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 confused,

unsure of who to trust and where they can go to get accurate information. unfortunately, the new administration has shown a bias towards elevating people who peddle disinformation, spreading seemingly random falsehoods about our voting systems, marginalized groups or our public health. this has real, negative impacts on americans. now, way back in 1980, i graduated with a master's in earth sciences. i moved west to work as a geologist. scientist, it's low on mazlov's pyramid of science. i published peer-reviewed s stu studies. i have a reverence for this, despite the fact that there aren't that many of us left around here anymore. i'll be the first to admit that science

can sometimes surprise us. it's always evolving. it's why the entire field of science relies on constant evaluation, constant research to continue to make new discoveries or deepen our understanding of complex problem. meeting with science helps us get the most accurate information we can. yet, the trump administration's appetite for antiscientific claims and disinformation is something that in many ways threatens all of us and puts our country at risk. this morning the senate confirmed tulsi gabbard as director of national intelligence. i voted no on her confirmation. ms. gabbard has none of the relevant qualifications or intelligence experience sufficient for this role. and officials from both sides of the aisle have raised concerns about her ability to provide the president with impartial analysis as the nation's top

intelligence officer. ms. gabbard is frequently parroted russian disinformation. she repeated russia's erroneous justification for its brutal invasion of ukraine. she criticized kiev's democratic government, a steadfast partner of the united states. and she spread repeatedly falsehoods about her own involvement in bioweapon research in ukraine. let's be clear about what this means. an american adversary invades another democracy, and ms. gabbard actively pushes their narrative. either she cannot p distinguish fact from fiction or she intentionally chooses to promote false claims. either scenario should be disqualifying for a cabinet official, let alone one who's responsible for assuring the president has accurate and timely intelligence. as they say, he who stands for

nothing will fall for anything. regardless of her intentions or what she actually believes, her readiness to champion clear disinformation undermines our national security and puts american servicemembers at risk. as director of national intelligence, ms. gabbard will have full visibility to every threat that the military and civilian personnel performing these vital missions in colorado and across the country and around the world, they're working tirelessly to address. they need leaders, we need leaders who base every assessment and decision on accurate intelligence, not propaganda, especially not propaganda from one of the most threatening rivals that we have. president trump's nominee to the department of health and human services, robert f. kennedy jr. is another clear example of someone willing to overlook facts and science when it's convenient. he has a wide following, and

many people look to him for guidance and for leadership. in particular, his ideas of a healthier america appeals to many coloradoans and to me as well. but make no mistake, our country can and should be healthier, and we all share a vested effort in that direction. there's a bipartisan appetite to get us there. we should provide better food options and keep unsafe chemicals out of the products that we eat. but we have to be able to do it in tandem with fact-based science and thoughtful policy to protect americans and to keep them safe. rfk jr. has shown a propensity for antiscience claims. one of his most antiscientific claim is that autism is caused by childhood vaccines. this is a claim that's been spread through many communities for decades. it's all based on a single paper

published back in 1998. that paper was retracted years ago, and there have been hundreds of studies on the nonexistent link between autism and the measles vaccine ever since. they have all, i repeat, they have all found zero connection between vaccines and the cause of autism. let me be clear, every single one found zero connection. it's settled science. vaccines are not only extremely safe. they're extremely effective. every year they save millions of lives all around the globe. we have effectively eliminated harmful diseases like polio and we're making considerable progress towards a vaccine for hiv and aids. for the last hundred years our country's life expectancy increased by 30 years.

25 of those 30 years are largely attributed to vaccine adoption and clean drinking water. vaccines not only save lives, but they also made them healthier and happier as they were extended. some of the damage from disinformation about vaccines is nearly impossible to undo. why would anyone accept the results of one debunked paper rather than the conclusions of hundreds of studies that have been conducted since? it is completely p understandable for parents to have questions and concerns about vaccines that their children receive. i know i have as a parent. as a parent of two kids, one who just turned two years old, i understand the concern that families feel. we want to make sure that we're doing everything we can do to keep our kids healthy and safe. we do the best we can with what

we have to make them as healthy and happy as possible. people who peddle vaccine skepticism are preying upon parents' very rational fierce to advance these -- fears to advance conspiracy theories. parents are trying their hardest to keep their kids safe and healthy, and it's irresponsible for people to playing them with pseudo science and misinformation when the science has been settled on this for decades. the measles vaccine is safe and does not cause autism. it's personal for me too. my son teddy, now in college, unfortunately got pertussis or whooping cough when he was four months old, before he was able to finish his full vaccination schedule after he interacted with an unvaccinated child. because of how rare whooping cough is now, it took us awhile

to get the correct diagnosis. finally when we got him into children's hospital, i remember staying up all night two nights in a row to blast little puffs of oxygen into his coughing face to snap him out of those coughs about every ten minutes and to prevent his oxygen blood levels from dropping too low, one of the most frightening experiences in my entire life. whooping cough, that disease is rare because of the vaccine and because of the adoption of that vaccine. america was able to almost completely stamp it out of existence. if we backslide in the number of children getting vaccinated, stories like what happened to my son teddy are going to become more common and more severe. when you consistently promote uncertainty in settled science,

it begins to raise doubts about all science and it slows our progress using science against the really big challenges like a cure for cancer or vaccines for the next pandemic. in president trump's first full term at the height of the covid-19 pandemic, operation warped speed help bring vaccines to the public in record time. the national institutes of health estimate that operation warp speed saved over 140,000 lives by speeding up the development of vaccines by more than five months. when the next pandemic comes along -- and it's not if, it's when -- we're going to need a robust federal response and prepared in the plan. we need to get our ability to get to a vaccine down to 100

days. we need that plan to be guided by actual science. otherwise we obviously endanger the lives and health of all americans. the department of health and human services also oversee the federal medical research, as senator durbin pointed out. the research has unlocked groundbreaking achievements in public health and will continue to help us cure diseases and work towards solutions for a variety of illnesses. however the white house announced late last week that they are slashing funding for the national institutes of health. this will have devastating impacts on researching projects in colorado and across the united states, including places in colorado like fort lewis college and national jewish health. our colorado institutions are at the forefront of medical research for everything from clinical trials for veterans struggling with ptsd to individuals with downs syndrome. these cuts from research

institutions, rural hospitals for our veterans will impact our most vulnerable communities. all this to give tax cuts to the wealthiest americans. again, i'm all for making government more efficient, smaller. if you want to seriously look at how we spend money and where we can cut actual fraud and waste and abuse, i'm in, i'm game. but i struggle to understand how stripping funding for cancer research or head start or hiring programs for law enforcement officers is wasteful. these cuts throughout our government are exaggerated by the extreme nominees who are ill equipped to manage large organizations. the l l administration has attempted to freeze federal funding, something the courts halted but the white house continues to pursue.

colorado and the american people are caught in their crosshairs. i committed to opposing nominees that pose a genuine threat to coloradans. we've also helped support lawsuits and 0 oppose some of these executive actions. i'd be the first to admit our government isn't perfect. government never will be. i'd be the first to recognize it takes all of our elected officials to do their duty to the american people and to be truthful and for our constituents to hold us accountable. the american experiment and democratic government is just too important to confirm people who actively spread disinformation and refuse to follow science. it threatens coloradans, it puts all of us at risk. mr. president, i yield back the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from maine. mr. king: mr. president, i'd like to begin my remarks this afternoon by talking a little bit about the constitution. i spent some time last week talking about the constitution and our failure to observe that the constitutional fundamental structure of the division of power between the congress and the executive is being violated and the congress is allowing it to happen. another provision of the constitution is the provision in article 1 about advise and consent. it's a fundamental check and balance built in to the constitution by the framers for a reason. it wasn't a throw-away line or a few sentences that were put in because they wanted to fill the paragraph out. again, it's part of the structure that was designed to protect us from tyranny.

and the structure involved the division of power, the separation of power because the framers knew that if all power was concentrated in a single individual or single institution, that institution or that individual would inevitably abuse our people. that's human nature. that's 1,000 years of human nature. all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. so the advise and consent provision was in the constitution for a reason. it was in there for a reason, in order to provide a check on the executive and the people who were going to be put in charge of running the administration. by the way, i want to stop for a minute and focus on the word administration and the word executive because it really goes to the discussion we're having in this city, in this country right now about how our government is supposed to work.

the executive, executive comes from the word execute, and the word execute means put into action. it doesn't mean initiate the action. it means put it into action. the same for the term administration. there's a reason we call it the administration. they are to administer the laws. in fact, the obligation on the president in article 2 is to see that the laws are faithfully executed. and it does not give the president the power to ignore laws or to decide which laws he or she thinks are okay, to ignore the responsibility and constitutional authority of the congress to define spending. it does not give the president that power. although the fellow we approved for office of management and budget last week thinks he has that power. or this president or any president has that power. that's absolutely antithetical

to it the constitution, as established by the framers. so administration means administer the laws, execute the -- the executive means execute the larks not make them. we make the laws here. and the administration is to faithfully execute those laws. now, let's talk about advise and consent. advise and consent means we've a responsibility is a constitutional responsibility to consider each of the president's nominees for these important jobs. this isn't something that we may do or occasionally do. this is a fundamental part of our job. we take an oath when we come here to defend the constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. i think it's interesting -- they knew in 1787 that there was a potential for domestic enemies to the constitution. so we have an obligation to take advise and consent seriously. now, i'm a former governor, as

is the presiding officer. and as a former executive, i believe the executive should have the ability to choose the team that they want, to choose their advisors. to choose the people they will work with, with some limitations. in other words, i start with the premise of the person elected should perhaps get the benefit of the doubt is a little too strong, but i start with the premise that they were elected and they should be able to choose the team that they are going to be-to-working with. however, i think there are two request,s. this has been my stated position on this since the entered the senate. benefit of the doubt to the executive. however, the nominee must be manifestly qualified and not hostile to the mission of the agency to which they've had been appointed. two criteria, two criteria that for me give life to the idea of

advise and consent. okay, let's talk about robert f. kennedy jr. he, unfortunately, checks both of the boxes as to being disqualified. number one, he's not remotely qualified to run an organization. he has no experience running anything remotely like the scope and scale of the department of health and human services. no executive experience in that sense. so that's number one. is he qualified? no. he's grossly unqualified. but the second box is -- my criteria, is he hostile to the mission of the agency? and if the mission of the agency, hhs, is to protect the health of the american people, i would argue he is manifestly hostile to that mission. there's been a lot of discussion here today -- and i think it's

interesting. i don't know how this debate has gone -- i haven't heard too many people come up on the floor and support this nominee and tell us why he should be approved because, you know what, mr. president? if this were a secret ballot, this man wouldn't get 20 votes. everybody in this body knows he's not qualified. everybody in this body knows he has to business anywhere near this position. but here we are. we're going to take a vote. unfortunately, it will probably be on a party-line basis. but let me focus on just one little piece. on january 29, barely a week ago, before the senate finance committee, here's what mr. kennedy said. quote, news reports have claimed that i'm antivaccine or anti-industry. i am neither. i am pro-safety. all of my kids are vaccinated. i bet that came as news to all of the folks he's been leading astray over the last 25-30

years. i believe vaccines have a critical role in health care. remember saul on the road to damascus. a remarkable conversion. a bright light was shown and suddenly the scales fell from his eyes. in his confirmation hearing. okay, let's go back a little over a year, july 6, 2023 this is a quote, a direct quote. there is no vaccine that is safe and effective. he later today, on the same podcast, reams are inherently unsafe. mr. president, this man shouldn't be confirmed because he told the committee and the senate something diametrically opposed to the position he's taken the last 30 years, all of his adult life. maya angela said, if somebody tells you who they are, you should believe them. and he's told us repeatedly. and he has acted on his vaccine skepticism. this wasn't something that was

rumbling around in his head. he's traveled the world. he's written articles, gone on podcasts, gone on tv and he's discouraged people from being vaccinated. and now he has this miraculous conversion 10 days ago. all my kids are vaccinated. i believe vaccines have a critical role in health care. the same thing during covid. he said, it is criminal medical malpractice to give a child one of these vaccines. wow, criminal malpractice. and of course it's been discussed. he said i do believe that autism does come from vaccines. july of 2023 there was one study in england -- i think it was in 1998 -- that showed that -- purported to show a tenuous convection between vaccines and -- connection between vaccines and autism. i'm reasonably confident that one of the authors recanted.

it was withdrawn and it's been debunked over and over and over again, but this man has been peddling this lie for 20 years, and who knows how many parents have fallen for that on the one hand who knows how many children have paid the price. just to talk about vaccines, at one point during the pandemic, there was a survey -- july of 2021 -- remember, that was the height of it -- they surveyed 50 hospitals in 17 states. 94% of the patients hospitalized in july of 2021 were unvaccinated. what does that tell you? vaccinations worked. and people who were unvaccinated were at enormously higher risk. 94% of the people were unvaccinated.

in addition to the vaccination issue, this guy -- this man doesn't respect the fda, the agency that was put in place to protect our health, to regulate us, to be sure that we're getting safe medications, to deal with some of the awful problems of the potential of harmful medications literally getting into america's blood vaccinate d. -- bloodstream. in december of 2024, barely a couple months ago two months, a he said he would fire officials at the fda. and in october 2024 he said on x, fda's war on public health is about to end. if you work for the fda and are part of this corrupt system, i have two messages for you -- prepare your records and pack your bags. he didn't say a certain office in the fda order a certain part of the fda or maybe there was one provision, a part that he didn'ting think was helpful. he said, if you wok for the fda,

that's everybody, preserve your records and pack your bags. this man is not only unqualified, he's antiqualified. he's a danger. we have physicians in the senate -- i believe that the hippocratic oath, do no harm, should apply to senate votes. you should not be voting for somebody who you know is going to do harm to the public health. so this is a -- it's really a kind of surreal debate because everybody in this chamber knows this man should not be secretary of health and human services. now, i want to end with a personal story. one of the few advantages of being older is that you have a long memory. and in 1952 i was entering the third grade at macarthur school in alexander, virginia.

in my class was a kid named butch. and he was horribly twisted into a wheelchair. i don't think i'd ever seen a wheelchair when i was going into the third grade. he was there, and here it is -- i am neat even going to say -- i'm not even going to say how many years later, but i can close my eyes and see butch in that chair. polio was when he had. he was in pain daily. he could barely make himself understood. his arms were crossed. his legs were bent. grotesquely in the wheelchair. and three years later the salk vaccine began what turned out to be the elimination of polio. where would we be as a country if this man had been the head at

that time it was hew and somehow put a stop to this vaccine, which i believe he has said even the polio vaccine should be rescinded, which has saved millions of lives around the world. where would we be? i can't escape the memory of that boy in that wheelchair. i can't expect the memory of my parents not letting me go to the public swaim -- swimming pool because of the fear of polio. not being able to go out in the summer and play because of the fear of polio that stalked the land. the former republican leader was a victim of polio. former president franklin d. roosevelt was a victim of polio. it was the vaccine. and, mr. president, i hope this place comes to its senses and rejects this surreal nomination.

it would be probably be hard to find somebody less qualified to serve in this position. i believe that it will lead to damage to our country, to our health, to our children, and i urge my colleagues to vote no. if you vote yes, you'll regret t thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. smith: thank you, mr. president. i -- before i begin, i want to ask unanimous consent that the following fellows in my office be granted floor privileges for the remainder of the first session of the 119th congress -- marie fernandez, sarah goldman, adam haas and alyssa rudelis.

the presiding officer: without objection. ms. smith: thank you, mr. president. i want to first comment on how much i appreciated the comments of my colleague from maine, senator king, both in your elucidation of the deep challenges of the robert kennedy jr. nomination but also your -- close look at what it means, what the difference is between the legislative branch and the executive branch and the role that we have in this body to provide advice and consent. and i appreciative what had you were saying -- i appreciated what had you were saying about what your north star is when you look at these nominations. i would say that i dprae with you, that i do -- i would say that i agree with you that i do believe that incoming presidents should be able to surround themselves with people who they trust and that, of course, we may strongly disagree with the president, however, he has the

right to have people around him who agree with him. but i think there's something that you said, senator king, that was extremely partiality i also look at these nominations in terms of whether i believe they have the base-level qualifications to do the job. and then the second thing that i ask myself is, can i trust these individuals? can i trust robert kennedy to follow the law? i mean, that is fundamentally what their responsibility is, to certainly show -- be loyal to the person who put enemy in a that role but also at at base level thatter thisser going to follow the law. -- at a base level that they're going to follow the law. so, mr. speaker, i rise today -- mr. president, i rise today to highlight what i consider to be the threat of robert f. kennedy, the threat that he poses to americans' health and safety and well-being. and in fact i have concluded -- i've talked with him. i've listened to him. i've asked him questions, both in a private setting and also in committee.

and i've read his words and his history. and i can only conclude that he cannot be trusted with this important job, that i cannot trust him to follow the laws of this land. i believe that mr. kennedy is wholly unqualified for the position of secretary of health and human services, and that he is unprepared to lead. and i think that he cannot be trusted with the health and the well-being of americans, particularly in this moment. now, if you're listening to this and you don't really know that much about the department of health and human services, you got a busy life, you're trying to figure out how to afford your life and how to hold it together in what is a very busy and complicated word, i want to be clear on what mr. kennedy's confirmation would mean for minnesota families. if he is allowed to become secretary, i have concluded that your family will be less safe, that your loved ones will be

more likely to get sick and that you and the people that you care about will be less likely to get the care that you need. as i have thought about this, what i find most disqualifying about mr. kennedy is how he has basically made his career, his built a career around saying what -- what he needs to say in order to get attention. and by getting attention, he's making money. i think it's just important to understand this. this is whether he's talking about vaccines or infectious diseases, whether he is talking about anything. so we don't -- like you walk away from talking with this individual not entirely sure what it is that he believes because he does seem willing to say nearly anything to nearly everybody without actually considering what impact his words have on the lives of real

people, whether he's talking about reproductive freedom, whether he's talking about mental health care, whether he's talking about infectious diseases or vaccines. let's focus on the question of vaccines, because i think this has gotten the most attention and rightly so. in decades of public appearances, as well as in our one-on-one meeting, the one-on-one meetings i had with him as well as when i talked to him about this in front of the finance committee, mr. kennedy has continued to promote harmful and dangerous information. information that if people followed and paid attention to him and did what he suggested, it could do real harm to their families, it could hurt them. if you think about vaccines, this is his long and very public record of denying the safety and efficacy of vaccines. in fact, he has spent almost the last two decades of his life promoting these harmful and false theories that vaccines will cause autism and that they

are otherwise unsafe. as an example, in 2021, he proudly described stopping strangers out, you know, on hikes and telling them not to vaccinate their babies. can you imagine that? you're out walking around and robert f. kennedy jr. comes up to you, man of stature and power and says don't vaccinate your children. those words have impact. during a podcast interview in july of 2023, mr. kennedy said, and i quote, i believe senator -- senator king quoted this as well, there is no vaccine that is safe and effective. think about that. he's saying don't pay any attention to the science or experts, i'm going to del you that there is no -- tell you that there is no vaccine that is safe. the online store, the children's health defense. there's an online store, you can

go online and check it out. you will find there, they're selling little baby onecies that have unvaccinated and unafraid. here we are on the verge of a vote to decide whether the united states senate is going to confirm mr. kennedy, and of course now he's denying all of that, he's distancing himself from all of these past statements, but you can't run away from your words, certainly in this day and age, and i would argue in any day and age, those words are out there. you said them and it matters what the secretary of health and human services what he says about these things and it matters what he doesn't say as well. words have real consequences. just the mere fact in an of his presence of being head of of this agency, just the fact that he sits there is going to have a

factor to cause some people not to know whether they can trust vaccines. he's in a position of power and authority, has a high and loud bully pulpit. an individual who has told americans, both when he was out on hikes stopping them as their walking by and on every media megaphone that he can find that vaccines are neither safe nor effective. here he is about to assume, unless my colleagues come to their senses, about to assume the highest, you could argue, the highest health job that afbts the -- affects the health of all of our families. had is an unacceptable risk of health and safety of americans. i also wanted to highlight for my colleagues an exchange that i had with mr. kennedy when he came before the finance committee where i served. i wanted to ask him about a statement that he had made about

americans and anti-depressants. and when i probed him on this, i asked him to -- confronted him with some things he had said in the past about anti-depressants, basically saying that it appears, he said that basically that -- that -- attributed a connection between people who are using anti-depressants and school shootings. i asked him about that, and i asked him whether he thought that folks who take anti-depressants are dangerous or not, and he refused to even say that americans who take anti-depressants are not dangerous. he could not even get those words out of his mouth. in fact, he doubled down on his claims that anti-depressants do cause school shootings and he claimed this is an area that needs to be studied. and he knows people who had and i quote, much worse time getting off of ssri's than they have had

getting off heroin. this is a different strategy that i saw with mr. kennedy on the help committee and finance committee, when confronted with the facts, he would always say some version of show me the data, show me the information. even when the research is settled, the data is settled, and here let me come to this question about whether or not anti-depressants are dangerous and are somehow a contributor to school shootings, which is an outrageous thing to say. there's a study in 2019 that was published in the journal of behavioral science and law. and it says it appears most school shooters were not treated with psychotropic medications and even if they were, there was no direct causalization found. i was stunned when mr. kennedy said, i don't believe that researcher, i need to see other

data, he is not willing to accept the facts and science, he's not willing to do that. and i am simply not going to trust mr. kennedy when it comes to your loved ones, the folks you care about in your lives will have access to the mental health treatments that they need to live their lives as productively as they possibly can. it's also worth noting, mr. president, that these comments mr. kennedy is making, linking anti-depressants to school shootings, what it does of course is perpetuate the stigma that so many americans who struggle with mental health, so many americans struggle with the stigma, they already feel that, and yet here is potentially the next head of the health and human services who is perpetuating this stigma in a very real way. i have seen this in my own life. i have seen people who have been

bowed down by this feeling that they can't talk about their challenges with their mental health because people are going to think less of them. it is a stigma that i have spent my time in the senate working in a bipartisan way to try and break down. and so to see it perpetuated in this way by mr. kennedy is just such a clear reason why he cannot be trusted. the rigorous peer-reviewed research on ssri's, common form of anti-depressant is not only the -- it's -- the science that mr. kennedy has willingly chosen to ignore, but it's not the only science he has willfully chosen to ignore. mr. kennedy during his confirmation hearings that if president trump directed limb to go after mifepristone, one of the key drugs used in medication

for abortion, he would do whatever the president said even though this is a medication proven safe and effective, yesterday mr. kennedy said he would follow the guidance of the president and not the law when it comes to the safety of mifepristone. in fact, as my colleague, senator hassan made so abundantly clear in the committee, over 40 safety studies have demonstrated what mr. kennedy was not willing to see, which is that there is clear evidence that this medication is safe. on reproductive freedom, mr. kennedy has proven himself wholly untrustworthy, flip-flopping on his position depending on who he is talking to. he will say one thing to one person and another thing to another person all with the goal of winning friends and influencing people, but this is not the kind of character that you want to see in this most important job in the federal

government leading the department of health and human services. here's a bit of an example of how this has played out with mr. kennedy on the issue of reproductive freedom and abortion rights. on the morning of august 13, 2023, mr. kennedy said, quote, i believe the decision to abort the child should be up to the woman during the first three months of life. people may agree or disagree with this view, but it's clear what he's saying here. the very same day he -- his campaign followed up by saying that his position on abortion is that it is always the woman's right to choose and he does not support legislation banning abortion. on the same day, two difference positions, and then on may 19, 2024, he said i wouldn't leave it up to the states, this is a quote, i wouldn't leave it up to the states, my belief is that we should leave it up to the woman, we shouldn't have government

involved, even if it's full term, there's a completely different view and then the very next day, he tweeted abortion should be illegal up to a certain number of weeks and then restricted thereafter. he seems to change his mind so often that we don't know what he thinks or stands for. when you're the secretary of health and human services, you have to stand up for something. you have to stand up for the laws of the land and what is clear through all of this back and forth, it is clear to me is that the trump administration and mr. kennedy are more than willing to restrict or even ban access to medication abortion despite the fact that they've been determined to be safe an effective and that -- and effective and that he -- he and mr. kennedy and president trump are, in fact, dangerous for a woman's access to medication abortion. i want people to think about this for a minute. if you live in a state like mine

in minnesota, where the state determined that abortion should be accessible that this is a decision up for people to be able to make on their own without government interference and roughly 60%, maybe a bit more now of abortions are done through medication abortion, robert f. kennedy jr. and donald trump are going to affect your rights in minnesota with mifepristone just as much as they affect the rights of anyone in texas or any of our states. mr. president, i want to change topic to discuss a bit the question of infectious diseases and how mr. kennedy has taken similarly unfounded positions, positions that are not based on the science at all. on infectious diseases, he has taken positions that i think could put minnesota families at risk. at a -- here's an example of

that. at a children's health defense conference in november of 2023, the anti-vax organization that mr. kennedy led for the last seven years, mr. kennedy said, quote, he's going to say to the nih scientists, god bless you all, thank you for your services, we're going to give infectious diseases a break for eight years, they may want to give infectious diseases a break for the next eight years, but i'm pretty sure infectious diseases will not give america a break for the next eight years. here's a classic example of that. across the country we are facing a very real public health threat from avian flu. in minnesota, farmers know this better than anyone, it is not just affecting minnesota, it's

affecting many of our states. this is an infectious disease infecting flocks of wild birds and dmes indicated -- dmesty indicated poultry and many chick engs had to be culled, to be euthnized to prevent the spread of the virus. in the last year bird flu has jumped from poultry to livestock, often dairy cows, and then from livestock to humans, often the individuals working in livestock operations. so this is something we have to take seriously. it's important for us to pay attention to we need surveillance. we need to be working on treatments. we need to be evaluating whether -- finding a pathway potentially to some sort of a vaccine.

