a prominent role in the winning chain's administration -- campaign's administration. then-candidate donald trump took him up on his offer. in short order, mr. kennedy abandoned his campaign, endorsed president trump, and it appears to do whatever president trump demanded of him in the new role as secretary of hhs. the american people, i do not believe, can trust mr. kennedy. mr. kennedy has proven time and time again that he will bow to president trump and his reckless agenda. for example, mr. kennedy has a long lifetime record of being

pro-choice, yet, he said at his confirmation hearing that he will do whatever president trump wants on issues of reproductive health, perhaps taking away lifesaving care for women. during his confirmation hearings, mr. kennedy downplayed the work that he had done discrediting vaccines, no doubt to secure the votes that he needed to get confirmed in this role. when asked about his affiliation with children's defense, which, again, promotes anti-vaccines views, he acted like he didn't hear about it. when asked about the doubts of vaccine, he claims it was taken out of context, yet these an anti-vaccine statements are not something he said once or twice, they are deeply held views he spent a lifetime pushing. in 2015, for example many,

mr. kennedy falsely associated autism with vaccines saying, quote, they get the shot, that night they have a fever of 103 degrees, they go to sleep, and three months later, their brain is gone. this is a holocaust what this is doing to our country. he did later apologize for equating autism with the holocaust, but he has only doubled down on his lie about vaccines and autism. as the reasonsly as 2023, in an interview he said, quote, i read the science on autism, and i can tell you, if you want to know, david, you've got to answer this question, if autism didn't come from the vaccine, then where is it coming from? well, ask scientists, not robert kennedy. however, this wasn't the first time he had made references to such despicable examples as nazi

germany when talking about childhood immunizations. when speaking in a conference in 2013 claiming that vaccines caused autism, a claim that had deburnged -- debunked decades before, he said, quote, to me this is like nazi death camps, what happened to these kids. when asked why the cdc would cover up a supposed link between vaccines and autism, mr. kennedy said, quote, i can't tell you why somebody would do something like that. i can't tell you why ordinary germans participated in the holocaust. this is not the language of a thoughtful, insightful person dealing with a subject as critical to our country as vaccines. this is inflammatory, outrageous, and i think consistent with his behavior,

unfortunately. now, mr. kennedy has also said vaccine scientists should be imprisoned for their work. at the same conference, is it hyperbole if these people should be in jail? they should be in jail and the key should be thrown away. in 2021 encouraging people not to vaccinate their children he said, quote, if i'm walking down the street, and i do this now myself, i'm not a busy body, i see somebody carrying a little baby and i say, better not get them vaccinated. and he heard that from me and if he hears it from ten other people, maybe he won't do it. in case it wasn't clear, he repeated his position later in the same podcast saying, if you're one of ten people that goes up to a guy, a man or a woman who is carrying a babe and

say, don't vaccinate in a baby, when they hear that from ten people, that will make a difference. and we all kept our mouths shut. don't keep your mouths shut. in 2023, he was asked if any vaccine that is good, and he said, quote, there is no vaccine that is safe or effective. that's all. he has a long history of opposing vaccines and discouraging families from getting vaccines. now that mr. kennedy is facing a nomination vote in the senate, he changes hi lethtune. he said he did not oppose vaccines and had in fact gotten all of his kids vaccinated. that's a hard pill to swallow for the families in samoa whose children died after mr. kennedy and his organization convinced

them not to vaccinate their children. it's confirmed -- i don't know which robert kennedy we'll get, the pro-choice, environmental lawyer with a penchant for conspiracy theories and pushing antivaccine propaganda or a mouthpiece for president trump pushing an antichoice agenda, putting women's lives at risk, advocating for an end to medicaid and affordable care act and allowing elon musk and doge to undermine hhs at every turn. mr. president, either outcome is dangerous to the american people and their health, and i will oppose his nomination. and i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from washington. ms. cantwell: i rise to voice my concerns, our world leading innovation infrastructure, the ability of well in my state to choose a medical abortion and continued research for health care of millions of americans, putting that in the hands of the hhs secretary nominee robert f. kennedy. we all agree that our health care system could be reformed. it can be bloated. it can be maddening. too many people have gotten the dreaded letter from an insurance company telling them, sorry, your procedure isn't covered. and if you don't have insurance, you avoid that doctor visit and you pay out of pocket or maybe you wait until you end up in the emergency room and have to deal with medical debt. and we all know the cost of prescription drugs are too high.