avian flu is not going to take an 8-year break. it's already infecting chickens and livestock and it is already infecting americans. and i know that in minnesota, people want somebody leading the department of health and human services who isn't going -- who is paying attention to this and wants to be on top of this. you know, one of the things that's sort of incredible when you dive into the things that mr. kennedy has written is that it's not even really clear if mr. kennedy believes that germs cause disease. i mean, if you read his words on this, you come away with a very concerning perspective. for six papers in one of his recent books, just as an example, he extols the virtue of something that's called the m miasma theory while simu simultaneously casting doubt on

evidence that germs cause disease. mr. kennedy doesn't really describe this miasma theory correctly but he most certainly doesn't accurate reflect germ therapy which is the basic understandable concept that medical students are introduced to at the very beginning of their medical education. that germs, virus, bacteria are the cause of many, many human illnesses. this is the kind of stuff that if it were coming from the secretary of health and human services, people are going to listen to this. and i just like think about the chilling effects that this could have on the health care that people are able to seek and receive, particularly if mr. kennedy is going to be dialling back or stopping the research on infectious diseases that is the lifeblood of the united states public health work

that we do. at the finance committee and then the next day at the help committee, my colleagues and i gave mr. kennedy opportunity after opportunity to dispel the false and misleading claim he has spread for decades and to distance himself from these past positions. and we gave him the chance to tell americans that he would keep them and their children safe and that he wouldn't threaten their access to treatments or to cures or to care and that he believed that the research is out there, that he believed the research that is out there and accessible to anybody and everybody who wants to see tshgs the research that is taught in medical schools, the research that is followed by national institute of health and he couldn't do it. he couldn't tell us, he couldn't just say that vaccines don't cause autism. he couldn't just tell us that antidepressants don't cause school shootings. he couldn't just tell us that he

will make sure that america's health insurance is protected. he could barely in his conversations and the questions that he was asked, mr. president, he could barely articulate that he understood the difference between medicare and medicaid. instead what happened is that mr. kennedy repeatedly talked about following the good science, the science that is good. but the science that he relies on is not good. and in so many circumstances, he quotes science or studies that have been disproven. the studies that he has referenced have been withdrawn or they don't say what he claims or purports to say that they do. most of all, what happens is that this has the potential to hold our researchers and our scientific community back from making the real progress that we need to make when it comes to

medicine and disease and treating ailments. think about the progress that we could one day make to help your cancer, to prevent alzheimer's. if we have to revisit the history, the record of science because mr. kennedy says that he doesn't think it shows what everybody else thinks it shows, think about how that's going to set us back, how that is going to keep us from moving forward to address the real health challenges of today and tomorrow. i think about what it might have meant if mr. kennedy had led the department of health and human services when we were in the midst of operation warp speed and we were doing everything we possibly could to get a vaccine to -- out to americans and the world to stop the millions of deaths that were happening because of the covid-19 virus.

what would have happened if mr. kennedy sitting in that position of authority had said i don't believe the science. i think we need to do more. i don't think any vaccine is safe and effective and therefore i want to call this vaccine back. and in fact that is what mr. kennedy did. he put -- he submitted a call to the department of health and human services in the early days of the vaccine saying that he thought that it should be pulled back from the market. think about what impact that could have had on all of our families if he had been in a position of authority and had been able to accomplish that. over and over again when he is faced with the actual science, for example, on the science that proves that ssri's are not associated with school shootings, that vaccines do not cause autism, that germs do cause illnesses, he has refer -- refused to accept it and has doubled down on his dangerous

beliefs. so this is concerning when it is an individual who is speaking on a podcast, but it could be a matter of life-or-death when it is the secretary of the department of health and human services. as i think about what i said at the beginning of my remarks about my strong belief that my job as senator is to assess whether i can trust somebody in this role, can i trust them to follow the law, can i trust this individual to protect the health and well-being of the people in my state and the people around the country, the answer is clearly no. this is an individual who cannot be trusted. at the heart of this nomination, of course, the heart of the work of the department of health and human services is america's health and health care. and it is clear to me that mr. kennedy has made it clear that he will enable the trump and musk agenda of chaos, that

he will enable what they are doing not to execute the laws of this country, which is their constitutional responsibility, but to attempt to write the laws of the -- make the laws of this country. and we could see this during his confirmation hearings repeatedly during his confirmation hearings, mr. kennedy said that he would follow mr. trump's directives. now, i'm going to be clear about this. i understand that it's the job of the -- any cabinet official to follow the policies of the individual who has put them there. but not if those policies break the laws of the united states of america. department heads, cabinet heads, the head of the department of health and human services is required to execute the law, not to execute the will of the president. because the president is a president. he is not a king. what i am convinced of at this stage is as we see would i believe is a massive power grab

by donald trump and elon musk to not just execute the laws but to make the laws that mr. kennedy would be a part of that process, that he would be an enabler of that power grab that we see happening all over the country. and that is another reason why i cannot trust him. we wouldn't -- i want to take a look for a minute at the directives that president trump has gotten -- has put out already. let's take a look at these. these directives of stopping lawfully executed payments to health care organizations that are -- have been made following the will of congress, the people who are supposed to be making the laws in this country. i heard a lot about this from minnesota, huge amounts of concern reflected back to me in my office about what is actually

happening with the president's directives, basically directing to withhold funding that congress has authorized. i heard from minnesota's community health centers that they were going to begin doing layoffs because of this federal funding freeze. it was basically a massive cut that they're experiencing. community health centers are all over the country and in my home state of minnesota they be the place that individuals can go to get basic preventive health care. it is a very important part of our health care network. and yet many of these have come to me and said that they're basically going to be laying off providers and other folks that are providing direct care to patients. one community health center's ceo in greater minnesota outside of the metro area said that it was the worst day of his 38-year career when he got word of this freeze. now, i understand, mr. president, that this freeze has

been unfrozen for now, at least in some cases, though in other cases it seems like it's back on again. in fact, i hear repeatedly that it's off and on and off and on in some sort of chaotic and confusing dance that they have started. but these clinics are still facing real challenges about getting access to their federal funding. and this is threatening their operations. imagine if you were running a -- like a small belt strap -- bootstrap and small little health center and every day you are just trying to make payroll. you don't have millions of dollars sitting in your bank account waiting for a rainy day. every day is a rainy day and every day you're just trying to make it work. and there suddenly one of your most important ways of paying to provide health care to individuals has just evaporated overnight. so then what happens? because people still get sick. people still need health care even if you're unable to get it at a community health center. so what do they do? think about this.

right now in minnesota -- it's probably the same in west virginia and other parts of the country. minnesota emergency rooms are packed full of people who have the flu or rsv or norovirus. they go to the emergency rooms. you want to go to the emergency room when you really, really need emergency care. you go to a community health center when you need to be able to get access to urgent care but the care that you need right now. and what's happening is that because there is so much -- there's a lot -- there is a lot of illness. people are getting sick in the wintertime. it's like 20 below in minnesota right now. if they can't get their primary care in a doctor's office, in a clinic, they're going to end up in the effort r. then what happens -- in the e.r. then what happens to the rest of us who really might need emergency care. the e.r. is jammed to overflowing. there's no space. you have to wait five hours to get the care that you need.

that's what's happening with this funding that is being put in jeopardy. that means that community health centers might not be able to help the patients that they typically help. i'm not talking about a small number of people here. that's 170,000 people in minnesota who rely on community health centers. and what's going to happen, those folks are going to end up in emergency rooms. and that's going to increase wait times and it's going to stress the capacity of hospitals to provide care that people need. president trump did this. robert f. kennedy if he were head of health and human services, i have no reason to trust that he would stop this. in fact, i believe the opposite. i believe he would enable it. and this is why i think his nomination will end up making all of us less healthy and less safe and less secure. president trump in another example unlawfully cut national

institute of health grant funding earlier this week. this amounts to millions of dollars that supports lifesaving research into alzheimer's and cancer and parkinson's disease. i'm just talking in minnesota there. this was retro active. it happened overnight. hospitals are left struggling. big research hospitals like the university of minnesota and the mayo clinic are suddenly looking at massive cuts to their research. they have trials for important treatments and cures for serious diseases that are suddenly thrown into chaos. and you have individuals who are part of those trials who are hopeful that they're getting to be getting -- they're hopeful in some way this is going to help them find a cure for what disease is ailing them. and with this cut to nih funding

overnight massive cuts, what does that mean for people's health, safety, and security. it means people are less well off. national institute of health is under the umbrella of the department of health and human services, the organization that mr. kennedy is asking congress to provide advice and consent on. again i have no confidence, in fact i am sure that mr. kennedy would be an enabler to president trump's power grab here and his undermining along with elon musk, his undermining of this extremely important research that keeps all of us -- helps us be healthy, helps us find the treatments and the cures for the diseases that are a threat to all of us. i see my colleague from massachusetts is here. i know she has an important perspective on this, with massachusetts being a -- another, as minnesota is,

another center of research and education and medical education, and i suspect that we agree with one another when it comes to the threat that robert f. kennedy poses to all of our health and well-being. so with that, mr. president, i will yield the floor to my colleague from massachusetts. ms. warren: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from massachusetts. ms. warren: thank you, mr. president. i want to say thanks to the senator from minnesota for her leadership on this point. i know that the great research institutions in minnesota that count on her support are out there fighting, thanks to donald trump, as they are in massachusetts. and the people all around this country, who rely on those research institutions, who are looking for those cures, for those better treatments, for those opportunities in their lives that right now donald trump and his co-president, elon musk, seem to want to cut off.

so we will stay in this fight. we will indeed. i am here today because americans didn't vote to bring back measles. americans didn't vote to bring back polio. americans didn't vote to bring back dangerous diseases we thought we had wiped out decades ago. americans didn't vote to get rid of critical vaccines that we know, based on science, we know save lives. but that is what robert kennedy jr.'s vision would mean for americans. that is the vision that donald trump will empower him to carry out. kennedy not only worked to u undercut vaccines at home and abroad, he's made a lot of money doing it. in fact, kennedy has made millions off peddling harmful conspiracy theories that hurt real people. he opposed the lifesaving covid

vaccine just six months into the pandemic. and he set himself up so that he and his family could make millions more from putting americans' health at risk. one thing is very clear, we cannot trust robert kennedy to make health care decisions that will affect every person in this country. right now millions of americans are sitting down for dinner with their kids, and i hope we just think for a minute about what rfk jr.'s plans would mean for them. will their teeth decay because kennedy took fluoride out of the water based on some conspiracy theory? will they have to worry about getting measles at school because kennedy is spreading anti-vax conspiracies on government letterhead? will parents have to risk their kids getting polio and maybe dying by sending them to day care because kennedy used his

hhs rules to open the door to a flood of bogus lawsuits that force manufacturers to pull the vaccines? here's the thing, robert kennedy has spent years on an anti-vaccine crusade, spreading baseless conspiracy theories under the guise of protecting children. so we don't need to guess the level of harm he will cause. his past already tells us everything we need to know. in july 2018, two children died immediately after receiving a measles vaccine that nurses had incorrectly mixed with a muscle relaxant. within weeks the samoan health ministry publicly confirmed the nursing error and charged the nurses with manslaughter. nevertheless, leading

anti-vaccine groups, including kennedy's own organization, children's health defense, ex ploppeded pluck -- exploited public fierce to question the reports and spread baseless claims. on oct. 5 -- on august 5, 2018, i'll quote the post, were these once healthy children the only two to receive mmr that day? if not, why were they the only ones to die? research needs to determine susceptibility so that no child is ever injured. del bigtree, kennedy's partner and former campaign manager, also released a video linking the tragedy to false claims about measles and telling his followers to, quote, share it with everyone you know. this is how we are changing the world. now, amidst public distrust and

a paused vaccine program in samoa, the vaccination rates mruchlted. about ten -- plummeted. about ten months later, once the samoan government had finally stood up against the disinformation and resumed the vaccine program, kennedy visited the island to meet with the prime minister. later, recognizing the blowback that comes with how much went wrong when a conspiracy theory cost people their lives, kennedy has since denied his visit had anything to do with vaccines and said anything suggesting otherwise was, quote, an industry propaganda trope. in other words, totally false, industry propaganda trope. kennedy lied. a blog post that kennedy himself wrote in 2021 admits that he

went to samoa to meet with the prime minister, who wanted to discuss the possibility of, quote, measuring health outcomes following the natural experiment created by the nation's respite from vaccines. think about what that means. another way to say it is that kennedy was interested in taking advantage of how the vaccination rate had plummeted, caused by misinformation, so that they could conduct uncontrolled trials on whether unvaccinated kids were healthier than vaccinated kids. a conspiracy theory that he had widely spread. you see, at the time, one of his traveling partners was working on a similar study with two anti-vaccine activists, which was ultimately retracted

following an investigation that, quote, raised several method logical issues -- methodological issues and confirmed this was not pectize up by strong data. the prime minister declined kennedy's outrageous proposal. he didn't want his country to be kennedy's guinea pig. he didn't want unvaccinated children to be studied to see what happened to them when measles or other diseases broke out. but that didn't stop kennedy from spreading his message. on this trip to samoa, he met with various anti-vaccine influencers, one of whom said the meeting was, quote, profoundly monumental for the movement. a few months after kennedy left, in october 2019, the vaccination

rate in samoa hit an historic low of 31%, down from 74% the prior year. and no surprise, a massive measles outbreak erupted. so here is kennedy telling us now, no, no, he had nothing, nothing to do with this, his trip to samoa had nothing to do with the measles vaccine and calling any claim industry propaganda trope. and yet he himself posted a blog about meeting with the prime minister and talking about a study to measure health outcomes following a natural experiment of studying children, some with no vaccination and some that were vaccinated? and the anti-vax groups he met with talked about how profoundly important it is. then mr. kennedy leaves,

vaccination rates drop down to 31%. the measles outbreak was truly tragic. in total, more than 70 children died. right up until a door-to-door vaccination campaign brought the disaster to an end. as hhs secretary, kennedy would be responsible for whether we keep our children vaccinated or subject them to, in his words, the same natural experiment that he was interested in testing in samoa. is that really what we want for our kids? is that what we want for our elderly parents? that is a living nightmare, and it could truly be our reality with kennedy heading up the department of health and human services. and all the while that this is going on, while kennedy is

promoting this anti-vax theory, he and his family are profiting off the plan. now, i've been sounding the alarm about kennedy since the minute donald trump announced that he would nominate him for hhs secretary. he's not just that he's unqualified. his long history of promoting anti-science conspiracy theories make him disqualified. this is a man who claimed, quote, there is no vaccine that is safe and effective. no vaccine. he said that the polio vaccine, quote, killed many, many more people than polio ever did. now, kennedy came to our committee and said, don't worry. he swears he is not anti

anti-vaccine. but he has spent years on an anti-vaccine crusade, spreading baseless conspiracy theories under the guise of protecting children and making millions of dollars in the process. and when, in senate hearings, he was confronted with his own wo words, he simply denied saying them, denied saying them, despite the videotapes, the transcripts, the blog posts and the people who heard them. kennedy thinks he knows what he needs to say to try to get the job that will put him in charge of our vaccine program. so he says he didn't say exactly what he said. kennedy's actions speak louder than his latest words, and time and time again kennedy has shown us who he is, an anti-science

conspiracy peddler who is willing to gamble with american lives. we know who he is. we need to pay attention. let's do a quick count of some of the ways that, as hhs secretary, kennedy could make the anti-vaccine lawsuits and his own payouts even bigger. what could kennedy do? well, as secretary of hhs he could publish his anti-vaccine conspiracies, but this time on u.s. government letterhead, something that might impress a jury in a subsequent trial. he could appoint people to the cdc vaccine panel who share his anti-vax views and let them do his dirty work. he could tell the cdc vaccine panel to remove a particular vaccine from the vaccination schedule. he could remove vaccines from a

special compensation program which, quote, would open up manufacturers to mass torts lawsuits. he could make more injuries eligible for compensation, even if there's no causal evidence. he could change vaccine court processes to make it easier to bring junk lawsuits that could get vaccines pulled from the market. he could turn over fda to his friends at the law firm, and they could use it however benefits their lawsuits. in short, as hhs secretary kennedy would have the power to make health care decisions that would affect millions of americans, working families work -- working americans, kids, seniors, on everything from vaccines to abortion to lifesaving drugs. kennedy would have the capacity as head of hhs to make it easier

to sue vaccine manufacturers, and in an area where the profit margins on vaccines are quite modest, if those lawsuits mount up vaccines could simply disappear from the market altogether. manufacturers could decide, you know, it's just not worth the lawsuits, we'll go produce other drugs. those kinds of decisions are critically important, and the consequences are grave. for many americans, they may be the difference between life or death and they can change lives forever. so while you and your family are forced to deal with grave consequences of kennedy's conspiracy-driven health care decisions, kennedy could set himself up to make millions of dollars off his anti-vaccine

crusade, just like he's been doing for decades. remember the very first ethics agreement that kennedy submitted to us on senate finance committee, he said that even while he served as secretary of hhs, he planned to keep a financial stake in ongoing litigation, including vaccine-related litigation. that means that from the jump, kennedy's plan was to keep making money off the backs of lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers, some of which directly related to the very products that he would have the power to regulate as secretary of hhs. so there he is, he has the power to regulate these drugs, he has the power to make life a little better or a little worse for the vaccine manufacturers. he has the power to make it more

likely that lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers would succeed, and his initial plan was even while he sat there as secretary of hhs, he was going to keep on making money from that. this was a damning conflict of interest, so we called it out. kennedy told us, okay, okay, he would submit an updated ethics agreement. sounds good? what was his update? he said instead of personally keeping the millions that he would make off these ongoing lawsuits, he would hand that money directly to his son. later he confirmed that the son he's handing his interest off to is the one who works at wizner baum, the same law firm that kennedy has maintained this very

lucrative arrangement with over the years, so far netting him a reported $2.5 million just in the last few years. and kennedy has made clear that he can use his tools as hhs secretary to open up the door for more antivaxx litigation. and once he's through as secretary of hhs, go right back to wizner balm and cash in on the new flood of cases that kennedy himself has unleashed. so that is kennedy's idea of fixing an ethics issue. and beyond that, kennedy has flip-flopped countless times in his answers to the finance committee. he is untrust worthy. he has made so many contradictory statements that has come to the point it is hard to believe anything he says is

true. for example, kennedy originally said he was not an attorney of record in any of these vaccine-related lawsuits, but we did a little homework and we found at least five cases related to the vaccine litigation that hadn't been disclosed where kennedy appears to be the attorney of record. that is important because what it means is that kennedy is a lot closer to these cases than he's revealing, cases that he and his family will be able to make bank off even as he serves as secretary of hhs. the importance of this litigation cannot be overstated. just 20 years ago we watched vaccine makers pull their products off the market because they didn't have protection from

these kinds of lawsuits. the consequence of kennedy's ability to make those lawsuits easier is also the ability to shut down access and manufacturing for vaccines for every one of us. and i think that is a terrible mistake. kennedy claims that he is taking on big pharma, but that is the lie he is peddling to hide his conflicts. i pressed him on real ways to take on the industry, including using march in on big pharma's patents when they use taxpayer funds to bring drugs to market and then turn around and jack up prices on hardworking americans. and by having the government negotiate prices directly with big pharma on behalf of medicare beneficiaries. but kennedy, after talking a big game about taking on big pharma,

said, no, he doesn't support march-in rights, and, no, he didn't want to commit to defending medicare price negotiations. two proven methods to take on the drug industry and put money back into americans' pockets. so whose side is he on? well, one thing for sure, rfk jr. is on the side of his own bottom line. he has also refused to share a list of cases that he stands to benefit from. i told you he said, no, he was not attorney of record on any cases. we dug around and we found five. how many more are there? well, here's what kennedy said when we said, just give us a list of the cases that you're participating in so we can take a look at the possible conflicts. his answer? the list is so long and the

conflicts so clear that evidently it would be more damning than what we already know. kennedy's list of ethics issues and financial issues are a mile long, and there's still too much that he refuses to reveal. think about this. he's already told us enough about his conflicts, about how he planned to keep making money even while he was secretary of hhs. he revealed all that right up front, said, yes, i'm going to make money while i'm secretary of hhs. and yet on basic questions like can you just give us a list of the cases that you participated in? he says, no, i can't do that, which really makes you ask what on earth is he l hiding. he is dodging questions from the senate. he is contradicting himself, and he keeps changing his answers in

order to muddy the waters and really make it hard to understand what's going on. look, no one is fooled here. kennedy has said he will, quote, slam shut the revolving door, end quote, between government agencies and the companies they regulate. but what he won't agree to is cut off his own family's steady stream of money flowing in from lawsuits that he personally can directly effect while he is secretary of hhs. kennedy knows that these conflicts are serious, and that's why he scrambled to update his ethics agreement and to hand off his interest to his son in a desperate attempt to fix things. but that simply isn't good enough when millions of americans' lives are hanging in

the balance. don't take it just from me. take it from the "wall street journal" editorial board. they wrote, quote, robert f. kennedy jr. pledged during his confirmation hearing to root out corruption between industry and government. yet the man who wants to be the nation's secretary of health and human services refused to rule out personally making money from lawsuits against drugmakers. this ought to be disqualifying. "the wall street journal," this ought to be disqualifying. it's simple. if kennedy wants to prove that he was serious about, quote, slamming the revolving door between industry and people making money from their positions in government, i laid out a list of commitments that

he should make immediately. senator wyden, the ranking member on the finance committee, and i wrote, quote, one, if confirmed as secretary, you will recuse yourself from all vaccination-related communications and decisions. given the breadsth of your involvement in vaccine litigation, it would ensure you and kwour family do not benefit financially from official government actions that you will oversee and control. such recusal will also ensure vaccine-related policy making and communications are not inappropriately skewed by your personal views at the expense of scientific evidence. that was part one that we wanted. part two, if confirmed as secretary, you will recuse yourself from all matters related to hhs regulated

entities that are involved in cases or litigation that you or your family have an interest in. this will help ensure, for example, that you could not leverage your position as secretary by conditioning a company's request regarding an unrelated matter. so, for example, an fda approval, on such company agreeing to settle an antivaxx case in which you or your family have a financial interest. part three, if confirmed as secretary, you will not litigate cases involving vaccines, represent parties in vicp-related cases, or have a financial interest in such litigation or cases for at least four years after leaving office. as secretary, you would be in a position to influence future anti-vaccine cases and

litigation in ways that would benefit you personally after leaving hhs. for example, you could direct the cdc to remove a vaccine from the vaccine schedule, change vaccine labeling requirements or make procedures in special vaccine court more advantageous for the plaintiffs. then if you leave hhs and immediately return to litigating against vaccine makers, you would stand to profit from rules you reshape. this commitment would further mitigate the appearance of a conflict of interest while you are in office. these commitments will help ensure that you do not have a direct or indirect financial incentive to interfere with hhs's vaccine proceedings or other matters involving the

manufacturer of guardacil or any other hhs related entity. in other words, we laid out a path where he could avoid conflicts of interest. if he wants to serve his country and not his own pocketbook, we've shown him a way that he can do this. senator kaine and i followed up on this and wrote to kennedy, quote, at your senate confirmation hearing, you pledged to, quote, remove the financial conflicts of interest in hhs agencies, close quote. continuing back with our letter, you should start by mitigating your own conflicts of interest, including by, one, relinquishing your direct and indirect financial interest in matters over which you will have power at hhs. two, recusing yourself from matters involving your former

clients, former employers, or entities in which you have a financial interest. and, three, for at least four years after you leave office, committing to not lobbying hhs, litigating cases against pharmaceutical companies and manufacturers, or joining the industries or entities that you interact with at hhs. end quote. nerd, we showed you another way that you can get this done. and, look, this is just common sense. l and i would hope that my republican colleagues would agree, our hhs nominee should not have ongoing lucrative agreements that enable his immediate family to line their pockets while he influences health care decisions that impact millions of americans.

it's not just a tax on vaccines that we have to worry about from the trump administration. in the middle of the night last friday, donald trump announced deep cuts to the national institutes of health l funding, which powers the lifesaving research and medical breakthroughs at universities and medical institution the across the country. and especially in my home state of massachusetts. these trump cuts will stop research that is working to help cure diseases. it will force people who are working now to lose good jobs, and it will literally threaten people's lives. as head of hhs, kennedy would oversee the national institutes of health, and he would green-light trump's plan to cut -- gut the agency. and he has made no commitments

to protect the critical lifesaving research that nih funds and maybe that should be no surprise, given his years of attacking basic scientific facts. listen to what experts have had to say about what these cuts will mean for families across america. quote, people are not able to do their work if there isn't an infrastructure. this will have a huge impact on health research in this country. end quote. quote, we're all reeling. this would decimate medical research, end quote. quote, this is a sure-fire way to cripple lifesaving research and innovation. america's competitors will relish this self-inflicted wound. end quote. one expert said, quote, if

you're cancer patient in a clinical trial, it's not a theoretical undertaking. it's a treatment. for so many rare diseases and illnesses where research is already underfunded like childhood cancer, researchers have said, quote, if it's not federal funding, there's nowhere else to go. that's a real impact in the short term and the long term. i don't know how you make that up. these funding cuts are putting scientists in the position where they have to default on the promises they made, promises they made to people to join their studies, promises they made to other researchers to join them, promises they made to build up the labs and build up the work that would make a difference in our world. when the nih and nsf put out their solicitations, their asking for critical scientific

research to be done on behalf of the american people. that research cures diseases and saves lives. and the institutions who apply for these solicitations are saying enthusiastically, yes, we can do that. yes, we share that dream. yes, we believe that we can make a better product, that we can make a better medicine, that we can make a better treatment for people who are suffering, and we want to be part of that. and now, here we are in chaos and confusion, and the united states government is trying to break that contract. americans will suffer because of it. this is trump's plan for americans' health, and kennedy will be a rubber stamp for whatever donald trump wants to

do. let's talk just a little bit more about that covid vaccine. remember how in the dead of the pandemic hundreds of millions of americans were counting on that vaccine as the light at the end of the tunnel and how when we were shut away from our friends and family and trying to keep ourselves and our communities safe, that vaccine allowed us to come together again, how that vaccine saved countless more lives that otherwise would have been lost to covid? well, just make sure you know, kennedy tried to stop you and your family from having access to the covid vaccine. i'll just read a little portion of one of the articles from last month on this. quote, robert f. kennedy jr., president-elect donald trump's choice to lead the nation's health agencies, formally asked the food and drug administration to revoke authorization of

all -- all -- covid vaccines during a deadly phase of the pandemic, when thousands of americans were still dying every week. mr. kennedy filed a petition with the fda in may 2021 demanding that officials rescind authorization for the shots and refrain from approving any covid vaccine in the interim. just six months earlier, mr. trump had declared the covid vaccines a miracle. at the time mr. kennedy filed a petition, half of american adults were receiving their shots, schools were starting to reopen, and churches were filling. estimates had begun to show that the rapid rollout of covid vaccines had already saved 140,000 lives in the united states. the petition was filed on behalf of the nonprofit that mr. kennedy founded and led, children's health defense, which we've talked about earlier.

they claim the risk of vaccines wowed weighed the benefits and they weren't necessary because good treatments were available, including ivermectin and -- i just can't believe this -- high crock chlorquinine, which had already been deemed ineffective against the virus. the petition received little notice when it was filed. mr. kennedy was then on the fringes of the public health establishment, and the agency denied it within months. public health experts told about the filing said it was truly i want to underscore this one because mr. kennedy is saying now -- not only is he saying, he's not an anti-vaxxer, he's saying he wants you to still be able to vaccinate your children, if you want to do that. and yet look at mr. kennedy's own actions. mr. kennedy tried to stop all of

us, everyone in america, from getting access to the covid vaccine. he cites junk science. it was already known to be junk science at the time that he cites it. he cites junk science in order to say, not just that he doesn't want to take the vaccine or not just that he doesn't want to give it to his kids, but he didn't want anybody in america to get that. so that's the man that the republicans will be voting on to decide whether or not he makes health care policy in the united states, someone who is continuing to line his own pocket with lawsuits against vaccine manufacturers and someone who has tried to stop at least one vaccine from being distributed to anyone anywhere in america. look, when kennedy says he doesn't believe in vaccines, which he has said many times,

believe him. when his attempt at fixing his ethics issue is passing his stake to his son, believe him. when he says he will do whatever donald trump wants on abortion, believe him. don't say no one will let him go that far because they will let him go that far. republicans voting for kennedy know exactly who they are voting for, someone who spreads baseless conspiracy theories, someone who profits off making our kids sicker, someone who will do whatever donald trump tells him to do, whether it's cutting off cancer research funding or banning abortion medication. let us be very clear when it comes to your health and your well-being and the health and well-being of your friends, your

family, your community -- kennedy is disqualified, dangerous, and cannot be given the power to make critical health care decisions. i urge my colleagues to vote no on his nomination. and i see that senator kaine is here. senator kaine has been a tireless partner in the fight to help protect the nation's health care system, and i appreciate your being here tonight, senator kaine. thank you. mr. kaine: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from virginia. mr. kaine: mr. president, i rise and i'm so happy that i follow my colleague from massachusetts. i will build upon some of the points that she has made, but we have served as colleagues together on the health, education, labor, pension committee during earlier terms of congress, and you won't find a better champion for the health of the american public than senator warren.

i stand to continue the dialogue about robert f. kennedy jr. and his unfitness for the position that -- to which he's been nominated, secretary of health and human services. and i'll give you the punchline, mr. president, but then go into it in some detail. i don't believe mr. kennedy can separate fact from fiction. i don't believe wilmr. kennedy separate conspiracy from content. now, you wouldn't want someone suffering from that challenge in any position of leadership at any level of government -- local, state, or federal. but this particular position, the secretary of health and human services, one of the most important positions in the nation as it respects people's physical and mental health, is exactly the wrong kind of a position for wsomeone who can't tell fact or fiction or content from conspiracy.

because the american public need to be able to rely on hhs and other critical agencies for information that is not just about the state of their savings account or housing costs. this is about life and death. this is about life and death many. life and death. i want to talk about two elements of robert f. kennedy jr. my colleagues have been going into many of them -- that lead me to the conclusion that here's a guy that can't separate fact from fiction. the first was ably described by senator warren and that is mr. kennedy's skepticism about vaccines. now, i know many of my colleagues have tried this in their speeches today. so i'm not going to go into the breadth of his vaccine skepticism. i am going to talk about one vaccine in particular that is made in virginia -- gardasil. i represent the commonwealth of

virginia. there is a facility in the shenandoah valley near harrisonburg that makes gardasil, the vaccine that has been effective, significantly effective, in preventing and reducing the incidence of serving cal -- cervical cancer. vaccines do a lot of different things. but a vaccine that can prevent cancer is truly, truly revolutionary. cervical cancer and other associated cancers, very significant challenges to men and women. in the early 200's, the -- in the early 200 oas, the -- in the early 250 t-000's, the fda approved several pled since. a couple years ago back a as a member of the help committee, i went to the plant and talked to the workers and saw the pride

that they have in being abling to develop a product that has had such significant impact around the world. when i was governor of virginia with two republican houses, we acted to have a mandate around gardasil vaccination, around cervical cancer vaccination. there were other cancer vaccine manufacturers as well. by making it mandatory, we enabled people to access it for free. we allow any parent or student that doesn't want to receive the vaccine to opt out with no excuse. but we have made it widely available in virginia where one of three -- in virginia. we're one of three states to have done this and it has had a tremendous, positive benefit on folks's health. so this is a relatively new vaccine. it started and got approval and began to be deployed significantly about 15 years ago. and even in 15 years, the results have been remarkable. and i want to just share with my colleagues and with the public

some of the results of between 15 and 20 years of hpv conserve cal cancer -- cervical cancer vaccination. i will ashow you that this is nt a question of significant medical controversy. a publication that is one of the signature publications, health care publications, in england is called the lancet, and there was an article in the lancet in february of 2020 entitled "the impact of hpv vaccination on cervical cancer. this looked at data from 78 countries. the researchers that examined this data were from england, china, france, canada, and switzerland. and their research analyzing the data of hundreds of thousands of

patients in 78 countries concluded that, quote, high hpv vaccination coverage of girls can lead to cervical cancer elimination in most low-income and lower middle-income countries by the end of the century. fancy that. eliminating cancer with a vaccine. the data from 78 countries. the u.s. centers for disease control and prevention website, c cdc.gov, has a section, the impact of the hpv vaccine. quote, among teen girls, infections with hpv types that causes most hpv cancer and gental warts dropped 8% of the vaccine. there was an article published,

effects of hpv being a nation developed on hpv -- these are physicians who work in the clinical oncology area. this is what they reached, males vaccinated for hpv were at decreased odds for hpv cancers, females vaccinated with hpv vaccine had lower cases of hpv. the journal of the national cancer institute published a study, invasive cervical cancer incidents following the hpv vaccination, studying the health care results of people following vaccination. this was just studied last year, published last year and let me read you the quote. no cases of invasive cancer were recorded in women immunized at

12 or 13 years of age, irrespective of the number of doses, women vaccinated at 22 to 23 years of age showed a significant reduction in incidents compared with unvaccinated women. again, those first two words, no cases of invasive cancer were recorded in women who were vaccinated and studied in scotland in this study that came out in 2024. another article in the lancet, looked at not 78 countries, but looked amount the effect of hpv vaccinations in england. this was published in 2021. quote, the l -- hpv vaccination program in the u.k. has almost successfully eliminated cervical

cancer in women born since 1995. the elimination of cervical cancer, to cases of invasive cancer. there was a study done in australia in 2013 by bmc medicine, it was entitled population of an hpv program. this was relatively early in the mass vaccination because gardasil and the other vaccinations weren't used until the mid-200's. and here is the conclusion about the australians experience. they were the first to introduce a national hpv program commenced in 2007. it significantly reduced cervical abnormalities with the greatest vaccine effectiveness

observed in the youngest women. the new england journal of medicine, which is in many ways the gold standard of the united states, published a study in sweden. quote, among swedish girls and women hpv vaccination was natured with a substantially reduced risk of invasive cervical cancer at the population level. those are the studies by the researchers in the journals but i also wondered, i'm not a great scientist, i don't generally read health journals, what about those who provide health advice to everyday americans. i went to the website of the mayo clinic, here's what they say, hpv vaccine, who needs it, how it works, on their website, getting vaccinated against hpv helps prevent cancer in men and women, period, no qualification,

no waffling, no wobbling, that's the advice the mayo clinic gives to their patients and all to go to their clinic. the cleveland clinic, another nationally known cleveland clinic, the web site says as follows. the hpv vaccine is an injection that prevents infections of two types of human -- of the virus, it lowers your risk of getting the cancer. mdm international hospital -- nd anderson.orring -- organization, all males and me fails age -- females should get the vaccine it is a safe protection against

the hpv infection. i read a variety of researchers from a variety of countries all pointing to the effectiveness of hpv vaccinations that lead to cancer and other serious medical conditions. but what does robert f. kennedy jr. say? he has said that the vaccination is one of the most dangerous vaccines ever created. he has said it is dangerous and defective. in one of his website articles, he said that it is inescapable that gardasil kills girls. this prevents cervical cancer, robert f. kennedy jr. with no medical training or scientific research background, he claims otherwise, he cannot separate

content from conspiracy. now, is that just because his brain doesn't wrap itself around facts or is there something more serious? i needn't repeat at length what my colleague senator warren said, but she laid out the facts that robert f. kennedy jr. has a massive financial stake in lawsuits against the manufacturer of hpv vaccine. he disclosed it on his things form -- ethics if there are recoveries from hpv action nation in lawsuits, he's entitled to 10% of the recovery. in massive class action lawsuits. when we pressed him in the hearing, first he said he wasn't going to give up that 10% stake, but he eventually felt some pressure so he transferred it to his adult son. his family stands to gain significantly if these lawsuits

hit. as director of hhs, he would have the aeblt to have huge influence on the vaccine injury compensation program. vaccine manufacturers get an immunity from civil suit and telecases gone through the vaccine compensation court and that was put in place many years ago because the number of hpv manufacturers were in free fall because they were getting hit with big lawsuits. so there is a special court that focuses any arguments against vaccines in these courts, he would have significant ability to even remove immunity protection from the manufacturers of vaccines, and if you remove immunity protection, the value of lawsuits goes up, and the value of his family's 10% stake goes up. this should cause everyone serious concern about putting someone in who stands without any medical training against the

weight of medical evidence saying that vaccination against cervical cancer is a remarkable thing that should be done and has been successful since the m mid-2000's. i'm going to conclude in a minute because my able colleague from colorado is here, but i want to raise one more issue. i want to raise one more issue. this inability to tell the difference between fact and figures -- fact and fiction and content and conspiracy would be dangerous enough if it was just about vaccines, that should disqualify robert f. kennedy jr. from being hhs secretary. but this individual's inability to tell the difference fact and fiction and conspiracy and content is not limited just to

health. in july of 2024, when he was running for president of the united states, robert f. kennedy jr. tweeted this. my take on 9/11, it's hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn't, but conspiracy theoriys flourish when the government lies to the public. as president i won't take sides on 9/11 or any of the other debates. but i can promise is that i will open the files and usher in a new era of transparency. i won't take sides on 9/11. i represent the commonwealth of virginia. the pentagon was attacked on 9/11. the world trade center in new york was attacked on 9/11. a plane went down in a farm field in pennsylvania on 9/11. a lot of of virginia -- a lot of

virginia families lost loved ones that day. i know people who were in the pentagon on 9/11 who had race through a burning building who had to go to the child care center to medicare sure their -- to make sure their child was safe. i don't take it very well when someone says they won't take sides about 9/11, when someone admits it is hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn't. i asked robert f. kennedy jr., is this a common problem for you? that's kind of a candid thing to admit -- it's hard to what sw a conspiracy theory and what isn't. no it's not. it's not hard for virginians to understand what happened on 9/11. they lost loved ones. they went to funerals, their families members -- family members never came home and in the aftermath of 9/11, we were in 20 years of war where tens of thousands of virginians were

deployed to battle against autocracy, the perpetrators of 9/11, and many lost their lives then. i won't take sides on 9/11? well, what side is there? what side is he talking about? i mean, it's a bad thing. does he think it's a good thing? it was an attack by oh, -- osamn laden this is dated july 2024. it was 23 years after 9/11. 23 years after 9/11 for some reason on july 5, he just, well, why don't i just share with people that i won't take sides on 9/11. that i still can't tell 23 years later what is a conspiracy

theory and what isn't. if you cannot tell what happened on 9/11, if you decide to just freelance an opinion 23 years later and tell the american public, and he's running for president at the time, i will not take sides on 9/11, you should not have been nominated for this position in the first place. and i am finding it very hard to believe that my colleagues in this body, who i've sat with on the armed services committee, who i've sat with on the foreign relations committee, who have invested their time and energy in making investments to battle terrorism around the world, to battle al qaeda and the group that perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, many of my colleagues served in the military and were deployed in the war on terror in the aftermath of 9/11, they're now going to be okay with a guy

who says he won't take sides on 9/11, who says he can't tell the difference between a conspiracy theory and what isn't. this is a very, very dangerous vote that we will cast tomorrow. of any position in the federal government that needs somebody who can tell the difference between fact and fiction conspiracy and consent, hhs secretary is that position. and robert f. kennedy jr. so badly flunks the test of what is needed, careful, reasoned, information in a people can count on, that i urge my colleagues, even if you voted in a committee, even if you voted on a procedural resolution to move to this -- to move this to the floor, stop now. you can still stop now. don't hurt this country. don't hurt the health of this country by putting someone in

office who can't even understand what happened on 9/11. with that, mr. president, i yield the floor. mr. bennet: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from colorado. mr. bennet: thank you, mr. president. i would like to take the time to welcome the president to the u.s. senate. i haven't had a chance to do that as you sit in the chair. we're now going to get somebody else but thank you for being here. and i also want to thank my colleague from the commonwealth of virginia, senator kaine, for his heartfelt remarks. you know, it is -- i think we are through the looking glass in many ways, and there's a pattern here that is reflected in what you are talking about, this idea of being able to tell the difference between fact and fiction. fact and fiction.

i know that when you were the mayor of richmond, it probably was pretty important for people that were working with you to know the difference between fact and fiction. when you're the governor of the commonwealth of virginia, probably was pretty important for you to do that as well. and it does seem like in president trump's administration, he wants to -- he's really at war with the facts. and trying to muddle what is fact and fiction, to be kind about it. i can't think of a time, mr. president, in the history of this country when families have wanted to know more about what is real and what is false, what their kids, what is real and what is fault. i was the superintendent of schools in denver as the senator from virginia knows, and it is a great irony that at a time when parents want their kids to be able to distinguish between what's real and what's false

because of all the falsehoods that are coming over social media and other places, the president has decided to nominate the head of the wwe to be the secretary of education in this administration. and you're talking about the inability of bobby kennedy to pick which side he was on and when it came to what happened on 9/11, it reminds me exactly of the situation with congressman gabbard who decided over and over and over again that she was going to choose not america's side but our adversaries' side, whether it was the chemical weapons in syria. i mean, hard to even contemplate that or the fact that at 12:30 at night or i guess it was 11:30 at night, literally the night that putin invaded ukraine, a country that was at peace, crossing a peaceful border, the

first time a tyrant had done that in europe since world war ii when the u.s. had led the international and global order that created these incredibly important institutions, nato being one of those. and she had to reach out at 11:30 at night to basically mimic the talking points from vladimir putin. and i'm not saying that she was, you know, a russian spy or anything. i'm just saying it's the same stuff that he was using. two days later the russian propaganda television in moscow was running that stuff on the tv in moscow. and so i think it really does matter that people are telling the truth to the american people and that we're possible -- where there are differences of opinion, that we try to get to the bottom of the truth. there are a lot of reasons to have differences of opinion.