we agree that we're spending way too much and that we need better outcomes. so you only have to look at the health outcomes of virtually every other industrialized nation to know that they spend less and get better results. but rather than choose a new leader for the health and human services agency that would lead us down that better path, president trump's nominee would get us stuck in conspiracy theories that would cost us lives. the nominee has been a purveyor of disinformation as my colleague from rhode island just mentioned. sowing doubt about lifesaving vaccines. he said, quote, the covid-19 was a bioweapon that spared jews and the chinese, end quote. achieving better health outcomes both today and in the future happens when we follow science, not conspiracy theories but

science. i happen to represent a very innovative science state. and right now it's a choice about innovation versus the skepticism represented by this nominee. instead of speeding up innovation under mr. kennedy, we would be taking a risky step backwards. the covid pandemic showed us in my state one of the first -- actually the first in the nation known cases of a covid-19 case. and five years ago this month, some of the first deaths occurred in my state. sadly, there were many more. and trust me, i came back here to washington, d.c. and people talked as if business was usual. all the while it was spreading across my state. ultimately this pandemic killed more than 1.2 million people, and it devastated our economy. it had an impact on our children's education.

and it has long-term health care effects on millions of survivors. now we are at the possibility of the beginning of another crisis, the avian flu. this crisis is yet another reminder of the importance of medical research and collaboration. i'm not sure our chart is high enough for people to see. but these two stories were on the front pain of the seattle times just yesterday. the cost of eggs skyrocketing. caused by the avian flu. and the proposed cuts to nih. now what do people not understand? does it make sense to cut science at the time we might have another pandemic? does it make sense to continue to cut the collaborative efforts of research? this washington animal disease

diagnostic laboratory at washington state university is on the front lines of the avian flu. one of my institutions is on the front line. they test animals from across the state so they can be identified and stop the flu from spreading. and we want to cut those dollars. americans already see the impact of the avian flu every time they go to the grocery store. and now people in seattle and spokane are saying it cost $7 for a dozen eggs. some stores are limiting how many eggs you can buy. so as you can see, this issue is on the top of mind of constituents and they want to know what kind of leadership we are going to provide here in washington, d.c. to lower costs, particularly at the grocery store but to also lower costs in health care. putting someone in charge who is a skeptic of medical science in response to the avian flu is

just wrong. it's a catastrophic mistake for america's health care. now, i'll admit my state is a global leader in medical innovation. from research to biotech to getting drugs to the market. in 2023 the national institutes of health awarded $1.2 billion in highly competitive grants to 60 different organizations in the state of washington. this supported about 12,000 jobs and generated close to $3 billion in economic activity. so, yes, we know a little something about global health and innovation. but we know something else, mr. president. the kind of research we're talking about here is the kind that saves lives. and this ultimately is about making an investment and saving the lives of people. last friday when the trump administration announced it was reducing crucial funding for nih

grants, you're talking about our medical institutions that need this to build services and equipment, train the next generation of researchers. for example, as i mentioned, the university of -- washington state university avian flu. they actually help pay for backup generators. these generators keep the systems working in case of power outage so the pathogens can't escape. if you cut the institution and you cut the lab, who's going to pay for these overhead costs? or will they have to cancel their research or stop training the ph.d. students? so this week a court stepped in and blocked the nih head count cuts for now. but believe me, people are afraid that their life's work will be gone. at the university of washington medicine, they are testing treatments for kidney disease,

diabetes, alzheimer's, and pediatric cancer. so if the so-called doge cap goes into place, these are programs that will see a shortfall. they tell me they have to stop admitting new patients to clinical trials. they'll have to scale back. and we can't just start and stop medical research like a faucet. once these people leave, the programs are stopped. it takes a long time to get them started. once halted, the research data, the clinical trial, the patients, the laboratory, the equipment that led to those innovations will be lost. now, if you ask me, that is throwing taxpayer dollars away. when you have an opportunity to cure a disease that affects millions of people and can save taxpayers billions but somebody is arbitrarily going to cut these nih funds thinking they're saving the american people, they're not saving them.