we live in a democracy. and we have the freedom to have differences of opinion. we have freedom to have different understanding of the facts, but we need to be pretty certain about that when it comes to public health, when it comes to the health care in this cou country. mr. president, we live in the richest country in the world. we are blessed to live in the richest country in the world. if you look at the -- our national wealth as a function of our population, there is nobody who is remotely even close to us. that is, the reflection of an economy that has been much more dynamic than economies across the world. innovation is much more dynamic. and i would say a culture that is not beset by corruption in the way many countries around the world are. but even though we are the

richest country in the world and the richest per capita, shockingly we have some of the worst health outcomes of any country. that's wealthy. we have the lowest life expectancy among large, wealthy companies. we have the highest maternal mortality rate than any other high income country in the world and it's getting worse every single year. we have the highest hospitalization rates for conditions like congestive heart failure and diabetes and asthma. of all of our peer countries. we spend twice as much per capita as any other industrialized country for worse results. it's a bad deal for patients and it's a terrible deal for taxpayers. and this isn't just about our

physical health. we've got the highest suicide rate among high-income countries. we have the second highest drug-related death rate among high-income countries. we have some of the lowest numbers of mental health practitioners per capita in many parts of the country and my own home state of colorado there are entire counties that really don't have any mental health expertise at all. and at a time when there's an epidemic in our country, i would say especially among young people, that's a shameful failure on our part. americans in every corner of our country are getting sicker in 2025. they're spending more on health care. they're traveling further and they're waiting longer to see fewer doctors. mr. president, my -- the citizens of colorado i can tell you are deeply, deeply unhappy

with our health care system, deeply unhappy. and i'll actually say, you know, i was here when we passed the affordable care act in the obama years. and it has not fixed the issues that we're facing. my constituents when they think about health care, they think about scarcity. they think about the unavailability of drugs that their moms and dads have been prescribed but they either can't get or they can't afford, even though it's been prescribed, unlike other countries around the world, this is a nation where our senior citizens actually spend their retirement going from pharmacy to pharmacy to pharmacy to get the drugs they've been prescribed by a doctor. to be able to get the inhaler that will keep them healthy so that they don't end up in the emergency room. this is a country unlike our compe

competitors where it is very common for moms and dads to spend two years, three hours, four hours on the phone with an insurance company denying their claim, their legitimate claim for their kid. this is a country, as i mentioned where we do not have ready access to mental health care which people living in other countries far less wealthy than we are have as a reasonable expectation of being a citizen of that country. and when we're in the midst of a mental health care crisis like this, unlike many of the other cabinet positions we're going to fill, and for some of them it's true as well, the secretary of health and human services is a job of life and death. that's why mr. kennedy's confirmation i think would be so dangerous. we are on the precipice of

allowing a practice trafficker of vaccine conspiracy theory admitted of these theories to administer health care to over 29 million children in america who receive routine lifesaving vaccines through medicaid, a man who has made his fame and fortune by treating our most vulnerable children as his personal science experiment. mr. kennedy has peddled both science that claims vaccines cause autism, showing confusion and fear and causing heartbreak among parents who are now afraid to vaccinate their kids because they're so worried that it's going to cause autism, that they won't have a vaccine for their kid for fear that they -- fear

of autism. but the failure to get that vaccine means their kids are exposed to profoundly important childhood and serious childhood illnesses. and he makes his claims with incredible conviction. he's not shy about it. he claimed that the measles vaccines, quote, poisoned an entire generation of children. and when further -- and went further to say that the only thing that cures measles is nutrition and clean water. before the measles vaccines was developed in the 1960's, hundreds of millions of kids died every year and measles is a completely preventable disease with two vaccines administered in childhood. without it measles can spread like wildfire leashing behind serious complications, like blindness and encephalitis. we don't know that. we don't remember that because the pages that are on this floor

can't remember a time when we weren't having measles vaccine in the united states of america. it would be a very different world if we hadn't had them. but we do. doctors in sub-saharan africa where measles run rampant describe children dying from this preventable disease and dire warnings they're now sending to the united states. the cdc warns that kindergarten mmr vaccine rates have dropped below the 95% threshold needed to prevent worldwide measles outbreaks. as i stand here tonight, mr. president, as you sit here tonight, five states have reported measles cases. an outbreak in gains county, texas, has rapidly grown to 24 reported cases, all of them vaccinated -- unvaccinated children. nine are in the hospital. nine of these children are in

the hospital. vaccine exemptions in gains county are among the highest in the state of texas. 7.5% of gains county kindergartners have vaccine exemptions. that's almost 20%. it's not just that -- it's not just mr. kennedy's vaccine conspiracies that are of grave concern, however. he spent 50 years muddying the water of scientific consensus with half truths and misinformation and bad science. in his hearing before the finance committee, mr. kennedy showed an alarming inability to answer simple questions about his past statements. he appeared to have selected memory regarding some of his most outlandish claims. i asked him, mr. president, point blank about his claims that covid-19 was a genetically

engineered bioweapon, a genetically -- these are his words. genetically engineered bioweapon that targets black and white people, but spared ash nazi jews -- ashkenazi jews and chinese people. he never denied this, never denied he said it. instead pointed to a debunked theory study as proof of these claims. i asked him further based on what he said, again quoting him, did you say lime disease is a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon? to they answered, i probably did. i probably did say that lime disease was a militarily bioengineered weapon. how can we consider someone for the highest health office in the country who believes in america's own military engineered lime disease and uses it as a weapon against us?

what could go wrong? he said on his podcast that exposure to pesticides could cause children to become transgender, a statement he claims not to remember, but he said it. it's on the record. he insisted he forgot writing in his own book that it's, quote, undeniable that african aids is an entirely different disease from western aids and could provide no explanation for this false statement either. mr. kennedy likes to talk about the need for more research. in fact, that was his answer to many of my colleagues' questions. he even told me to look at an nih study when he asked him about some of his unfounded claims about covid-19. now, the nih, as you know, is under attack tonight as we're

here and all mr. kennedy has to say about that is that he'll look into that. the nih is the gold standard worldwide for scientific research and innovation. the university of colorado is telling me, mr. president, that the system could lose $85 million a year in research dollars to study alzheimer's, brain injuries, mental illness and heart disease. if confirmed, mr. kennedy would oversee nih. i guess i really think, mr. president, that we could do better than a known peddler of junk science for our -- to run the most important medical research in the country.

as a vaccine denier, the best we can do for our doctors who are working around the clock, and our nurses too, in the midst of the worst flu outbreak in 15 years. as a man who became a millionaire many times over by claiming vaccines cause autism, the best we really can do for our kids, do we really want parents making the choice that is unsafe for them and for their communities because people at the highest offices in the country are making false statements about science? out of 330 million americans, mr. president, we can surely do better than this. i appreciate the presiding officer's patience, and i yield the floor.

mr. kim: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from new jersey. mr. kim: mr. president, i rise today because there is nothing, nothing that keeps a parent up at night like the health of their child. it doesn't matter if you're a democrat or a republican, if you live in the reddest rural areas or the bluest cities. one of the things that bind us as americans, as people is that every parent looks at their kids and wants to know that they're doing everything that they can to keep them safe. let me tell you, that's not an easy task.

i'm a father of a 7-year-old and a 9-year-old. two little boys. and i every day wonder am i doing the right thing for them? am i being the kind of father that they deserve? am i looking out and being thoughtful about what they eat, about whether or not i'm keeping up with their health and that they're exercising. and like most families, i can tell you it's tough to know that you're always doing the best thing for your kids. but like most families, we do what we can, my wife and i we try our very best. but we don't have all of the answers. how many parents out there, when your kid gets sick, and it's too late in the night to find a way to call the doctor or the nurse, you're trying to figure out where to turn to for information, where do we go when it is that we feel like we've reached the limits of our own

personal knowledge and we need to find a place that we can trust? that's what this is about. it's about knowing that there's someone you can trust when you feel like you don't know where else to turn. that someone can have your back, and that you can trust that they have your best interests at heart. when we think about our doctors, when we think about our nurses, our health professionals, we think about those making decisions in this great nation of over 330 million people about our health care, we want to trust those individuals, these people that are making these decisions. and i know for the people of new jersey, over 9 million people there in the state of new jersey, they are wondering who they can trust. we live in tough times.

in fact, we live in the greatest amount of distrust that we've ever seen in the modern history of this country, and that is most pronounced, most clear when it comes to our health. one of those people we need to trust our most in the country is the person who runs the department of health and human services. mr. president, i rise today because i have met with robert f. kennedy jr. i've questioned mr. kennedy in committee i have read his statements and examined his record. and i want to say here on the floor of the senate that he is not someone i can trust with my kids' health, and in good conscience i cannot vote for him. if i cannot trust him with the health of my own kids, how could i ask the families of nine

million other new jerseyans to do it, or for families across our country to trust this man. i've had the chance to be able to meet him, talk to him in person, ask him questions. that is more than most ever anyone in my own state is going to have a chance to talk to him. i took that as a deep responsibility, to try to use that time and that opportunity, to try to deduce whether or not this man rises to the level of trust that i think the people of new jersey and this country deserve. and i've come to the conclusion that i cannot support mr. kennedy to lead an agency in charge of our nation's health, that he has too often diminished that trust and the very health care that he would be in charge of, and too often has spread disinformation about the

diseases and challenges and threats that we face. now, what you would hear from his supporters is a story of an advocate for change. they'll tell you that he's fighting against a broken system, that he simply wants to make america healthy. look, i think all of us hopefully can say we want to make america healthy, that we care about the health of americans across this nation. i don't think anyone in this chamber would disagree that there are broken problems that we face when it comes to our health care, to our government, to so many aspects of our society. but unfortunately, like most things coming out of this current administration, what we are seeing is corruption and conspiracy disguised as false promises of change. it's important that we take this moment to call it out and to expose it, to explain to the american people why this is a

position, secretary of health and human services is a position where trust is so important, because if he's confirmed mr. kennedy will have an incredible platform, well beyond the strong platform that he already has developed, a bully pu pulpit. this would be an official platform of the united states, of our government, paid for by the taxpayers, to shape the health of my children and yours. let's begin with the agency he's nominated to lead. hhs employs more than 80,000 people across the united states and around the world. their mission is simple, to enhance the health and well-being of all americans, and to put that another way, their job is to make it easier for parents to sleep at night by making sure their kids can stay healthy. now, i'm not going over every one of the 13 operating divisionles of hhs, but let me name a few you've probably heard

of. the centers for disease control and prevention. they're on the front lines of preventing the next pandemic. the centers for medicare and medicaid services. they operate medicare, medicaid, the children's health insurance program, otherwise known as chip, and the health insurance marketplaces. all of these provide health care for more than 100 million americans, including my mother and my father who are under medicare. that's about one in thee people -- one in three people under the services of centers for medicare and medicaid services. then there is the food and drug administration, or the fda. you probably know them because when there's some sort of outbreak that impacts the food supply, they issue the recalls. they do a lot of other stuff too, from improving new medicines to countering bioterrorism. now, those are three of the divisions you've heard of. maybe you sfwrant heard of the -- haven't heard of the national institutes for health, an agency at the cutting edge of

medical research, not just in this nation but around the world. or the substance abuse and mental health services administration, an agency that combats the real addiction and mental health crisis our country is facing. the lakewood community service corporation in lakewood, new jersey, received a $2.5 million grant to improve mental health care in one of our state's fastest growing services. cape may county council on alcoholism and drug abuse received a $300,000 grant to tackle substance abuse issues in south jersey. both important causes my colleagues from both sides of the aisle can agree to support. finally, the administration for children and families. whether you've heard of it or not, you or someone you know probably is touched by it. it's the second largest agency in hhs, and incorporates the agency that manages -- it's the agent sit that manages temporary assistance for needy families,

head start, child care, foster care programs. i wanted to outline all of this because i want to -- you to understand the enormity of the task ahead of the next hhs secretary. this is not just someone who can walk in and say we need to be healthy again. this is someone who will be tasked with operating programs on a day-to-day basis, that mean the very life and death of over a third of all americans. so when i say that trust is important, it's not just the buzzword. who do you trust with your health? who do you trust with your children's health? who do you trust with your parents' health as they age and face challenges of physical and cognitive decline? let's look at some of the things that show why we should not trust mr. kennedy. one of the first things many parents have to deal with, vaccines, a lot of us have had to hold our kids through those

vaccines. we talk to our pediatricians, people we trust, and they dawk to us about the importance of making sure our kids are protected. mr. kennedy has used his stature to push lawsuits he certainly -- personally stands to profit from, including over a common vaccine given to children. throughout all of this, mr. kennedy has claimed he is, quote, not anti-vaccine. while it's clear we cannot trust him, what's even more clear is that his deception has had a real impact on the lives of people. mr. kennedy pushed the distrust in samoa that are led to the measles epidemic that claimed the lives of the 83 people, mostly under the age of 5. kennedy said, quote, we don't know what was killing them, the samoa samoan general of health called his words a total fabrication,

saying if mr. kennedy is confirmed he would be, quote, a danger to us, a danger to everyone. that is not someone we can trust. mr. kennedy in a speech on the senate floor in the 1960's, then senator john f. kennedy said that, quote, the treatment of its older citizens is said by anthropologiy -- anthropologiss one of the test of how civilized a nation has become. i broaden that test to be our most vulnerable, our neighbors targeted simply because of who they are. when mr. kennedy spreads false claims like the covid-19 virus was engineered to spare jewish americans and asians, he used the trust that he has been given to divide and spread anti-semitism and anti-asian hate. when mr. kennedy in response to the questions asked of him by members of this body refused to acknowledge the importance of

taking commonsense steps in our foster care system to protect trans youth, he said that the trust -- he uses the trust he's been given to divide and spread hate and fear. that is not someone we can trust. mr. president, my reasons for opposing mr. kennedy's nomination doesn't just come from the concerns i have for my children. it comes from an understanding i have for my parents. a little over 50 years ago, my parents came to america from south korea to start a better life. they did so by working to keep americans healthy. my father earned a ph.d. and became a genetic researcher, trying to cure cancer and alzheimer's. my mother worked as a nurse in hospital systems across new jersey. they worked hard to earn the trust of people around them, their colleagues, their pa patients, that they had worked on every single day. also the trust that they had in the people around them for their own health.

my father was a polio survivor. my mother struggled with lyme disease. they've had their fair share of health struggles. through them i've seen a common denominator that our public health system only works with people working together with trust, and that we the public in turn trust them. when i hear mr. kennedy say this about lyme disease, he said, quote, another thing that keeps us from enjoying the outdoors and keeps us locked inside, and the idea that this may have been, is highly likely to have been a military weapon. now, we cannot say 100% for sure, but we do know that they were experimenting with tics there. the american lyme disease foundation wrote some claim it was introduced by a man-made strain that escaped from a high contamination, contaminant,

biological warfare lab on plum island. said that there is ample evidence to indicate that both the tics as well as the bacteria causing lyme disease well before the plum island facility was established. according to a "washington post" article written by professor sam telfer, quote, it's an old conspiracy theory enjoying sensation with headlines and tweets. even congress reported that they must report whether they weaponized tics and it is not true. when it came to the disease of polio, mr. kennedy had this to say about the vaccine that nearly eradicated polio from the face of this planet. he said the vaccine for a period of time may have led to cancers due to contamination with the virus that, quote, killed many, many, many, many more people than polio ever did. so with the polio vaccine, he said did it cause more deaths than it averted, i would say i

don't know. and he said this just a year and a half ago. where a study was published that concluded that polio vaccine under concern was not associated with increased rates of cancer. another study showed that the virus was killed, that the virus of concern was killed by the same process used to inactivate the polio virus. in that same podcast, mr. kennedy said, quote, there is no vaccine that is safe and effective. again, this was just a year and a half ago. now he's coming to us and saying, quote, i'm all for the polio vaccine. what are the american people left to believe? again, our health and our nation is founded on trust. that is part of the compact we have as americans for generations. we want trust for our families. as i said, i'm a father of two little boys. all i want for them is to be healthy and happy. they are the reason that i am here in the united states senate to take actions to give them the

best type of life, to give other kids and their, and other grandkids the kind of lives they deserve. and i worry about the foods that they eat and i support efforts to address ultra processed foods in america to try to make sure we can have americans eating healthier. but i also want someone who is not going to shoot from the hip and spread disinformation. our health care is far from perfect. and we do need major reforms to get it in a place where it can better serve the american people. we do need massive changes in the way our health care, child care, elder care and nutrition systems are run, but not without trust. we need research, more and more research to understand safety and to power the innovation that will come up with the cures and the medicine of the future. but this week we see efforts to undertake massive cuts at nih. cuts that would setback the very research we need to keep improving our health.

as i conclude here, these efforts to cut and slash our research at nih and elsewhere would continue under the leadership of mr. kennedy. hhs secretary is a big job. we can't just hand it to someone key can't trust. not for my kids or for my parents, for yours. i encourage my colleagues again, reject this nomination so that every parent in america can go to sleep having trust in a person tasked with ensuring that our children will be healthy in the morning. thank you, mr. president. i yield back.

mr. thune: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the majority leader. sl mr. thune: i ask unanimous consent that notwithstanding rule 22, the postcloture time with respect to the kennedy nomination expire at 10:30 a.m., thursday, february 13. i further ask that following disposition of the kennedy nomination, the cloture motion with respect to the rollins nomination be withdrawn and the senate vote on confirmation of the rollins nomination with no intervening action or debate. further, following disposition of the rollins nomination, the senate resume consideration of the lutnick nomination and the senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the lutnick

at 1:45 p.m. and if cloture is invoked on the lutnick nomination, all time be considered expired and the senate vote on the motion to invoke cloture on the loeffler nomination, and if cloture is invoked on the loeffler nomination, all postcloture time be expired and the senate vote on confirmation of the loeffler and lutnick nominations at a time to be determined by the majority leader in consultation with the democratic leader no earlier than tuesday, february 18. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: i ask unanimous consent that the senate resume legislative session and be in a period of morning business for debate only with senators permitted to speak therein for up to ten minutes each. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: mr. president, i have seven requests for committees to meet during today's session of the senate. they have the approval of the majority and minority leaders. the presiding officer: duly noted. mr. thune: i ask unanimous consent that the committee on the judiciary be discharged from further consideration of s. 32 and the senate proceed to its immediate consideration. the presiding officer: the clerk will report. the clerk: s. 32, a bill to clarify where court may be held for certain district courts in

texas and california. the presiding officer: without objection. the committee is discharged and the senate will proceed to the measure. mr. thune: i ask unanimous consent that the bill be considered read a third time and passed, and that the motion to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: i ask unanimous consent that when the senate completes its business today, it stand adjourned until 9:30 a.m. on thursday, february 13. that following the prayer and pledge, the journal of proceedings be approved to date, the morning hour be deemed expired, the time for the two leaders be reserved for their use later in the day, morning business be closed, and the senate proceed to executive session and resume executive calendar number 17 under the previous order. finally, that if any nominations are confirmed during thursday's session the motions to reconsider be considered made and laid upon the table and the president be immediately notified of the senate's action. the presiding officer: without objection. mr. thune: if there is no further business to come before the senate, i ask that it stand adjourned under the previous order following the remarks of my colleagues. the presiding officer: without objection.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from delaware. ms. blunt rochester: thank you, mr. president. on the eve of the vote for the nominee of the department of health and social services, i stand before you acknowledging that i will vote no on the confirmation of mr. robert f. kennedy. i stand before you tonight after looking at his abilities, his background and qualifications and his character. for me, i listened to my constituents and the calls that we have received into our office, and i've read articles.

i've looked at petitions and lawsuits, listened to podcasts, even watched a video that he produced. there were inconsistencies in his positions. and so that's one reason that i could say no to this candidate. even as the former deputy secretary of health and social services from delaware, i thought about the potential for another pandemic in our country and would he be ready for the job. i thought about the fact that i come from a state that's also an agriculture state, and we are right now dealing with issues and concerns and fears about avian flu. would he be ready for the job? i thought about senior citizens in my state who are on medicare and children with special needs who may be on medicaid, and the fact that in our hearing and also in my one on one

conversation with him, he confused the two. even within a week's time did not learn the differences between the two. that was concerning enough. but tonight in the time that i have, i want to also say i stand here as a grandmother, and i think about my granddaughter lenox and her ability to, number one, be safe in school because she's vaccinated and she is with other children who are vaccinated, and no longer have to worry about things like polio. i think about her ability to have reproductive freedom over her own life when mr. kennedy has changed his positions so

many times on where he stands on reproductive freedom and the right for her to choose what she wants for her life. but i think one of the most troubling things that took place during our meeting was that he was not familiar with the emergency medical treatment and labor act, emtala. while we literally have a crisis in maternal mortality, it is important to me that the person who holds this job understands those basic things -- medicare, medicaid, emtala -- and that we face a challenge for women's lives being saved. i asked him specifically if he agreed about making sure that if someone was having complications

during their pregnancy that they should get the care that they need. this is both something that is being experienced across the country, but it's also personal for me. a few years ago, after my son and daughter-in-law went through so much to get pregnant through ivf, christmas morning, i remember beginning to make the family dinner, and i got a call from my daughter-in-law saying, mom, something's wrong. my water broke. she was only about five, six months pregnant, about five months pregnant. she went to a hospital, and i

got to that hospital. and because i knew from my former jobs of the statistics particularly for black women and maternal deaths, i saw her sitting in a wheelchair in the waiting room not being attended. the hospital ended up telling her she needed to go home and just basically wait it out. for that whole month afterwards, my son and my daughter-in-law stayed in my house. they slept in my bed. we supported each other. but because of the miracle of ivf, they were able to conceive ag again, and two years ago this weekend i became a grandmother of my granddaughter lenox. tonight i stand here on behalf of the children who want and

need to be healthy. i stand here on behalf of the women across the country who need to know that there is a cabinet secretary who understands the need for emergency care, who understands the rights of women to make choices with their doctors and their families and if they have a pastor or a rabbi, with their rabbi and their pastor. as someone who has focused much of my career on health and social services and dealing with health disparities, it is important that we do better as a country. with our health status and that we are healthier. but i go back to the beginning,

does the candidate have the qualifications, the background, the character, and the ability . for this candidate, unfortunately the answer is no. and tonight i stand here for all of the children of our country, all of the families of our country, and i will be voting no on this nomination. i yield back.