they're causing harm. cutting nih and scientific research funding have consequences for every state in this union. north carolina is home of the famous research triangle and receives about $2.2 billion in nih funding. texas is home of baylor school of -- college of medicine and receives about $1.85 nih funding. as a country we should be working together to do more research, create more jobs and decide what are the lifesaving science and medical innovations that we want to invest in and are represented in a budget process here in the united states senate. not the arbitrary decisions of someone who hasn't even been elected to make these decisions. but there is don't stop in our medical labs. republicans are proposing to cut $2.3 trillion in medicaid funding so the administration

can afford to lower taxes on some of the most extreme wealthy americans. more than 1.8 million washingtonians are enrolled in apple health, washington's medicaid program. so that's one in six adults, two in five children, three in five nursing home resident, three in eight people with disabilities. i'm not confident, mr. president, that mr. kennedy understands how critical this process is and the provisions of medicaid are to people in my state. we know that we had this debate before and only because a very small bipartisan group of senators helped save medicaid from a crazy block grant idea that would have taken a very big building block out of our health care delivery system. thanks to all my colleagues on this side and those on that side who stood up for that and said block granting was the wrong idea.

well, believe me, they're at it again. there are those who think to give the tax break to corporations somehow you're going to get it out of the hide of these very individuals that are counting on medicaid. i do not believe mr. kennedy will stand up to president trump and be an advocate for those who rely on medicaid. i know my constituents knows what' at stake with this -- what's at stake with this vote. and they know our health care delivery system is about science, it is about innovation, it is about making the investments to keep americans healthy. i urge my colleagues to vote no on this nomination, and i yield the floor. mr. durbin: mr. president. the presiding officer: the democratic whip. mr. durbin: mr. president, the greatest threat to american prosperity is not food aid to kids in sudan.

or a diverse workforce. the greatest threat to our country is the abuse of power by a small group of people, an unelected group of people who happen to have a billion dollars. our founding fathers created a government with checks and balances, but they didn't anticipate a united states congress now currently under republican control that would voluntarily give away its constitutional authority. that's where we find ourself. as hospitals and medical researchers in blue and red states are in chaos over the trump administration's attempt to usurp congress' power of the purse. and when senate republicans abandon another constitutional responsibility of advice and consent for cabinet officials, were presented with such things as a bizarre nomination of robert kennedy jr. to serve as secretary of health and human services.

it's been my honor to know members of the kennedy family and particularly to serve with one of them, teddy kennedy. he used to sit right back there. he was an amazing man. he probably had more impact on the legislative agenda and the outcome of legislation than anybody i witnessed in the time i've been in the senate. i counted him as a friend, and i still mourn his loss. but today we are considering a kennedy that i don't believe is qualified to follow in his uncle's footsteps. health and human services is a life and death department of government. every day federal health officials decide whether to approve new medications. after they've been proven, clinically tested and proven to be safe and effective. we count on the hhs to initiate recalls of contaminated food. we count on that same agency to investigate new therapies for cancer clinical trials.

we count on hhs to alert doctors about an emergency disease outbreak. think about the gravity of those situations and how much is vested in the secretary of that critical department. in any of these tasks, critical, often historic tasks, robert kennedy jr. would find himself unqualified, unfit, and dangerous to lead the department of health and human services. mr. kennedy masquerades as a crusader for healthy foods and someone who just wants to, quote, just want to ask some questions, just want to study the science. america, the senate, don't be fooled. mr. kennedy has spent the past 30 years ignoring science and lying to parents about vaccines, all the while enriching himself by the doubt he has created. he declared, quote, i see

somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby, and i say to him, better not get that baby vaccinated. can you imagine that for a moment? that he would walk up to a person he didn't know and counsel them don't vaccinate your child? look at this quote. does this sound like the kind of person you want to lead the premier health agency of our federal government? he stated, quote, there's no vaccine that is safe and effective. no vaccine safe and effective? and he wants to head the health and human services department? the organization he founded sells newborn oncies and -- onesies and have printed on them, unvaxed, unafraid. another one, no vax? no problem. to him it's a novelty, a game that he can say these things about vaccines that literally have been proven over and over

and over again to be safe and save lives. during his confirmation hearing, senator bill cassidy of louisiana, a senator, of course, and a medical doctor who has a distinguished record of service to poor people in his state, practically begged robert kennedy jr. to state unequivocally that the hepatitis b and measles vaccines do not cause autism. kennedy couldn't bring himself to do it. when confronted during his hea hearings, with false statements he's made linking vaccines to autism, he feigned ignorance to decades of research findings and suggested he just needed to be shown the data. well, that data's been around for decades. mr. kennedy approaches this job with bias, a deadly, dangerous bias, and he is unwilling to consider information that contradicts his preconceived

conspiracies. if mr. kennedy is confirmed he won't be just speaking to one parent on a hiking trail. he'll be speaking to all american families from a podium with a u.s. government seal on it. that is a terrifying prospect. since 1974, the measles vaccine saved 94 million lives, and since its creation the smallpox vaccine has saved 200 million lives. two proven, successful vaccines, and we have to sell them to a man who wants to head the hhs and says there's no vaccine that is safe and effective? measles is one of the most contagious pathogens on earth. when i was a kid in the 1950's going to school, it was common for kids to get measles. i had them. you stayed home from school a few days, you usually got through it after a few days, waiting for all those red spots

to go away. yet, with mr. kennedy's megaphone, we're seeing the danger of conspiracy theories. last year a record share of kindergartners across america had nonmedical exemption from vaccines. right now, there's a measles outbreak tearing through gains county, texas, seven kids hospitalized, all unvaccinated. gains county has one of the highest rates in texas of school-age children opting out of vaccines. why are parents in that county in texas and a few others forgoing lifesaving vaccines? because of fraudsters like mr. kennedy. what about polio? i know that issue personally. i see senator king on the floor. he remembers it as well. since 1955, the polio vaccine prevented 20 million people from becoming paralyzed, and saved 1.5 million lives. most americans are lucky never

to have ever experienced the fear of polio. i remember as a kid it scared the hell out of us. a kid could go to school healthy and be paralyzed at dinnertime. a constituent of mine, maryellen from union county in southern illinois wrote to me. i want to quote what she said -- when i was in kindergarten, my best friend disappeared for weeks. when i asked about her, people shook their heads, saying, polio. when she returned, she couldn't walk without heavy leg braces. we could hear her cry and scream with pain. i remember that era, iron lungs, leg braces, paralysis and worse. had mr. kennedy been our nation's health secretary at that time, would american families have access today to lifesaving measles and polio vaccines? i'm afraid the answer is clearly no. this isn't speculation. look at the record. mr. kennedy and his associates filed petitions with the food and drug administration to

remove the covid, hepatitis b and polio vaccines from the market. in 2019, mr. kennedy flew to samoa during a measles outbreak to question whether the vaccines were causing the illness. as a result of that, 83 people died in samoa. when asked by senator warren, mr. kennedy said he would not do anything differently about that dangerous trip. 83 people died as he spread those falsehoods about the vaccine. senator cassidy aptly wondered, and i quote, does a 70-year-old man who spent decades criticizing vaccines and was financially vested in finding fault, can he change his attitude? mr. president, i'm sorry, but we know the answer. listen, i understand we have a great health system in this country, but i also understand

it's flawed in many ways. i spent years in my senate and house career to lower drug prices, rein in big pharma's influence and stop big tobacco from peddling poison to our kids. just because he might talk about the right problems, doesn't mean mr. kennedy has the right solutions. in fact, over two days of hearings, he did not offer a single concrete idea on how to improve the delivery of primary care or preventive health care services. he was -- it was clear mr. kennedy didn't understand the difference between medicaid and medicare. mr. president, i will tell you that that is an issue that you take up in congress 101. nobody believes kennedy will stand up to president trump or elon musk's assault on medical research. i understand the urge to shake things up, to address failures of our health care system, but mr. kennedy brings an