a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the chair recognizes the senator from nevada. ms. cortez masto: just verifying. we're not in a quorum call, right? the presiding officer: no. ms. cortez masto: thank you. mr. president, so i am joining my colleagues on the floor today because we have pledged to americans that we will always stand up and fight for affordable, quality health care. and right now donald trump and his republican allies in congress are trying to dismantle health care -- excuse me, health care access for nevadans and americans across the country. and as we speak, republicans are working out a way to pass their budget through congress and slash medicaid to pay for tax cuts for trump's ultra wealthy friends. their budget for these

billionaire tax cuts was just released this morning, and they want to give away trillions of dollars to the richest americans and add about $3 trillion to our national debt. in exchange for nearly a trillion dollars in health care cuts for working families. and you can bet, medicaid will be one of their biggest targets a. it's absolutely outrageous. and it's important that we shine a light for the american public so they know what is going on. right now the senate is considering the nomination of robert f. kennedy jr. is lead the department of health and human services, who has made it clear that he will be a rubber stamp for donald trump, even if it hurts nevadans. this isn't fearmongering or speaking in hypotheticals.

donald trump has been coming after critical health care since his first term in office. every annual budget proposal trump had in his first term from 2017 through 2020 included huge cuts to medicaid. and come republicans in congress tried to repeal and replace the affordable care act, president trump was on board with every plan they came up with that slashed medicaid in the process. and i'll tell you what. democrats stood up to them every time. but even after multiple failed attempts, it doesn't seem like president trump has learned that americans don't want him to roll back medicaid. his project 2025 manifesto calls for the centers for medicare and medicaid services to impose lifetime caps on medicaid. what does that mean? that means that a person can only receive medicaid benefits

for a limited period of time, no matter their income or their health care needs. that would leave about 92,800 nevadans who are low-income and depend on medicaid for health care at risk of losing their coverage. we know rfk jr. will just let this happen if he becomes the secretary for health and human services. now, hhs oversees the centers for medicare and medicaid services, which means mr. kennedy would have control over what happens with these essential health care programs. now, what's ironic is that mr. kennedy doesn't seem to even know the difference between medicare and medicaid. he confused the two multiple times during his confirmation hearing before the senate finance committee. and also during that hearing, he made it very clear to me and he

made it very clear to the general public who was watching that he would -- refused to even tell me he wouldn't be a rubber stamp for this nomination, that he could have an independent thought and fight nevadans and americans across this country. he made it clear that he would stand up with do not. i cannot support someone who would let donald trump give billionaire friends, his billionaire friends, tax cuts at the expense of nevadans' health care. i know some of my colleagues on the other side of the aisle have argued that their plan to cut medicaid is about getting rid of waste and fraud. well, listen. i'm all for reducing government waste and fraud and streamlining our bureaucracy. i will tell you, i served for eight years as the attorney general in the state of nevada, and during that period of time,

the medicaid fraud unit was in my office. and we prosecuted and we went after individuals and we held people accountable for that waste and fraud in the medicaid program. so i am all about addressing waste and fraud. in fact, i know that my democratic colleagues and i have offered to work in a bipartisan way to cut wasteful spending. instead, however, trump and republican leadership want to gut medicaid, which millions of americans depend on to access health care. and it's just wrong. but let me talk about why. let me tell you a little bit about the history of this. medicaid was created in is the 65 as a -- in 1965 as a way for the federal and state governments to provide health care coverage to low-income people who need it. that includes children, pregnant women, seniors, people with disabilities, and adults across

the united states. it helps veterans, new moms, and their babies, rural hospitals, primary care providers, mental health care workers, and more. and as of june 2024, 788,481 nevadans were enrolled in medicaid and its initiatives like the children's health insurance program, or chip. and nearly 800,000 people in nevada -- and that's just nevada -- depend on medicaid to keep themselves and their families healthy. this includes one in six adults. three of eight children, four in seven nursing home residents. 33% of our births are covered by medicaid. but here's the deal. 66% of adults in nevada who

benefit from medicaid work for a living. so i cannot say enough about this program and its impact in my state. and how important it is. you know, people over the age of 65 and tdisabled rely on medicad for their long-term care. and people with disabilities rely on medicaid for their long-term care. let me say, there are seniors who helped build this country and make america what it is today. they worked hard, they raised their families, and they contributed to our economy, and some -- some -- are veterans of our armed forces, and now in their senior years they have chronic illnesses and they aren't able to move around the house likes they used to. they cannot take care of themselves alone.

that is what medicaid is for. in nevada, 17,600 medicaid enrollees used home and community-based services and long-term services to support themselves. that means nursing facility care, adult day care programs, home health aide services, personal care services, transportation and supported employment. it is a common misconception that medicaid -- medicare and private insurance covers long-term nursing facility care or home care. they just don't. that's medicaid. that's what donald trump and republican leadership and rfk jr. want to cut. to think our seniors, for everything they've done for our country, they want to roll back the health care benefits that are giving them the dignity that they deserve in their retirement. but that's not all. medicaid also supports

low-income children and working families, including pregnant women and children with disabilities. nearly 40% of all children in nevada are covered by medicaid and chip. this is a crucial program for nevada's kid, making sure that they get their annual checkups, their vaccines, their hospital emergency care, dental and vision care and the medications that they need. all of this, all of this is key to ensuring that our kids grow and they develop at a healthy rate. now, medicaid also covers more than 40% of all births in nevada. in 2023, that was 13,206 babies and their mothers who had access to essential health care that they wouldn't have been able to afford otherwise. these are the children, babies, mothers who are now being targeted by donald trump's, so he can pay for tax cuts for the

ultra rich. another key component of medicaid coverage includes people with mental health challenges and substance use disorders. nevada medicaid provides screening and early intervention, outpatient and community services, crisis and emergency response, and residential and inpatient treatment to children and adults. i know we have a mental health care crisis and a drug epidemic in this country. i see it. i hear about it from nevadans every single day. i think both democrats and republicans agree that we are just not dedicating enough resources towards americans' mental health. and when there's a shooting at a school or place of worship or a mu music festival, the first thing i shear that we need to invest more in mental health. and families in both red and blue states are being torn apart by fentanyl and other dangerous drugs. so why do my republican

colleagues want to do donald trump's bidding and slash medicaid, making this crisis even worse? they are working right now to pass a budget through congress that guts these critical programs, and they want to confirm mr. kennedy who we know is going to go along with every one of trump's plans. if they succeed, what's going to happen is nevada's working families, our seniors, our veterans, and our children, what will happen to them? -- if medicaid is slashed? well, let me just tell you what's going to happen. in nevada, we rely on federal funding for the vast majority of our medicaid program. without it, policymakers in my state will be forced to cut coverage and leave hundreds of thousands of nevadans uninsured, without access to affordable,

quality health care. i've sid it before. nearly -- i've said it before. nearly 800,000 nevadans will be in change now, who have medicaid now will be in danger of being kicked offed their health insurance. 17,600 seniors and disabled people in nevada will be at risk of losing their coverage, leaving even more families with nowhere to turn to take care of their elderly loved ones. when nevadans lose their coverage, the already expensive cost of health care shoots up. now, nevada healthlink has had a list of costs for people without health insurance. let me tell you what -- what that looks like right now. mammograms will cost $212 -- there will be $1,000 to $5,000 without insurance. a visit to the emergency room

will cost nevadans who are insured $150 cosponsor, but those who don't have insurance, could pay as much as $3,000. a baby's visit to the doctor cost $10 with insurance, but without insurance, it costs $the 5 -- $95 per visit. this is the kind of costs that nevadans can't afford to pay. if donald trump cuts health insurance in nevada, even more health care providers may be forced to close up shop because their patients can't pay for their care. let me stress this even more. nevada's rural hospitals rely heavily on medicaid. if medicaid is cut, these hospitals that are already understaffed and overwhelmed would have to reduce their

services, if not shut down entirely. now, that is not unique to nevada. every rural community that relies on medicaid will have the same problem. if you know our rural communities, you know that this is very rarely is there access to health care in a rural community. and when those providers are there, that is the place for our rural americans to go. and sometimes they have to drive, in my state, two to three to four hours just to get access to health care. if we take away those areas and the location for health care in our rural communities, that will devastate rural americans, and the reality is in nevada, we just don't have enough providers in our medicaid program. it's one thing to have a clinic, to open that door, it's another

to have a hospital to be able to open those doors to communities, but if you don't have the providers, that's essentially shutting down health care for individuals and people across this country. now, i will say my state is working to build out networks and encourage providersdom to nevada -- providers to come to nevada, but we can't do it without critical funding for medicaid. and if donald trump cuts medicaid, one of the first things my state will have to do is cut payment rates for health care providers, which will make our short jiang of providers -- shortage of providers even worse. and it will disincentivize providers coming to live and work in nevada, and the ripple effect that will have on my state's economy will be disastrous. we just can't let this happen. this is going to affect americans in every state across the country. we have to come together as a congress and protect our working

families from donald trump's billionaire tax cuts, and that includes voting no on rfk jr., who trump picked to lead hhs because he knew mr. kennedy wouldn't do a thing to stop him. with robert f. kennedy jr. running our department of health and human services, it's not just medicaid that is in danger. trump also wants to dismantle the affordable care afbt. as we -- act. as we may all remember, he has concepts of a plan to do just that. let's talk about what that means. before aca, if you were an adult with no dependents, even if you were low income, you had no access to medicaid, unless your employer provided health insurance, you had none. now thanks to the aca, more people than ever before could

get the health care they need, that is 20 million of low-income adults with low default health care coverage through medicaid. this has been a huge gift to our economy. think of it this way, if you were an adult who had a chronic illness that kept you from working, you didn't used to have access to health insurance. but because of the aca, you can get the treatment that you need and get back into the workforce, it has helped to boost our health care workforce and made us a stronger and healthier nation. once again, donald trump wants to roll this expansion of medicaid pack and strip health care from thousands of -- back and strip health care from thousands of americans so he can give tax cuts to his elite billionaire friends. i have no interest in cutting taxes for the ultra wealthy when we should be cutting taxes for

working families. here's how we can do that. part of the affordable care act provided the ability to help nevadans make health care cheaper and afford their insurance. and when we passed the bipartisan -- the inflation reduction act, we made it even more available, especially to those who were impacted by the covid-19. now that is set to expire at the end of this year. this would be devastating to nevada families and small businesses. 11,000 nevadans would lose their health care coverage. nevadans who benefited from these tax credits would see their health care premiums go up by $2,000 a year on average and 2,666 businesses who qualify for

these credits will see their premiums increase. i'll tell you what. my republican colleagues in the majority now have a decision to make. instead of letting meese tax credits for -- these tax credits for working families and small businesses expire and throwing thousands of lives into chaos, they could renew them. this should be simple. let's come together and prioritize hardworking families and small businesses over billionaires. that's what we were elected to do and it's what the american people expect of us. we cannot give our country over to the elite, to the wealthiest people like robert f. kennedy jr. who will do whatever president trump wants him to do to our health care system. my democratic colleagues and i stand here today, and every day, ready to continue to push back against donald trump's attacks

on americans' health care. trump can say whatever he wants about not touching medicaid and making america healthy, but the truth is that he'll do whatever it takes to lift up his elite billionaire friends and then tell you it's for your own good. robert f. kennedy jr. will be just a rubber stamp for that agenda, and because of that, i will be voting no on his confirmation. and with that, mr. president, i yield the floor.

mr. schumer: mr. president. minority leader. -- the presiding officer: minority leader. mr. schumer: mr. president, unfortunately and sadly, we are witnessing an alarming abdication of duty from

republicans here in the senate. the job in the senate when it comes to nominees is very simple. when a nominee is obviously qualified and experienced, we should consider them seriously, even if we don't agree with their political views or ultimately vote for them. but when a nominee comes before the senate who is obviously unqualified, who is obviously fringe, whose views are obviously determined -- whose views are obviously democratal to the -- detrimental to the well-being of the american people, well, senators have a duty to reject them and to tell the president to send someone better. we're faced with one such nominee earlier today in tulsi gabbard and now we are faced with another such nominee right now. robert f robert f. kennedy jr. is not remotely qualified to become the next secretary of health and

human services. in fact, i might go further. robert f. kennedy jr. might be one of the least qualified people the president could have chosen for the job. it's almost as if mr. kennedy's beliefs, history and background were tailor made to be the exact opposite of what the job demands. a few weeks ago it seemed like maybe senate republicans would have drawn the line on nominees like robert f. kennedy jr. and tulsi gabbard, but the past few days have been a stunning capitulation by senate republicans. at this point they're just rubber stamping people no matter how fringe they are. if the senate had a secret ballot, i'll bet you that robert f. kennedy jr. would never have come close to confirmation. his unfitness for the job are simply too obvious and too

glaring. hhs is an agency that depends on science, on evidence, and impartiality to ensure the well-being of over 330 million americans. hhs ensures we eat safe food, purchase reliable medications, oversee medicare benefits and approve the use of lifesaving vaccines. most importantly, a good hhs secretary makes sure the american people have access to affordable, high quality health care. mr. kennedy, unfortunately, is not qualified to oversee any of these things. he is neither a doctor nor a scientist nor a public health expert nor a policy expert of any kind. if mr. kennedy is confirmed, given that lack of background, it's my deep fear he will rubber stamp donald trump's war against health care, meaning we will see

more of the disasterous funding cuts of the past few weeks, meaning more people will lose health coverage, meaning the interest of for-profit corporations and big pharma will come before the needs of working americans. now, when i saw mr. kennedy and asked him certain views like on abortion, he said, well, i'm going to defer to the president. on something as -- as personal, as heartfelt, as talked over within ourselves even as abortion, he might follow -- he will follow the whims, the wishes of the president? well, then how do we know he won't do it on everything else? even in the places he might try to tell someone in an interview he is different from the president, how do we know he will not just follow the president given he said that on

one of the most fundamental views a person can hold? so, mr. president, i'm so troubled by this nomination. already, as we have seen, community health centers across the country have been locked out of the funding they need to serve patients, and i fear it will get worse under robert f. kennedy jr.'s watch. already the cdc has gutted valuable personal health care data from its website before the courts stepped in, doge has basically hacked into the payment data for the centers of medicare and medicaid services which tens of -- tens of millions of people rely on for health care services. i fear all of that will get much worse under robert f. kennedy jr.'s watch. now it would be bad enough a vote to confirm r.f.k. jr. will be a vote to weaken the health care system. it gets even worse, when you

remember a vote for r.f.k. jr. is also a vote to vote for a -- to vote for a conspiracy theorist. he has made a living of not promoting public health but actively fighting it. he is the face of the modern ante vaccine movement, he had -- undermined public trust in practice that could have saved hundreds of thousands of lives for more than a century. we need to take a moment to truly reckon with the dangers of putting a vaccine skeptic in charge of hhs. simply put, wea vaccine standards to mean more people will die. more people will die. a vaccine skeptic in charge of hhs could defund vaccine awareness campaigns led by

organizations like the cdc. a vaccine skeptic in charge of hhs could reshape the cdc's vaccine advisory board, alter which kinds of vaccines are required to be covered by insurance companies. a vaccine skementic in charge of hhs would make our schools less safe. if fewer kids are required to be vaccinated against things like measles, the results will be sicker classrooms across america. a vaccine skeptic in charge of hhs could weaken protections for vaccine and drug makers from frivolous lawsuits. these are just some of the dangers that come with putting a vaccine skeptic in charge of america's health care policy. it will set american health karcare back dramatically. of course, during his hearing, rfk jr. tried to run away from his fringe views. we heard the usual excuses you might expect from a nominee

forced to answer for a terrible record. he suggested perhaps he was misquoted here and there or that he had been misunderstood or that he never meant to come across as antivaccine at all and that of course he would follow the science. well, give me a break. are senators supposed to believe that someone would has spent decades writing books and giving speeches and making trips around the world undermining vaccines has suddenly had this epiphany and come around on vaccines? that suddenly now that he's been nominated to lead hhs, he is fully on board with vaccines and that we have nothing to worry about? when it comes to his views? how convenient. again, give me a break. we should look less at-risk jr.'s 11th hour conversion and instead examine the things he has said again and again, going back decades. we should look at the way rfk jr. has used his powerful

platform to spread misinformation for years, like in 2023, not very long ago, when mr. kennedy went on fox news and said, i do believe autism does come from vaccines. when mr. kennedy gave a speech at a conference linking the cdc vaccine division to fascism. or like in 2021 when he said on a podcast, our job is to resist and to talk about vaccines to everyone. if i see someone on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and i say to him, better not get vaccinated. and of course you could try reading mr. kennedy's numerous books against vaccines. like the one claiming parents have been misled on the measles vaccine or you can go to the online store of one of his antivaccine groups and check out the merchandise they sell for kids, like the onesi e that saysed, unvaxxed an unafraid. a little one putting this

propaganda on him or her. this last example is pretty revealing because it's not just that mr. kennedy embraces pseudo science and conspiracy theories but that he has in fact profited off spreading misinformation. and he's been involved with no fewer than five lawsuits filed by antivaccine groups against drug companies. in fact, his primary source of income from the last year came from the fees he collected by referring clients to a civil lawsuit against vaccines. by the way, he didn't originally disclose those connections to ethics officials. worse, he refused to give up his financial stake in any settlement agreement that comes from one of these lawsuits. that, mr. president, is stunning. that means right now republicans are on the brink of confirming a nominee to hhs who will be in charge of vaccine regulations in america and who at the same time stands to benefit from lawsuits

against vaccines, financially benefit. well, donald trump says he wants to get rid of the swamp, this is a textbook definition of the sw swamp, the benefit from lawsuits against vaccines while you're hhs secretary and have power over what vaccines -- which vaccines are needed and how they are distributed and talked about to the american people. now, let me repeat what i said a few weeks earlier. it fills me with such sadness as well as a great deal of frustration and even anger. a few weeks ago, it seemed like senate republicans would have drawn the line on nominees like robert kennedy and tulsi gabbard. but a few weeks ago, yes indeed it did seem like senate

republicans maybe would have drawn the line on rfk jr. and tulsi gabbard. but unfortunately and again sadly, the past few days have been a stunning capitulation by senate republicans. if the senate had a secret ballot, i'll bet you that tulsi gabbard would have gotten fewer than ten votes and robert kennedy would not have come close to confirmation. my guess is a majority of the party on the other side would have voted against him as well. as are all of us. but instead donald trump is tightening his vice grip even further on senate republicans. we are witness -- what we are witnessing is leadership from one branch of government withering under pressure from another. even to the point of confirming dangerously unfit individuals to positions of immense responsibility. my republican colleagues should

think very carefully before they roll the dice on mr. kennedy. there's a very serious risk that if confirmed, mr. kennedy will take steps that severely undermine public health and then sooner or later, public backlash is going to build and republicans will have wished they didn't sign their names to this troubling nominee. so i implore my republican colleagues, reject the nomination of robert f. kennedy to be secretary of hhs. there are certainly better individuals for the job, even if many of our side may not agree with them politically. but to vote to -- a vote to confirm mr. kennedy is a vote to make america sicker. a vote to confirm mr. kennedy is a vote to make america sicker. it's a vote to let pseudo science dictate health care policy. it's a vote that will endanger the lives of the american people. and it is a vote i truly believe

many, many republicans will eventually deeply regret. i yield the floor. a senator: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota. ms. klobuchar: mr. president, i rise today alongside senator schumer and senator cortez masto and so many others that have come to the floor today in opposition to the president's nomination of robert f. kennedy jr., to lead the department of health and human services. the secretary of health and human services is the top health official in our country, and is in charge of everything from preventing disease outbreaks to making sure our kids are healthy and have a good start in life.

americans need and deserve a secretary who is guided by facts and science in decision-making. after all, this is someone who will be in charge of overseeing the centers for disease control and prevention's critical efforts to fight disease outbreaks. the food and drug administration's work to ensure the safety of the medications americans rely on and the food on our grocery shelves. the national institute of health's groundbreaking lifesaving medical research. the administration for community living support for older adults and people living with disabilities as well as their families and caregivers. and the administration for children and families work to oversee the foster care system and child adoption programs, something i care deeply about as a cochair of the adoption caucus for the united states senate. as well as work to prevent human trafficking. through these efforts and more,

the department of health and human services directly touches more lives actually than any other cabinet agency. the building that houses the department is named for minnesota's happy warrior, vice president hubert humphrey, former u.s. senator for the state of minnesota. he was a champion for expanding access to health care. grew up in south dakota, grew up in a drugstore. went on to get his degree in minnesota and eventually became a u.s. senator. always fighting for those in his words, in the shadows of life. inscribed in the entrance hall of that building are words from humphrey's final speech in 1977. he said, the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the

children, those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly, and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick as well as of course those with disabilities. that's the test for this agency that's housed in the building with those words from the former senator from my state whose desk i actually have. i open it up and i see his name hubert h. humphrey carved into that desk. so you need someone as a secretary of this department that believes deeply in those words and believes in them with all the modern science and every tool we have to keep people healthy. robert kennedy jr. does not pass that test. mr. president, among the hhs secretaries -- secretary's most important duty is ensuring medical research remains on the cutting edge.

yet, mr. kennedy's record reveals a consistent pattern of dismissing, distorting, and devaluing the very research that is critical to hhs' mission. among other things, the secretary oversees the national institutes of health which for more than a century has been a driving force behind such groundbreaking discoveries as blood tests to detect hiv and hepatitis, the use of lithium to manage bipolar disorder, and the hpv vaccine to prevent cervical cancer. this administration has already displayed open hostility to medical research. over the weekend we learned that the administration intends to defund and derail lifesaving medical research. let's be clear about what's happening here. they're looking for money everywhere. head start programs, firefighter grants. they're looking for money over

at nih with lifesaving research. why? because the republicans led by donald trump are about to reveal over $2 trillion in tax cuts for the wealthy. we know because that was a campaign promise. and in the process, they are extinguishing hope for so many americans looking for treatments and cures. that's why they are looking to cancel cancer trials and head start to give tax cuts to their buddies. americans already feeling the pain from this. i have constituents writing to me afraid and afraid for loved ones. i heard from one constituent oef the weekend whose niece is fighting a very aggressive cancer but has been seeing results from an nih-funded clinical trial. the niece has three small children at home while battling this disease. and without this trial, she doesn't know what else her physicians could do for her. i also heard from a constituent

whose daughter got treatment at the nih last year. she said it was a great experience with great doctors and services, but she can't imagine how patients enrolled in nih studies for life threatening conditions are feeling right now. another constituent told me one of her kids is living with a rare cancer and the administration's directive to suspend nih funding threatens the prognosis. simply put, this constituent wrote, this administration's policy will lead to many unnecessary deaths. everyone knows someone in their life who has benefited from that medical research. for me this is personal. i'm standing here today because one of the types of research that's on the chopping block, that's research on breast cancer. as many of our colleagues know, following a routine mammogram in february of 2021, i learned that i had stage one a breast cancer. i'm lucky i only had stage one

a. i still remember what it was like to walk in here 15 minutes after finding out what the test had shown. and i had to walk in here like everything was fine and vote. but then after that, i got treatment. at the mayo clinic. all i had to have was a lumpectomy and radiation. i never had to go through chemo and i was in remission. and when it popped up again, same thing, lumpectomy, radiation, no chemo. that would have never happened 50 years ago. that would have never happened 25 years ago. that was because of research. there are many in this chamber who either themselves or have loved ones that have had cancer that have gotten through it successfully because of the research that occurred years and years back. because our

nation decided we want to be in the lead. we're not going to to be a follower. we're going to to be in the lead when it comes to lifesaving research. we're going to do it in our great universities and medical institutions all over this country, and we're going to make sure that we put the funding into that research. not just democrats said this. no, quite the contrary. all of these moves to invest in nih and to understand how that research just can't occur in one place with a famous name but has to occur all over the country, that was bipartisan work. under presidents that have been both democratic and republican. and we have built that research, and we are now on the cusp of finding out not just ways to make this easier to deal with and easier treatments and go into remission, but ways to eradicate this once and for all. we are on the cusp of that with the mapping of the human genome and with all the information that we've gotten out of that.

we have seen what this has done for america. it has put us in the lead. nih funding spurs. studies have shown this, every dollar, $2.50 in economic activity, supports hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country and pumps more than $92 billion into our country. this includes generating $1.7 billion of economic activity. i heard from constituents who are researchers, who solve things, scientists, entrepreneurs, microbiology lab technician. one is worried that blocking federal research funding will put the research on hold, prevent her from employing lab personnel. this administration's reckless

freeze on nih funding is a threat to not just jobs, but to those lifesaving cures. it will extinguish hopes. it will extinguish what will be lives that will come after that and after that. it will set back american innovation and put us at a competitive disadvantage with countries like china. and this is just the beginning of the assault on health care. so it will be the hhs secretary's job to push back against these attacks. haven't seen that happen, not with this nominee. mr. kennedy has demonstrated open hostility to science. at an event in arizona, days before the president nominated him, mr. kennedy said that 600 people are going to to -- this is his quote -- are going to walk into offices at nih and 600

people are going to leave. on top of his desire to deprive our government of the great work done every day by the men and women who keep americans healthy, mr. kennedy has expressed his intent to roll back the agency's focus on combatting infectious diseases and remove funding that improves our understanding of how, why, and where diseases are spreading. don't take my word for this, if you want. take his. these are quotes. i'm going to say to nih scientists, he said, we're going to give infectious disease a break for about eight years. that's his plan for overseeing the nih, give infectious disease a break. well, mr. president, measles doesn't take a break. tuberculosis doesn't take a break. polio doesn't take a break. and the reason we have largely eliminated those diseases in the

country is because medical research can never take a break. unfortunately, mr. kennedy's animosity toward the nih does not come to us in a vacuum. he's long been a vocal opponent of medical research. when influential voices promote the idea that data-backed, evidence-based research is unreliable, it breaks down trust in medicine and public health science as a whole. to place mr. kennedy atop our nation's largest public health agency is to provide this voice of constantly questioning science and telling parents they shouldn't get their kids vaccinated. it gives that voice a megaphone. people are welcome to their opinions. certainly they are in this chamber and walking down the street. that's fine. this is america. but it is giving this voice that is not based in science a

megaphone. for generations america has led the way on medical research and global health. our nation's scientists gave the world pennell sill lynn -- penicillin, anesthesia and more. mr. kennedy's puts decades of scientific advancement at risk. so much so in fact that the "wall street journal" editorial board, not exactly a bastion of liberalism, called it a threat to american medical innovation. of course mr. kennedy's opposition to science is hardly a secret. over the years he has repeatedly chosen to ignore scientific evidence in favor of conspiracy theories, most notably those involving vaccines. let me be absolutely clear on this, vaccines are among the greatest achievement of modern science and the evidence supporting their safety is overwhelming. vaccines have saved 154 million

lives over the last half century. that's about six lives every minute. and each life saved gains an average of 66 years of health. in spite of that mr. kennedy has long promoted baseless theories about vaccines, including most notably during the pandemic. during a period in our nation and world history, when trust in science was more important than ever, mr. kennedy instead chose to stir up doubts about lifesaving vaccines. mr. kennedy actively sought to halt the rollout of the vaccines just six months after president trump, the same president who has now nominated him to oversee health care in our country, declared the vaccine a miracle. that's from president trump. you all remember those days when we were trying to get the vaccines out as soon as possible. in may 2021, mr. kennedy filed a

petition with the fda demanding that the agency end authorization for the vaccines and avoid approving any future covid vaccine. mr. kennedy's denial of basic science goes beyond his opinions on vaccines. he has on numerous occasions spread misinformation about the origins of diseases, claiming without evidence that humans rather than bacteria or viruss cause infectious diseases. for example, he has claimed that lyme disease which is spread by tics in minnesota. he claims it was created by the u.s. military and allowed by long island in the 19 50's. the fact is that the bacteria that causes lyme disease has been around for at least 60,000 years and the ticks have been around for at least 99 million years. i also want to bring attention to mr. kennedy's denial of avian flu.

key for me on the agriculture committee. last year mr. kennedy said the world health organization, quote, fabricated the 2006 bird flu outbreak which of course never happened. this is what he said. now my state is the largest producer of turkeys and minnesota turkey farmers will tell you that avian flu isn't fabricated. it is all too real. i remember hugging a turkey producer who had just had to eradicate all of his birds. he was so proud of the operation he had. he was a small turkey producer. just like that, because of the avian flu, he had to eradicate and kill those birds. i've heard from one constituent who teaches farm business management at a rural minnesota community college. several of his students are turkey farmers, and they've seen firsthand the devastating impact of that bird flu virus when it comes in. they know the trouble, get it

tested, know it's going to to the whole flock and beyond and have to take immediate action. part of the result of that is of course higher prices at the grocery store. when my constituent met with the students to complete their 2025 cash flow projections, he said it was devastating to see the results, and i have great concern that this virus may cause bankruptcy for turkey farmers. we all know that those young farmers are not alone. for three years now poultry farmers in my state and across the country have been fighting a new outbreak of avian flu which has affected 156 million birds and counting. following the 2015 avian flu outbreak our colleague senator cornyn and i worked to establish an animal vaccine bank and disease response program as spaefrt 2018 farm bill. this has given farmers and public health agencies critical resources for containing outbreaks but it is clear we need to be doing more, not less.

that's why i'm working with senator boozman. i hope we can pass a farm bill and upgrade our work when it comes to avian flu. but to do all that and the potential of having vaccines here for various animals, we're going to need people in the government that believe in science. placing mr. kennedy in charge of public health in our country could unravel that progress. he has already said he didn't believe in the avian flu, that it was somehow manufactured. what more evidence do you need, i say to my colleagues across the aisle. facts are the foundation of medical science and our next hhs secretary must commit to making decisions based on facts, not personal beliefs. i also have concerns that mr. kennedy will be a rubber stamp for the administration's plans to undo the progress that we made on bringing down the sky-high costs of prescription drugs. for decades big pharma companies

had a sweetheart deal written into law that allowed them to charge our seniors whatever they wanted for lifesaving prescription drugs. that was unacceptable and along with my colleagues, we successfully led the legislation to end it. taking on the big drug companies wasn't easy. they had three lobbyists for every member of congress and spent hundreds of millions of dollars. i'm sure many watching tonight have seen those ads trying to stop us. that was a great deal that got written into law. i don't know how they got it but they got t. we said wait a minute, why are these drugs and other industrialized nations, why are they half the price of the drugs we have in america especially when we paid for a lot of research with our taxpayer money. and then we found out for the biggest drug group in the country for prescription drugs are seniors, they get locked in profits on that. not like the v.a. where neck negotiate p for our brave veterans. but when it comes to all the seniors, no negotiation was

allowed. the power of over 50 million american seniors negotiating, that's a pretty strong bloc. finally our constituents finally said enough is enough. major issues when people are running for office, and together we ended big pharma sweetheart deal, democrats only in the inflation reduction act and gave medicare the power to negotiate better prices for prescription drugs. so what was the result of that? well, already the last administration negotiated the first ten drugs, blockbuster drugs, are eliquis, xarelto, jarredans. the negotiated prices they negotiated with big pharma, they were going to to not be able to sell their drugs through medicare. do you know what prices they got? big pharma is still suing. they lost every single lawsuit saying we in this body didn't have the power, didn't have the power to stop the sweetheart deal that congress had given

them. of course we had the power. you know what happened with those negotiated prices for seniors? they went down on just the first ten blockbuster drugs, 60%, 70%, and no one has questioned the statistic that in one year when this takes effect in about a year, nine million seniors across the country in one year, just one year will save $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket costs. that's b, billion. that's not all we did, because the next drugs are coming down the pipe for negotiations. i'll mention that in a minute and the next one after that. the torch has been passed on to this administration. it's their turn to negotiate and get those 60%, 70%, 80% reductions that secretary becerra and the biden administration were able to get because they were organized, because they knew what they remember do this and they stood tall and they stood tall and negotiated those prices after we passed the law. what else did we do?

the legislation passed under the last administration capped insulin costs for seniors at 35, total out-of-pocket drug costs for seniors at 2 thousand a year starting this year. these savings are the beginning. last month the previous administration announced the next 15 drugs medicare must negotiate. these are more block busters. diabetes, weight loss drugs like ozempic, robelsus wygovy, 2.3 medicare part d enrollees take including thousands of seniors in my state. for these seniors, getting lower prices, you know how much those right now, make a huge difference. finally, seniors in america -- by the way, it helps nonseniors as well. we've seen the insulin prices lowered by the companies, even though the law, i would have liked to pass a law for nonseniors, our colleagues wouldn't join us, but the market worked and they're also getting

that 35 buck per month cap. think about what these next drugs will mean though. minnesotans like brian. brian has been paying more than 100 bucks a month for br breo ellipta, one of the asthma medications mentioned in last month's negotiations. brian has been taking that for 20 years. added up, 24,000 spent on just one medication. think about if that was reduced 60% to 70%. that's what they could do if they've got the right hhs secretary. or judith who pays $1100 a month for otezla, an arthritis drug. that's two-thirds of her social security check. relief could be on the way for judith, brian, and millions of seniors like them, but only if this administration follows the law and commits to continuing medicare drug price negotiation. this task, of course, doesn't

fall to the veterans secretary, doesn't fall to the commerce secretary. it is the hhs secretary. and i know i speak for many of my colleagues when i say i have serious doubts of this nominee when it comes to this. why? well, mr. president, to discuss mr. kennedy's testimony before the finance committee last weekend, his responses to questions submitted in writing, he could have clarified it in writing. what did he say? our colleague, senator cortez masto pointed out that the president, our republican colleagues and big pharma wanted to repeal the law we passed, the inflation reduction act. she asked mr. kennedy if he would commit to following the law, negotiating a good deal for seniors. this is his response, quote, president trump asked me to end the chronic disease epidemic and make americans healthy again. come on. it's a very straightforward question. congress passed a law. the former president signed it

into law. it is the law that you have to follow. the law says you have to negotiate these drug prices. not to mention that your attorney general has to defend the lawsuits big pharma is bringing to try to upend the law. you sure better continue the track record of the biden administration and win those cases. so, when catherine cortez masto received this answer, which was a nonanswer, in fact he actually said something that makes you think is he really going to follow the law and negotiate a good deal for seniors, she asked him to clarify his comments. his response -- president trump asked me to end that. end what? i don't know. mr. president, that is not leadership. he should have known all about the prescription drug program and medicare part d. he is taking over a major agency that does this work for 50 million seniors under medicare. 50 million seniors. out-of-pocket savings

1.5 billion in one year on the first ten drugs. then 15 more, 15 more, 15 more. this isn't the answer of someone who is prepared to stand up and lower drug prices. that is the answer of someone who will do whatever the president asks him to do, no questions asked. mr. kennedy was also given the chance to provide clarity by answering our colleagues' questions in writing. yet he refused to give clear answers to the vast majority of the questions. when asked if he would refrain from making policy changes that raise drug costs for seniors with cancer, diabetes, coast guardio vascular diseases -- cardiovascular diseases, psoriasis or kidney disease, mr. kennedy refused to answer. he refused to give an answer when asked if he would hold big pharma responsible for price gouging.

from the person responsible for price determination in our country. this is particularly important after the actions the administration has taken in the last few weeks. on his first day in office, the president signed an executive order that cut afford panel care act -- affordable care act. he's also making it harder for 24 million people to keep coverage year to year by reseraphicing automatic reenrollment in affordable health care plan. the affordable care act is the law of the land, whether the president likes it or not. the secretary of health and human services must follow the law. guess what -- also the american people like this law. but when mr. kennedy was asked about the affordable care act, he attacked it, saying americans don't like it, instead of promising to uphold the law. the president's efforts to overturn the aca are owning the

be beginning. he's taking away new initiatives to lower prices, including ones that offer seniors a flat $2 co-pay for drugs that treat common chronic conditions. in less than a month, this administration made clear it intends to do big pharma's bidding, instead of sticking to commonsense policies that have brought down health care costs. reversing them won't bring down prices. it will raise them. we have problems with health care -- access, costs, and the like. so we need someone at the hhs who is going to work with us to take this down, whether it is the denial of care, of way too many patients under insurance policies, or whether it is the expense of these prescription drugs, where still more work needs to be done on patents and the reforms on the bipartisan basis that we've gotten out of judiciary, but we need an hhs

secretary that supports reform, and reform i mean bringing down prices. if you've been able to keep your health care coverage year to year through the affordable care act, then this nominee will not fight for you. if pure a young adult able to stay on their patient's health care, until you're 26, don't look at this nominee to fight for you. if you're a senior shelling out thousands of dollars a month because of that sweetheart deal i just mentioned, he's not going to fight for you. he didn't even answer the question if he was going to keep negotiating. none of this that he has talked about in these hearings, from my perspective, whether it is a rubber stamp for withdrawing the united states from the world health organization, whether it is upending the work of the interagency autism coordinating committee, whether it is what

i've just spoken about tonight, about not briefing in vaccines -- believing in vaccines or carrying on the work of negotiating prescription drugs. none of this will bring down health care costs. none of this will make americans healthier. president eisenhower, who established the agency that is now hhs, president eisenhower tru trusted republican president, said in his 1954 state of the union address that the department symbolized the government's permanent concern with the human problems of our citizens. the person at the helm of this department must, above all, share that concern that president eisenhower put out there so clearly. he must prioritize the well-being of his fellow americans, must be guided by facts and science not politics or personal opinions. that's why 17,000 doctors sounded the alarm about mr. kennedy's nomination. it's why more than 700 public

health experts called his nomination dangerous. and it's why for the first time in living memory more than 70 nobel prize winners across the fields of medicine, chemistry, physics and economics came together in public opposition to this cabinet pick. mr. president, i believe in listening to experts. i trust doctors. i trust public health researchers. i trust nobel prize winners. that is why on behalf of every senior who relies on medications to live and age with dignity, every child who deserves the promise of a future free from preventable diseases and every american whose health and safety depend on sound scientific guidance i will be voting no on his nomination, and i urge my colleagues to do what they know is the right thing and vote no as well. thank you, mr. president. i yield the floor.

ing ms. baldwin: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from minnesota -- wisconsin, i'm sorry. ms. baldwin: mr. president, i rise today in opposition to robert f. kennedy jr.'s nomination to lead the department of health and human services. health care is not just a policy to me. it is deeply personal. i got into public service because of my own health care journey. when i was 9, i was hospitalized with a serious childhood illness. it was similar to spinal m meningitis that wasn't the exact diagnosis, but similar. while i fought to survive, and then ultimately to get better and fully recover, my grand grandparents, who raised me, they struggled to figure out how to pay for the lifesaving care that i needed and received.

in total, i spent three months in the hospital, in madison, wisconsin. when i talk about health care, i don't just speak as a united states senator or as a wisconsinite. i'm speaking as a person who knows what it was like to spend months in a hospital bed. i'm speaking as someone who knows the emotional toll and the financial stress that it put on my loved ones. i'm speaking as someone who knows firsthand how important it is to protect our children from serious illness and the dire consequences when our children do get sick. and that is why i was so disturbed by robert f. kennedy jr.'s nomination to lead our nation's largest public health

agency. as a member of the health, education, labor and pensions committee, i was able to question mr. kennedy at one of his nomination hearings. i watched as he over and over again parroted the same answer when pressed about his anti-vaccine views. show me the data, he would say. when asked if he still believes that vaccines cause autism, he would not commit. he again said show me the data. well, mr. kennedy has had every opportunity to review the overwhelming consensus of doctors, researchers, and experts that vaccines are safe and effective. he certainly had the opportunity to do so not just before his confirmation hearing, but before

spending a decade peddling misinformation and conspiracy theories about vaccines. apparently he didn't look at the research before traveling to samoa to rail against the measles vaccine. perhaps if he had, the 83 people, primarily infants and children, who died from a subsequent outbreak of measles would still be with us. i think it's clear that he also didn't bother to review the research before spreading misinformation online. with one study finding that among verified twitter accounts mr. kennedy was by far the top purveyor of vaccine m misinformation, garnering more than three times as much engagement as the second most

retweeted account. now, we're supposed to believe that if we simply show mr. kennedy the research, he'll change his tune. well, i believe someone applying to be the top health official in this country shouldn't have to be convinced to follow the science. we shouldn't have to hold their feet to the fire on whether they would be willing to protect our children from polio or measles. they should already be an expert in the field, not an expert at evading responsibility and spreading conspiracy theories. americans deserve a leading health official who believes in science, not in conspiracies. if mr. kennedy is not willing to believe or even review the overwhelming data on vaccines before spreading dangerous lies about their safety, then i

highly doubt that he will change his tune when leading the department of health and human services. and it's not just his statements like no vaccine is safe and effective, and by the way, he really did make that statement. i've seen that on a podcast. but he's repeatedly made claims with no evidence. he said wi-fi causes cancer. he said antidepressants cause school shootings. he questioned whether hiv does in fact cause aids. and time and again he is showing us who he is. by his own admission, he is not interested in the research. he has no time for the data. and these claims may seem outlandish. they may seem harmless. but they all point to a

fundamental truth about mr. kennedy. he not only does not believe the science, but he's willing to actively undermine it. he spreads dangerous conspiracy theories, and he puts families' health and safety at risk. rfk jr. will put americans in harm's way. kids will had been at risk of getting preventable diseases, like measles and mumps. women will have essential health care ripped away. families will be further away, not closer, to having cures to diseases like cancer. and, sadly, the list goes on and on. so i urge my colleagues, especially those who understand how dangerous vaccine skepticism is, to ask themselves a simple question. will this nominee keep your

constituents safe or will he harm them? for robert f. kennedy jr. the answer is clear -- i oppose this nomination on behalf of wisconsin families and encourage my colleagues to vote no. i yield the floor.

mr. warnock: mr. president. the presiding officer: the senator from georgia. mr. warnock: mr. president, i rise tonight in strong

opposition to the nomination of robert f. kennedy jr. to lead the department of health and human services. it's no overstatement for me to say that it's hard for me to imagine a nominee less qualified that would actually be presented for the job of hhs secretary. robert f. kennedy, not only does he not pass muster, this is not even close. i still can't believe we're even having this discussion. he is a conspiracy theorist who is so focused on his conspiracy theory -- when you think of what we need the hhs secretary to do, robert f. kennedy is a hazard to our health. certainly we can do better than this.

he's just manifestly unqualified. i don't know how else to put it. this is not a partisan exercise for me. in fact, some of the nominees that have been presented, i voted for some of them. but i can't vote for robert f. kennedy. not only is he a hazard to our health, not only is he manifestly unqualified, it is clear that he will be a rubber stamp for washington republicans and their attempts to raise health care costs for hundreds of thousands of georgians. he is a he's threat to public health and the thousands of centers for disease control and prevention employees who work tirelessly every single day to keep us safe. he supports the administration's gag order that is literally keeping medical professionals from sharing information to get diseases like bird flu under

control, cancer researchers from doing their important lifesaving work. who among us has not been touched in some way by cancer? doctors and their ability and hospitals from accessing resources to lower the maternal mortality rate, which is abysmally high in this country, particularly in a state like georgia. i will be voting no on mr. kennedy's nomination. -- to lead hhs, and i urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to somehow find a way to do the right thing and vote no with me. mr. kennedy won't work to lower georgians' health care costs or increase access to health care for my constituents who are caught right now in the health care coverage gap. i'm so proud that in my first

few months in the senate, i was able to play a critical role in passing the american rescue plan, which, among other things, lowered georgians' health care premiums by hundreds of thousands of dollars on average. it is quite, frankly, the kind of thing that makes this job worth it to me. being able to help ordinary folks. that tax cut literally helped bring health care into reach for tens of thousands of georgians and millions of americans. these tax cuts are so critical that the nonpartisan congressional budget office said that the number of americans without health care would grow by 3.8 million in just one year, in just one year. 3.8 million without health care if the freedom subsidies that we now enjoy were allowed to

expire. we know that that would impact thousands of georgians who have only recently been able to receive health care coverage. these tax credits are allowed to expire -- if these tax credits allowed to expire, a 45-year-old in georgia with $62,000 annual income would see premiums go up by $1 text 414 -- $1,414 a year. a 60-year-old couple in georgia with an $80,000 annual income would see their premiums go up by a staggering $18,157 a year. can you imagine someone making $82,000 a year, 60-year-old couple, and all of a sudden their health insurance for the year goes up by more than $18,000? we know what that is. that's the difference between having health care coverage and not having it at all. nearly one-third of americans

have less than $500 in savings in their bank account, and so these folks don't have that kind of extra dough. they don't have that kind of extra cash on hand to pay for something that is vitally necessary, and we don't know, we never know when we will really need our health insurance. and so every single day, as we watch the games that washington politicians play -- for me, this is no game. i often say that if we would center ordinary people, we have a chance at getting the public policy right. if we will center people rather than politics, we might manage to get the right policy. and so, as these debates rage on, as nominees like this come before us, i'm thinking about people like my constituent

cassie cox. she is from bainbridge, georgia. she wasn't able to afford health care on the affordable care act marketplace until the premium tax credit brought health care into reach. and shortly after she became insured, she severely cut her hand, landing her in the emergency room with 35 stitches. with insures, it still cost her about $300. but she could figure out how to get that done. had it not been for the tax credits that allowed hadar to get -- allowed her to get health care, she could have been in financial ruin from a severe cut of the hand, something that could happen to any one of us at any time. she's one of the hundreds of thousands of georgians at risk of losing their coverage, if she is -- if these tax credits are

allowed to expire. so i asked the nominee for hhs, what do you think about this? mr. kennedy told me when i met him privately in my office that he wanted to work with president trump to lower health care premiums. i said, good. that's why i was deeply troubled when i questioned mr. kennedy on his support for these tax credits in his hearings. i asked him, yes or no, mr. kennedy, are you aware that the premium subsidies that help save georgians and average of $531 a month are set to expire at the end of the year? he said, yes, he is aware. then i asked him, yes or no, if he supports congress extending these tax credits, which lower americans' premiums, something he told me was a priority for him. suddenly, mr. kennedy could not give me a yes or no answer. i wonder why?