unacceptable prejudice that will only cause harm and be dangerous to american families. neil steinberg writes for the chicago sun times. he wrote, when you're claiming you want to study the issue, where the science is settled, that's code words for dismissing facts that don't serve your personal bias. i fear there's a sense that being an outsider is qualification enough, but how far could senate republicans be willing to go if they pursue that dangerous path? make no mistake, if the tables, political tables, were turned, and it were democrats proposing this man for this job, he wouldn't get a single republican vote in the senate. he'd be decried as a pro-choice, anti-vax, uninformed conspiracy theorist who trades on his family name to peddle dangerous m misinformation that benefits him financially. and guess what --

this nominee is all of those things. but because he was nominated by president trump, has the maga seal aapproval, my -- seal of approval, my republican colleagues can't wait to march down and support his nomination. many of them secretly, privately, quietly know better. some of them are doctors or parents themselves who trusted doctors to vaccinate their kids or people who spent their lives trying to really improve our health system. they know mr. kennedy's not the right choice for the job, and they know our children will suffer the most if he becomes hhs secretary. i hope they'll find the courage to join me and reject his nomination. let me add this point that is related to this whole issue, and i'll make it brief. on friday, the trump administration issued an illegal order to impose an arbitrary cap of 15% on indirect costs that the nih pays to grantees for essential research expenses.

without this funding for specialized equipment, data processing, safety materials and the maintenance of labs, universities and hospitals nationwide will not be able to afford the technology that allows them to continue lifesaving research. this is a critical moment in america's history. after the progress that we have made, after the leadership we have shown, are we going to, under this new president, turn our back on medical research? god forbid. if you go through the misfortune of a terrible diagnosis on yourself or someone you love, you pray that you can then ask the doctor is this anything, a new medicine, a new cure, a new surgical procedure, and you're hoping that medical researchers leave that answer to yes in that one moment in your life. in 2017, the last time president trump attempted to cut nih funding, the now-house

appropriations committee chair tom cole of oklahoma called the proposal, quote, arbitrary, unreasonable and ultimately destructive of research enterprise. chairman cole understood cutting funding means clinical trials will be delayed, new breakthroughs and cures put off and promising researchers will get discouraged and leave the field. a constituent and doctor from pailos heights, illinois, wrote to me, i quote him, i care about this issue because i know new research on immunology kept my stage 4 cancer patient wife alive ten years, enough to see our youngest son graduate high school. this sudden announced indiscriminate cut to medical research violates federal law, which blocks nih from deviating from its current indirect cost policy. thankfully, my attorney general in illinois and 21 other states filed a federal lawsuit to temporarily halt this senseless

cut. remember, tweets from elon musk forced a bipartisan pediatric cancer research bill to be cut from the government spending bill just a few weeks ago. now mr. musk is at it again. only this time he's targeting -- targeting cancer, alzheimer's and diabetes. if elon musk got sick, i bet the richest man in the world would find the doctor he wanted. i'm sure he would. for the rest of us, the parents facing a devastating diagnosis of someone we love, this is a cruel political decision. university of chicago researchers put it this way, quote, this attack on a very structure of academic research is threatening a system that every other country in the world has tried to reproduce. it seems spiteful and targeted that those of us who just want to contribute to a better society. mr. president, i don't know that this will continue to be a problem and challenge, but i promise you this, as long as i have the power to stand and

speak out in favor of the national institutes of health, i'm going to do it. this country is a great country. it has greatness that includes medical research, maybe the best in the world. why in the world would we give up on that? why would we choose someone so bizarre to head up the health and human services agency and entrust in them life and death decisions? it's a bad choice. i'll be voting to oppose robert f. kennedy jr., and doing everything in my power to restore the spending for medical research in america and i yield the floor. mr. hickenlooper: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. hickenlooper: thank you. i appreciate what the good senator from illinois has gone through and enunciated in great

clarity. our government plays a critical role in informing the public, the american people look to us for trust. they look to us for guidance during the roughest points of our history. and they look to us for factual, accurate information so they can have the freedom to raise their families without fear and anxiety. that trust is broken when partisan officials use their platforms to spread reckless and damaging information. they attempt to overwhelm americans with views that push anti-science narratives or foreign propaganda, often that threatens our national security. you can't go on to social media anymore without running into a fake headline or some hyperbolic claim with no source. i mean, for so many people, the more you see, the more you believe, and this leaves americans dazed and