he told me in private that he cared about health care. he said he was aware that these tax credits were set to expire at the end of the year. he said he wanted to lower health care costs. when i asked him whether he would support congress extending these tax credits, the crusader all of a sudden became politician and couldn't give me a yes or no answer. that's not a good sign. it's a pretty simple question to the nominee to run the federal agency tasked with protecting the health of all americans, do you support lowering health care premiums and keeping millions of people insured. that question apparently was a bit too challenging. -- for mr. kennedy. so if a nominee to run the department of health and human services cannot tell me if he

supports preventing georgians' health care costs from spiking and keeping people like cassie cox on her health care plan, i cannot support his nomination. i don't work for him. i don't work for the insurance companies. i work for cassie cox and the other georgians like her. we know that these subsidies, which expire this year, are at serious risk of not getting renewed, and if there's anybody in the federal government who ought to be advocating for the patients, advocating for public health, reminding the president of how important this is, surely it ought to be the secretary of health and human services. and so is i'm very concerned about -- and so i'm very concerned about this because right now my colleagues on the other side of the aisle are already starting to put together a tax bill that i would describe

as robin hood in reverse. they want to take tax credits needed by ordinary hardworking georgians in order to give an unneeded tax cut to their wealthy friends. that's robin hood in reverse. it is bad public policy much it is pad for our health. and i would argue it's bad for our economy as we create the circumstances for having a workforce that will be sicker, less productive, less competitive on the global stage. and mr. robert kennedy, i'm afraid will simply aid and abet this process. re will -- he will hole the door

open for republicans while thousands of georgians get kicked off their health care. for cassie cox and for the hundreds of thousands of georgians who will lose their health care if the premium tax cuts expire, i will be voting no for robert f. kennedy jr. to become hhs secretary. that's not the only reason i'm voting no. every sunday i return home to georgia to preach in the ebenezer pulpit, it's is the spiritual home of martin luther king jr., some folks why i continue to hole that job, well, i return to georgia and i return to my church every sunday because i don't want to spend all my time talking to politicians. i'm afraid i might accidentally

become one. i serve in politics, but in a real sense i told rate politics so i can do the important work for the people. work that i've tried to do long before i came to the senate. it was martin luther king jr. who said of all the injustices, inequality in health care is the most shocking and the most inhumane. and it was that conviction methane spiraled me in -- it was that conviction that inspired me in 2014, years before i started to run for office, to protest state politicians in georgia as they were refusing to expand medicaid and help gorgians many we just passed the affordable care act, we were caught up in the throes of the debate around

that policy. georgia refused to expand medicaid leaving 460,000 -- 640,000 georgians in the health care coverage gap. because i preach every sunday morning in honor of whoun spent much of his ministry according to the gospel healing the sick, even those with preexisting conditions, that's what lep res.y was, a -- leprosy was, a preexisting condition, i could not teach the gospel and then allow georgia politicians leave hardworking georgians in the cold when we had a prescription that could provide healing. and so i and members of my pastoral staff, other volunteers, other activists, went to the office of the

then-governor of georgia, and we staged a sit in in the governor's office. and when we were arrested and taken to the fulton county jail, another wave of protestors came down and took our place. i was here again in the senate in 2017 protesting the fact that washington republican were getting ready to pass a $2 trillion tax cut for the wealthiest americans while cutting needed resources from the children's health care program. while refusing to accept the necessary levels of support for those facing food insecurity in the farm bill. so i was arrested in an act of civil disobedience that day also

because i believe that health care is a human right. but it is also one of the reasons i decided to go and run for office myself, to move from agitator to legislator to protest my -- to turn my protest into public policy. perhaps i could get more tools for the people who advocate for it. in my first few months in office, i made it a priority to sweeten the deal and further incentivize georgia politicians to do the right thing and expand medicaid, if i could get enough resources to further incentivize georgia to have medicaid, surely they will expand medicaid, it makes sense. not only is it the right thing to do, it's the smart thing to do. i remember standing up to

democrats, many of whom, unlike me, represent blue states. i'm from georgia, purple state. georgia that had not elected a democrat senators in years. i think they sent me and my friend john ossoff to represent them in the senate because they understand we're not focused on partisan politics, we're focused on the people we were sent here to represent. and i remember standing up to democrats and -- in a democratic caution talking to -- caucus talking to many of my colleagues who represent blue states. and i began to make the case for georgia and they responded to me. they said why should we put more federal dollars towards states that don't want to help their own constituents? why should we reward georgia for

digging in its heels? and i reminded them that the people of georgia were literally being held hostage by their legislature. it was standing between them and access to health care and maybe we just sweeten the pot a little bit more, we could encourage the legislature to do the right thing and encourage the governor to do the right thing. sadly, after i was able to secure $14.5 billion for nonexpansion states, including $2 billion for georgia alone to just incentivize medicaid expansion, they left that money on the table and 600,000 georgians in the medicaid coverage gap. who are they working for? i work for georgia.

thankfully, there are some folks who heard it, who heard the call, who responded. the incentives i secured led to north carolina, for example, recently expanding medicaid. even the staunchest opponents 0 could not justify the overwhelming incentive could finally cover the gap. georgia politicians continued to dig in their heels more than a decade after the affordable care act has become settled law. no matter where you are on this side of the debate on the -- which side you're on on the debate about the affordable care act, can you imagine social security in 40 states -- can you imagine medicare or medicaid in 40 states and whether you get it

or not depends on which state you're in? well, while craving politicians are fighting the fight of more than a decade ago, literally millions of americans, most of them hardworking americans, it's the working poor, that's who we're talking about, they're in the health care coverage gap while politicians play the games that politicians play. it's shameful. it's immoral. it's unjustifiable. when i think about this, i often think about a woman that i met while doing my work named heather payne. i think of heather from dalton, georgia, often because here's a

woman in the health care coverage gap and guess what she does for a living. she's a traveling nurse. think about that. she's committed her whole life to making sure that other people have the health care coverage that they need. her job is health care. she worked throughout covid as an e.r. and labor and delivery nurse, yet she often did not have health care coverage herself pause she fell into the health care -- because she fell into the health care coverage gap. that's who we're talking about, heather. she made too much to qualify for conventional medicaid but she could not afford coverage on the marketplace. and so about two and a half

years ago, heather, who sometimes had health care coverage and sometimes she didn't because she was a traveling nurse, about two and a half years ago, she noticed something was wrong in her body. and even though she noticed something was wrong and she was in pain and discomfort, she couldn't go immediately to see a doctor. she literally had to keep working through her pain, working through her discomfort, working through her uncertainty until she could save enough money out of pocket for a visit to a neurologist. by the time she got to a neurologist months later, the neurologist told her that she already had a series of small strokes. now, with the knowledge of what had happened to her, heather had to continue putting off serious medical procedures because she

could not work as an e.r. nurse anymore and yet she was still waiting to get approval for disability so she could get medicaid coverage. in ways that our system is broken and needs to be reformed. heather, despite spending her career providing lifesaving care for others is not able to access health care herself because she is not able to meet georgia's work requirement rules. i don't see anybody could think that that's right. i think it's wrong that in the richest country on the planet we don't want to lower the cost of health care for people who worked hard serving our community and in heather's case literally keeping us healthy. and because i think about

heather quite often, i asked robert kennedy, what does heather need. because our governor set up his own program with these work requirements that just create red tape. i said, does heather need monthly bureaucratic paperwork requirements to prove she's working when she's sick or does she need access to health care so she can finally get healthy and get back to work? mr. kennedy told me that she needed health care, not work requirements. right answer. but i found his answer interesting because this administration is not working to get heather health care. in fact, they want to continue to allow georgia to waste taxpayer dollars right now implementing an expensive and

flawed system of bureaucracy and red tape to put more obstacles between georgians and the health care they desperately need. we have a program that the governor setup that rather than expanding health care, about 80% of it is spent on administrative costs and 18 months later only a few,000 georgiaians -- few thousand georgians are signed up while hundreds of thousands of georgians are in the health care coverage gap. it's not right. it's not smart. i believe in hard work. my late father had a fierce work ethic. i watched him and my mother wake up early every morning, and they woke us up.

my dad had this thing, you didn't sleep late in this house, he didn't care if it was saturday or sunday, he would wake's us up and say get ready, put your shoes on. i would say ready for what? he would say, i don't know. get ready for whatever. i believe in hard work. it was drilled in me. but an e.r. nurse who's been taking care of people for years, she doesn't need somebody to put a fire under her to get her to go to work. she needs to be able to get basic health care so she can get healthy and go back to work. so i was deeply disturbed when i kept asking mr. kennedy about this, and he kept changing his answer, kept flip-flopping. he said at one point states may

take different approaches to providing coverage to their citizens. i wonder what was going on. i think i know why. i think already he's trying his best to navigate the politics of folks in the administration who are not committed to the heathers of this world. so if mr. kennedy can't decide if the e.r. nurse from dalton, georgia, who spent years saving other people's lives and now needs health care insurance to save her own life deserves health care, if he can't decide that, then how in the world am i supposed to vote yes on him being the hhs secretary? so for heather and the hundreds of thousands of georgians in the

health care coverage gap who need an hhs secretary who will stand and advocate for them, my vote is no. but not only that. as a senator from the great state of georgia i'm very proud that i represent the george-based centers for disease control and prevention, the cdc. which was created nearly 80 years ago to prevent the spread of malaria across our countries. the cdc does lifesaving work to control disease outbreaks, to ensure our food and our water are safe, to keep our brave servicemembers abroad safe, and to prevent leading causes of

death such as heart disease, cancer, stroke, and diabetes. cdc is one of those entities that i think is vastly underrated and underappreciated because we don't see most of the time the bad stuff that they've saved us from. it's hard to get credit for the bad stuff that you prevent from happening. but where in the world would we be without the cdc? i think we got a glimpse of how important their work is as we were all dealing with the covid-19 pandemic. there are many other bugs like that out there. thank goodness for their work. for the scientific method, for their discipline. the cdc employs 10,000 georgians

and their work is so critical for every american. but in addition to that, the cdc has a great economic impact on georgia as well. for every one job at the cdc, three jobs are created. one job at the cdc creates three jobs in the georgia economy. and that's why students come from all over the world to study in georgia research institutions because of its proximity to the cdc. they come to emory university. they come to georgia tech. they come to moore house college

because it's near cdc, the morehouse school of medicine. the center hosts over 125,000 visitors every year. the cdc invests hundreds ever millions of dollars into georgia organizations and institutions to partner on research. in fact, for every dollar the cdc spends, the georgia economy sees $2 in growth. healthy people help the economy. if the cdc were a business, it would be the seventh largest business in my state. so, last june i visited the cdc, carrying on the spirit of my predecessor in my seat, my friend, the late republican senator johnny isakson. johnny isakson was a good man. we didn't agree on everything,

but he was just a good human being. and he was a fierce advocate for the cdc. and i'm honored to carry on that tradition in his memory, because he understood, as do i, that the cdc again is saving us from so many bad things that we don't even see. there's a way in which, because of their work, we are blessed and privileged into cluelessness. he understood not just the economic benefits of the cdc, but also the tremendous importance of investing in our public health. during the first trump administration senator isakson, a republican, questioned all hhs nominees about how they would support the critical work of the cdc. think about that in sharp contrast to what we're seeing on the other side of the aisle

these days. johnny isakson would be questioning whoever was the nominee for the hhs -- what do you think about the cdc? because, imagine that, he actually believed in advise and consent. i don't know what we're witnessing in this moment, but we're hard-pressed to call this advise and consent. between two equal -- two coequal branches of government. senator isakson, republican senator from georgia, fought for the cdc, to expand its scope of research into areas like pre preventing -- preventing mass violence and mass shootings,

pandemics. and because the cdc was equipped to expand its research, it turned federal investments into cures and treatments and lives that are saved. not republican lives, not democratic lives, human lives. be it's easy to get behind the work of the cdc. it ought to be. after all, look what the cdc has accomplished over the past 80 years, because the centers have been well funded. it has always received support on both sides of the aisle. eradicating small box globally, nearly eradicating polio, measles and mumps, which is responsible for saving the lives of at least 42,000 americans, finding treatments and supporting preventive care for our hifsh-pos -- for our

hiv-positive brothers and sisters. creting an 18% drop in infections by helping hospitals implement safety standards that save 4500 lives each year so you don't die of some bug in the hospital that kills you while you're trying to get well. you can thank the cdc for that. and this is because the cdc has always been supported by both sides of the aisle. i saw that work up close when i i haves'9"ed the cdc -- when i visited the cdc last june. i spoke with researchers and medical professionals who are already working to address bird f flu, which possesses -- which poses a danger to our poultry farmers and our grocery prices. can i tell you, i spent time with those cdc workers.

they're not the enemy, as some have tried to paint these federal workers in recent days. shameful. they didn't deserve to get a blanket memo encouraging them, whoever they are, no what thor what job they hold, to just resign. they're the wall. they've been protecting us. they're the reason we're able to go to sleep at night and not even think about certain things. it's hard to get credit for saving people from the bad stuff they don't even see. i visited the insectory, where the cdc was testing thousands of mosquitos for malaria, to help prevent malaria deaths globally, protect americans traveling

abroad and keep the disease from spreading to the united states. so it's concerning for anyone who cares about stopping the spread of deadly diseases to the united states to hear some of the past comments about the cdc from the nominee to lead the department of health and human services, mr. kennedy, who would manage a budget, listen, of nearly $2 trillion. $2 trillion. including the cdc's budget has compared the cdc work to nazi death camps, and sexual abusers in the catholic church. he said that many of them belong in jail. so i asked mr. kennedy if he retracted those statements, and he denied making them at all. he said no, i didn't say that. so i read him the transcripts of his remarks at the autism one conference in 2013 and 2019 where he made these comments.

in 2019, mr. kennedy said incorporates the same reason we had a pedophile scandal in the catholic church, it's because people were able to convince themselves the institution of the church was more important than these little boys and girls who were being raped, and everybody kept their mouth shut, the press, prosecutors, the priests, bishops, the monsignors, the vatican and even the parents of the kids who didn't want to believe it was happening or believed so much in the church they were unable to criticize it. you know, that is the perfect metaphor, he said, for what's happening to us. 2013, at the same conference, he said issit hyperbole -- is it hyperbole when i say these people should be in jail? they should be in jail and the key should be thrown away. to me this is like nazi death camp. i mean what happens, what happened to these kids, one in 31 boys in this countries, their minds are being robbed from

them. look what it does to the families. i can't tell you why somebody would do something like that. i can't tem you why ordinary germans participated in the holocaust. he's talking about the cdc. you can slice and dice these words all you want. the moment at which you put the cdc and nazi death camps in the same statement, and you're the secretary nominee for hhs, houston, georgia, america, we have a problem. and that problem is robert kennedy. and god help us if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle cannot get past partisan politics, cannot find the courage to stand up to donald trump and say no to robert kennedy.

so don't chastise me and ask me how in the world would i vote against him when 18 months ago he was a democrat. that's not the game we're playing here. this is not about democrat or republican. if my colleagues on the other side of the aisle want to abdicate their responsibility to seriously engage in advise and consent, that's their problem. i'm not obligated to play along. voting against robert kennedy, not out of some partisan im impulse, not out of some sense of shirts v. skins. this is literally a matter of life and death. we're voting against him because he's manifestly unqualified, and

anybody who's honest knows it's true. these are serious times. a few days ago, in the midst of all that we're facing, the trump administration silenced the cdc from sharing public health notices and critical health data. that is literally their job. during the first week of the trump administration, the white house gagged the cdc, preventing them from communicating a all-important public health information to anybody -- doctors, state health officials, parents, anybody. this impacted anything from bird

plug and is literally raising the cost of eggs. in addition to that, this order crippled their ability to combat maternal more at that moment the american cancer society called on the trump administration to, quote, restore access to comprehensive data, refrain from changes that would lead to incomplete future data collection, and commit to ensure evidence-based science can provide without additional bureaucracy or red tape. they said, any restriction to gather and release these data could thwart our ability to address and reduce the cancer burden across all communities. that's the american cancer society. the trump administration removed vast amounts of government data sets, resources, and web pages

across the cdc to comply with the administration's shortsighted dei executive orders. how is an organization like cdc supposed to address the social determinants of health? this is keeping our best scientists and our researchers from their work to treat and cure cancer. everybody has lost somebody to cancer. and everybody would like to see more progress in preventing and curing disease. so i'd like for mr. kennedy to explain to my constituents in georgia how data sets that help cancer organizations work to eliminate cancer is somehow a problem that needs to be eliminated. thanksfully these web pages have been temporarily restored, but that's only because it was ordered by a judge. i asked him yes or no,

mr. kennedy, do you agree with the administration's gag order? and he called it, quote, a standard operating procedure. well, i don't believe hindering cancer research is standard operating procedure. and i fear this administration's attempt to dismantle the cdc is going to slow down desperately needed lifesaving research, and mr. kennedy will be there aiding and abetting that work. we've got address this issue of maternal mortality. this weekly update around issues that pertain to our health is a critical resource for

researchers, for doctors and public health professionals looking to combat our country's shamefully high maternal mortality rate. shockingly, georgia is one of the worst states for maternal mortality. maternal health care access. in fact, a black woman in georgia is three to tofour time to die from matters related to childbirth than a white woman. even when you have the insurance, even when you have the income. now, what happens if you have a federal government that doesn't even allow you to report those disparities? how do you address them? shockingly you 89% of maternal deaths in georgia are preventable, but these numbers represent women and their families and they are more than statistics.

when i think about our maternal mortality crisis, i think of keira johnson, a 39-year-old woman who flew planes and ran mayor a on thises and -- marathons and spoke several languages. more importantly, she was a human being. and on april 12, 2016, keira johnson checked into a hospital with her husband, charles, to give birth to their second child, langston. keira never returned home alive. she was literally lying in the hospital bed begging for care. she died from a hemorrhage pproximately 12 hours after delivering langston. keira deserved better and so did amber thurman and candi miller.

so do the mothers across the united states who are dying at disproportionately high rates than other nations. yet this administration is making things worse by gagging the agencies tasked with helping medical professionals keep mothers alive. and so for georgia's incredibly dedicated scientists, researchers and medical professionals, for keira, for amber thurman and candi miller and their grieving families, for the thousands of women who died preventable deaths surrounding their pregnancy, i'm voting no for mr. kennedy for hhs secretary. finally and nobody believes a preacher what he says finally, i'm going to get out of the way so my colleague, mr. welch from the great state of vermont, can

continue this work. but you know the sad irony of this moment in which we're seeing an onslaught on anything that represents diversity, equity, and inclusion, the sad irony of this attack on dei is that the trump administration, while attacking diversity, equity, and inclusion, is nominating a manifestly unqualified person to run the department of health and human services. so don't lecture me on diversity, equity, and inclusion and the virtues of a meritocracy. -- while putting up the most unqualified person anybody can imagine to be in charge of the nation's public health system. at the end of the day, mr. kennedy is a hazard to our

health, he's a rubber stamp for the agenda to raise your health care costs so they can line the pockets of their wealthy friends, he's busy chasing conspiracy theories that he'll spend no time chasing solutions to lower our health care costs, he apparently sees no problem gagging the cdc, seen at the rick -- even at the risk of raising egg costs, slowing cancer research, and exacerbating our maternal mortality rates. so for cassie cox, to hedger payne, for atlanta's cdc employees, the memory of keira johnson and thousands of women who died preventable maternal deaths, i'm voting no on robert

f. kennedy's nomination to lead the department of health and human services, and i call on all my colleagues to join me in saying yes to our constituents and no to robert kennedy. madam president, i yield the floor.

mr. welch: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from vermont. mr. welch: thank you, madam president. i am here to follow my colleague from georgia, senator warnock, to talk about the robert kennedy nomination. but before i start, i just want to share some good news i just learned about with the success of doge. as we all know, mr. musk is working hard to slash costs, sending out emails to people telling them they don't have to

show up to work tomorrow, firing inspectors general, all in pursuit of a smaller government, at whatever the cost to the a lot of folks around. but busy as mr. musk is, he found time -- he found time with tesla to sign a $400 million contract to provide tesla cybertrucks as transportation for the state department. so it's a tribute to mr. musk that he was able to take a little bit of time out of his more than full-time job of cutting costs, cutting positions and, quote, saving the taxpayers money, that he was able too find an opportunity to sign this $400 million deal for his company, tesla. but turning back to the topic at

hand, you know -- serious question for all of us -- the health and human services secretary plays a vital role is in the well-being of every citizen in this country. and it's extraordinarily powerful in every respect and has to do with science, medical research, cancer cures. it has to do with the delivery of health care and trying to deal with the very complex and very expensive health care system we have. it has to do with trying to create priorities for our administration of our health care system. so i think all of us, every single one of us, takes very seriously the advice and consent constitutional responsibility that we have when it comes to voting on a presidential nominee.

and i start out from the proposition that the newly elected is entitled to the benefit of the doubt so that my beginning position is my hope is that i can be supportive. but saying that, i want to give the benefit of the doubt to the president, republican or democrat, is different than saying i want to give a blank check. so there's -- how do we decide, or at least i'll say, how i do decide about a yes or no? it's three matters for me. one is character. one is competence. and one is their priorities. so character, competence, and priorities. character is a difficult issue to assess is and i think all of us are reserved when it comes to making an opinion or judgment on the character of another person. there's a lot of reasons anyone

does whatever it is they do. and all of us have mistakes that we've made along the way. but difficult as it is, that's a factor that i believe a u.s. senator has to take into account, exercising her or his best judgment about the character qualifications of the person who's presented to us. so rather than go through my own reading and assessment of mr. kennedy's character, i want to read a letter from his cousin, carolyn kennedy, who's known him all his life. it was a painful letter for her to write. she video taped it as well. but it was a letter out of great sincerity and concern about the well-being of the citizens of this country, she felt obligated to to -- to share.

she is a very private person. her family, as we all know, has suffered great loss, provided great service. she lost her father, she lost her uncle, she lost her other uncle, and there's been a lot of hardship that's been reported for many of the kennedys. i happen to be a great admirer of the family. i'm from massachusetts. john f. kennedy was somebody that was inspiring me to go into thinking about politics and public service. so i say that by way of introduction because this letter that caroline -- carolyn senate to -- kennedy sent to the chair and ranking member of the help committee was clearly hard to right but heartfelt and as i said earlier reflected a deep and abiding

commitment that she felt to provide relevant information to those of us who have to make a vote on mr. kennedy. let me read her letter. throughout the past year, people have asked for my thoughts about my cousin, robert kennedy jr. and his presidential campaign. i did not comment not only because i was serving in a government position as united states ambassador to australia, but because i had never wanted to speak publicly about my family members and their challenges. we are a close generation of 28 cousins who have been through a lot together. we know how hard it has been and we are always there for each other. but now that bobby has been nominated by president trump to be secretary of health and human services, a position that would put him in charge of the health of the american people, i feel

an obligation to speak out. overseeing the fda, the nih, and the cdc, and the centers for medicare and medicaid services, agencies that are charged with protecting the most vulnerable among us, is an enormous responsibility. and one that bobby is unqualified to fill. he lacks any relevant government financial management or medical expertise. his views on vaccines are dangerous and wefully mi misinwoefully misinformed. he has personal qualities related to this position which for me pose even greater concerns. i have known bobby all my life. we grew up together. it's no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets because he

himself is a predator. he's always been charriesmatic, able to attrack others, through his percent -- i watched hand hs cousins down the path to drug addiction. and he enjoyed showing off how he would put baby chicks and mice in the blender to feed hawks, it was a scene of despair and violence. of course people can grow and change. through his own strength and the many second chances he was given by people who felt sorry for the boy who had lost his father, bobby was able to pull himself out of illness and disease. i admire the discipline it took

and the continuing commitment it requires. but siblings and cousins who bobby encouraged suffered addiction and death while bobby has gone on to misrepresent, lie, and cheat his way through life. together, while he may encourage a younger generation to attend a.a. meetings, bobby is addicted to attention and power. bobby preys on the desperation of parents and sick children, vaccinating his own children while building a following by hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs. even before he fills his job, his constant denigration of our health care system and the conspiratorial half truths he has told about vaccines, including the connection of

samoa deadly 2019 measles outbreak has cost lives. now i know bobby's crusade against vaccinations has benefited him in other ways. his ethics reports make clear he will keep stakes in a lawsuit against an hpv vaccine. 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. during my time in australia, working on the cancer moonshot, i learned that cervical cancer is among the top three forms of cancer among women in a majority of countries. tragically every year more than 200,000 children lose their

mothers, orphaned due to lack of vaccines and screening. those are the real-world consequences of bobby's irresponsible beliefs. we are a close family and none of this is easy to say. it also wasn't easy to remain silent last year when bobby ex extorted senator kennedy's legacy for his own campaign and then gravelled -- govld to -- grovelled to trump for a job. he continues to denigrate my father's reputation and his own father, someone who is willing to exploit his own painful family trans-- tragedy.

i am certain that my father and uncle bobby who gave their lives in public service and uncle -- and uncle would be disgusted. the american health care system for all its flaws is the envy of the world. its doctors and nurses, researchers, scientists, and caregivers are the most dedicated people i know. every day they give their lives to heal and save others. they deserve a knowledgeable leader who is committed to evidence and excellence. they deserve a secretary committed to advancing cutting-edge medicine to save lives, not rejecting the advances we have already made. they deserve a stable, moral and ethical person at the helm of this critical and crucial agency. they deserve better than bobby

kennedy and so do the rest of us. i urge the senate to reject his nomination. sincerely, caroline kennedy. that is a hard letter for her to have written, a hard letter for me to have read, but from a person who hasnown him all his life and knows his capacity to kick the heroin addiction that he had, has expressed very clearly questions about his character. now why is that important? you need a steady hand to run a major agency with the awesome responsibility of the health care well-being of the people of this country. that is a hard thing to do. it's very stressful. and that history that was

accounted by -- recounted by caroline kennedy certainly raises major questions about the suit ability of mr. kennedy -- suit -- suitability of mr. kennedy to serve as secretary of health and human services. the second question is competence. competence has to do with what you're experience is, what your training is, what your managerial capacities are. you know what, mr. kennedy says he wants to be a disrupter in the health care system. i'm in favor of a disrupter. we need change. i don't want a destroyer. and robert kennedy does not have

the temperament or the capacity or the competence to be merely a disrupter and a builder but to be a destroyer. competence, you know the obvious things, he's not a doctor, he's not a scientist, he's not a public health expert or someone who's led a complex organization like hhs or a private major organization that requires extraordinary managerial skills. he's built a career -- we had a debate about this that i come down clearly on the side that his career is built on misinformation, and it's misinformation on health care. and by the way, one of the things that's so tough if you're a mother, you're a father and you have a partner, you have a son or daughter who's really seriously sick, you'll do

anything, you'd mortgage your house, you'd liquidate your retirement account, you'll do anything and rg you can for -- everything you can for the well-being of that child or loved one, you'll do it. but also if you have a person you love who is diagnosed with a fatal illness, you also are really vulnerable to folks who tell you there's an easy way out, a magic therapy, a special doctor in south america. you're so hungry to get the cure, to get the answer to protect the person you love. anybody in the medical profession should take great care not to abuse the trust they have. in my view, robert kennedy has spent his considerable talent promoting misinformation to vulnerable people who have knows

we all lost the people we love. one of the things mr. kennedy said when attacking vaccines, they're not based on science, but they appeal to people's distrust of the standard medical profession. kennedy made anti-semitic remarks about covid-19, saying that the pandemic was to spare ashkenazi jews and chinese people. what is that about? his anti-vaccine promotion in samoa led to 83 people dying. kennedy said that 5g causes sickness and dna damage.

some people believe this. they saw it on the internet. he's promoting it using the kennedy name it womans with being -- it comes with being one of the most historical families. he doesn't -- he doesn't understand what hiv-aids are and exposed homofoamic views on hiv-aids. he has said, quote, it's undeniable african aids is a different disease from western aids, unquote. kennedy has also pushed a false theory that aids is real chronic fatigue syndrome and kennedy said it's anti-depressants, not guns, that lead to more mass shootings and that it's big pharma's influence that stopped them from researching mass

shootings. you know, when i think about how did he come to be the nominee, it's relevant because it obviously isn't on the basis of scientific major, his skill at running a major organization health care research that he's done, it's political. he ran for president in the democratic primary. he lost badly, made no progress. selected his vice presidential candidate on the basis of her ability to write checks and keep the campaign going. it blew up nevertheless. he went to candidate trump who was leading on the other side pretty much uncontested for a job. and for kennedy's -- candidate trump told kennedy he could be hhs secretary and here he is. that is hardly the resume to

inspire confidence that he'll be good at the job. he was good at ingrash yachting -- ingrash eighting himself to president trump but that's not confidence for me that he will be good at supporting the health and well-being of this country. interestingly enough, one of the things that president trump did in his first term that i have great respect for is operation warp speed. we were in covid, a lot of things president trump did i think were bad but i'm going to talk about something that he did that was really good. we needed a vaccine. we knew covid was deadly. we were all terrified somebody or a family member, friend, would contract the virus. we didn't know how it was spreading. there was even a time where, if you got your groceries, you were supposed to leave your bag outside. we didn't know. what we did all know is that what would give us security and

safety was a vaccine. we didn't have one. operation warp speed was a commitment by the federal government to put up money in advance to help facilitate research, and put up money in advance to build production capacity for a yet-to-be-determined, yet-to-be-created vaccine. what happened was the combination of federal money going into pharmaceutical companies who devoted their scientific expertise, medical expertise, to finding a vaccine, and they found it, then when they found it we didn't start building the manufacturing capacity. we had it in place. that was a risk, because we didn't know we'd get the vaccine. we didn't know if it would work or wouldn't. the trump administration made a commitment to be ready the moment that vaccine was found, and as a result of that we were

able to get the vaccines out to millions of people way before, in the absence of operation warp speed, it would have been delivered. that's an achievement. robert kennedy, six months after the vaccine was out and people were being -- lives were being saved, hundreds of thousands of lives were being saved, said it was a disaster. he condemned it. so, how is it, even in the face of this almost miraculous discovery and creation, and then delivery of this vaccine, and hundreds of thousands of lives saved and a restoration of some sense of security, even though we had a long way to go, that mr. kennedy condemned the scientific breakthrough that led to the saving of lives, of

people in your state, madam president, and in mine? so, it just bewilders me that a person who is so rash and so rejects not only science but life experience in this country, where operation warp speed helped us get that vaccine created and distributed. that's pretty strange. you know, other things that mr. kennedy has said about vaccines, and this really is serious, because we're having debates about these things and people don't have confidence. mort we undercut their confidence about vacks joins, will they -- vaccines, will they get vacks 2345i9ed for -- vacks natived for -- vaccinated for others? having the confidence we need as a society to make a decision about how to proceed, but robert

kennedy, some of the things he did, he falsely claimed vaccines claimed autism. he falsely claims that vaccines cause autoimmune diseases, develop disorders in allergies. he supports -- well, i'll leave that out because people can disagree on that, but he claimed vaccines can cause rare childhood cancers. claimed that the spanish flu came from vaccine research. no evidence in the world for that. called covid shots a crime against humanity. claimed the covid vaccine was a conspiracy against black communities. raised a lot of money off the anti-vaccine propaganda films. went to samoa, as others have said, to amplify anti-vaccine voices and contributed to a measles outbreak, and that killed 83 people. and as my colleague from georgia mentioned, he compared covid policies with nazi testing

pro programs, compared vaccination requirements to nazi experimentation. claimed pesticides make people trans. claimed hiv does not cause aids. you know, and a couple of things that he claimed fluoride causes dis diseases. claimed that 5-g anesthetic causes radiation sickness and dna damage. that's not the person i think that we can trust to build up science, build up the credibility of good science, make decisions about allocation of research. it's just a person -- i don't know how to describe that. it's just a conspiracy-minded person who comes up with the

conspiracy of the day to challenge anything that's ow there that will advance his interests. you know, the other issue, the prio priorities, and this is where on how best to improve our health care system there's going to be a debate, and there always is, within the democratic caucus, oftentimes within the republican conference, and certainly across the aisle. i was a strong supporter of obamacare, and my republican colleagues in the house at that time were united in their opposition. it passed, really with the vote of senator mccain here in the senate, and the debate never ended. when i was in the house after obamacare was passed and the republicans took the majority, it seemed like every vote was about repealing the health care

bill. but finally, that's behind us. it's been accepted. but it's not necessarily guaranteed. in fact, we have to make a lot of improvement. but the priorities that i'm hearing from the trump administration, which would be carried out by the health and human services secretary, are very disturbing to me, and would be very, very harmful to vermont. dramatic cuts in the medicaid budget. medicaid helps low-income kids. it really is also the lifeline for our seniors. who need nursing home care. medicaid in vermont, 194,000, or 30% of vermonters, could potentially be impacted by the administration cuts to medicaid

and health insurance tax credits and assistance. and that's all kinds of vermonters. there's 20,000 seniors. it's 67,000 children. it's 19,000 vermonters who have disabilities. by the way, we have real affordability challenges in vermont. one of our big affordability challenges, we have very high property taxes, one of the highest income taxes in the country, but the property taxes are brutal on local property owners and homeowners. if those cuts occurred, as is being proposed by the trump administration, then it would be advocated by mr. kennedy, that's $113 million hole in the vermont state budget. what do they do? does the state go to local property taxpayers to try to make up the difference? not possible. not sustain able. three proposals would dramatically reduce federal funding for medicaid --

block grants per capita grants and reducing medicaid matching rates. all of that has immediate and detrimental impact on our budget. currently, the federal government pays between 50% and 77% of the medicaid cost, and more for certain high-value services. the administration proposals, to slash billions in federal funding for medicaid, as i mentioned, would really strain our budgets. the programs we have that would really be affected include dr. dinosaur, which provides low-cost or free health care for vermont's children and teenagers under the age of 19. it also provides health care for pregnant women, which is so tremendous. women who are pregnant getting health care, then after the baby is delivered, care then that is such a critical time in their life and in the child's life.

we want to keep that. vermont medicaid has a prescription cost assistance program that helps uninsured and those enrolled in medicaid. we want to keep these. we want to improve it. if there's ways to make it more affordable, we want to do that. we certainly ■don't wanttoblow it up. vermonters could lose access to substance use treatment or mental health care. our rural hospitals in vermont are like rural hospitals in alabama, they're a lifeline for our communities. they play a very important role in the well-being of communities, not just community health but the local economy. they're under enormous pressure. doctors there are not being paid what they need to be paid. they do an incredibly good job for folks, but they're really in jeopardy. i'm working with senator boozman

and others to try to get the reimbursement rates for our community hospitals up to where they can be sustainable. the kennedy plan would cut that and hurt us. so, the bottom line here for me, on the question of any nominee, is character, competence, and priorities. on all three ever these, i come up short, with respect to mr. kennedy. aside from the fact that we could do better, it's hard in many ways to see how we could do worse. so, i would urge all of my colleagues to consider the consequences of their vote, a vote that would put a person of

questionable character, a person of questionable competence, and a person of, in my view, bad prio priorities, at the head of our health care system. i would urge my colleagues to vote no. madam president, i yield back. mr. van mr. van hollen: madam president. the presiding officer: the senator from maryland. mr. van hollen: thank you, madam president. i want to start by commending my colleague, the senator from vermont, mr. welch, for his strong argument as to why we should all vote no on the

nomination of robert f. kennedy jr. to be secretary of health and human services. and i come to the floor tonight to voice my strong opposition to this nomination. you know, mr. kennedy says that he'll always follow the evidence, no matter where it le leads. well, if you look at his record, he hasn't done that. but madam president, let's apply that guidance and see where it leads when it comes to his own nomination. first, is he qualified to do the job? that should be the basic threshold question for any nominee to a position such as this. and the short answer is no. but let's now look at the evidence and understand why.

we know that the department of health and human services manages some of our most critical health programs, like medicare, like medicaid. it does health research that delivers treatments and cures at the national institutes of he health, and the advanced research projects agency for health. at the fda, the food and drug admini administration, it determines whether or not the drugs we consume are safe and whether they're efficacious, whether they will actually do what the manufacturers say they will do. at the cdc, the centers for disease control, they disseminate information about pandemics and health risks, and they monitor the risk of outbreaks of disease around the world, especially those diseases that can travel across boundaries and hit the united

states. it helps treats our nation's substance use crisis at the substance abuse and mental health services, known as samhsa. it ensures patient safety in our health care systems at the agency for healthcare research and quality. and it runs lifesaving programs like the community health centers, healthy start, and the hiv-aids care at the health resources and services administration. it does all that and more. hhs also provides quality control for reproductive health services. it ensures that contraceptions are covered under the affordable care act. and it makes sure americans can have access to over-the-counter options. hhs, the department of health and human services is, also includes early childhood development programs like head start and child care, programs to help the elderly age in their

communities, and individuals with disabilities live independently. but, madam president, when you look at that wide range of important subjects that hhs covers, mr. kennedy has no experience, no qualifications in the vast majority of that work. now, i don't think any of us expect that one secretary of hhs can know everything, but if you monitored the hearings and listened to mr. kennedy's answers, you can see that mr. kennedy knows virtually nothing about all those important subjects. in fact, he was stunningly unprepared to discuss even the most basic programs at his confirmation hearing. madam president, most of us, even those of us who are in the on medicare, have some understanding of the program,

from our parents or grandparents. we have a sense of the basic components of medicare. medicare, of course, provides health care coverage to 68 million americans -- seniors and people with disabilities. but when senator hassan of new hampshire questioned mr. kennedy about those basics, he pretty much got everything wrong. he could not explain the simple components of medicare, like what covers hospital care and what covers doctor visits. these are not gotcha questions. these are not tough questions. these are questions that anybody who wants to be secretary of hhs should understand. because medicare is one of the biggest and most consequential programs within the jurisdiction of that department. knowing the basics, just the basics, should be easy.

so he didn't understand the basics of medicare. how about medicaid? medicaid is another very important health program in our country. it covers nearly 80 million our fellow americans, including 37 million children. in my state of maryland, medicaid covers 20% of our residents -- children and families, nursing home residents, pregnant women, and people with disabilities. at his confirmation hearing, rfk jr. complained about medicaid's, quote, high premiums and high deductibles, unquote. even though, as we know, the majority of enrollees in medicaid don't have any premiums. medicaid doesn't have high premiums, but what it does have is very high approval ratings.

mr. kennedy also erroneously said that the federal government covers the full cost when we know that it has been a shared responsibility between the federal government and the states. in fact, that's been the matter of subject of lots of debate in the united states congress and at the supreme court. he didn't know that. so what we see in rfk jr. is a demonstration over and over and over again, even when our republican colleagues on the senate committee for health, education, labor, and pensions tried to coach him along, he still simply did not get it, did not get the basics. now, perhaps some of our republican colleagues -- some of them -- don't care so much about his lack of understanding of medicaid. i've seen lot of reports in the last couple weeks that house

republicans are planning to make deep cuts to medicaid as part of a plan to cut taxes for the very, very rich and ask other americans to pay for them, including americans on medicaid. so maybe for some the fact that mr. kennedy is ignorant about medicaid just doesn't get in the way. you know, madam president, we're debating a budget reconciliation bill here in the united states senate. i serve on the budget committee, and today in the budget committee i offered a very simple proposal. i said that, as part of this budget reconciliation process, the senate should not consider -- in fact, i made it a point of order -- subject to point of order if we did consider -- should not consider cuts to medicare or medicaid. simple amendment.

let's lay down some guardrails before we debate this reconciliation bill. unfortunately, not a single one of my republican colleagues voted for that bill to make sure that we protect medicare and medicaid as we go through this reconciliation process. all my democratic colleagues voted for it. now, it's bad enough that mr. kennedy is not qualified for this position, and clearly he is not qualified, but it's worse than that. i mean, there are lots of unqualified people that we might just pick out randomly and say, let's nominate that person to be the secretary of health and human services, and we could just have an unqualified person there. but with mr. kennedy, it's worse than that. he's not only unqualified, putting him in that position

will put the public health of americans at risk. and so that takes this to a whole different and more dangerous level. and we've heard a lot about this vaccine question, but it really does go to the heart of why he poses a threat to the public health. now, he says -- he says he'll believe us on vaccines, quote, if you show me the science, unquote. well, he should look at the science, and he should talk to the scientists in the this country because -- in this country, because in the past 50 years alone, vaccines have saved 154 million lives around the world, including the lives of 100 million infants. vaccines eradicated polio and eradicated smallpox. they've prevented outbreaks of measles, where they're used

across the majority -- great majority of the population. they've kept recent generations from getting chicken pox. appeared, yes, they -- and, yes, they helped lift the world out of the lockdown from the covid-19 pandemic. so for generations, for general -- for generations. mo that morning 60 years ago an american said is and i quote, i hope that the renewed drive to provide vaccination for all americans and particularly those who are young will have the wholehearted support of every parent in america, end of quote. colleagues, that person was president john f. kennedy. unfortunately, his nephew, rfk

jr., has spent decades unravelling that hard-won legacy by spreading lies and conspiracy theories about vaccines. it wasn't that long ago that he spread vaccine conspiracy theories in samoa where his misinformation contributed to a measles outbreak that got 83 people killed, mostly infants and children. we cannot let that happen to children here or others around the world. but, unfortunately, we're already seeing the costs of that misinformation and those conspiracy theories right here in america. because that misinformation, the kind of misinformation spread by rfk jr. has contributed to lower vaccination rates and right now there is a measles outbreak in west texas that's threatening

tower children. -- our children. and it's not the first one we've seen in recent months, and it will not be the last, if these conspiracy theories continue to spread. and we know that it doesn't take much misinformation to make us all vulnerable because if vaccinations rates drop below 95% in the cases of some diseases, those diseases can spread very rapidly through the population. in fact, for a disease like measles that infects just about everyone exposed, it's disastrous when those vaccination rates fall below 95%. and yet these lies spread by rfk jr. are now burrowing themselves into the american consciousness like brain worms, and it will be bad enough if he doesn't become

secretary of hhs given the dan he's already done, but if he becomes secretary of hhs, he will have a bully pulpit on which those conspiracy theories can spread even further and even father and put even more americans at risk. now, once he was confronted with some of these statements that he had made previously, rfk jr. started to flip, and he started to flop. in fact, at his confirmation hearings, he insisted that he never meant much of what he said and in fact he denied having made some statements altogether. he denied making statements that are on tape for everyone to hear them. as we've heard already, in 2013 he compared the cdc's childhood vaccine program to nazi death

camps saying, and i quote, to me this is like nazi death camps, what happened to these kids. in 2019 he compared the program to the pedophile program in the catholic church. in 2023 he said that covid-19 is targeted to attack caucasians and black people. the people who are immune are ash general in as subsidy jews -- ashkenazi jews. he denied saying that at the hearing. and this and that and flip and flop, he tried to backtrack. a confirmation day nomination day conversion. he also, nevertheless, could not prevent himself is could not help himself from citing a discredited study on autism and repeatedly refused to tell the

truth that peer-reviewed studies have shown that vaccines do not cause autism. madam president, vaccines do not cause autism. so, he's not qualified. worse than that, he poses a ding to the public health, given his conspiracy theories about vaccines. but let's do what he says he does, and let's continue to follow the evidence. because, madam president, this nation conducts the best biomedical research in the world. a lot of it comes out of the national institutes of health, and i am eproud that they have their home -- and i'm proud that they have their home in the state of maryland. just last year the nih research helped develop an accurate blood test for alzheimer's, a brain computer interface to help a man with als communicate, and a doug reduce reactions to peanutal

letter just. all tows things last week at nih. nih clinical trials give people hope with novel and hard-to-treat illnesses including childhood cancer. and yet what we're witnessing in the first 22 days of this trump administration is an tac on much of that medical research -- an attack on much of that medical research. right now, the trump administration is wreaking havoc. they've frozen internal meetings. they've pulled down information from data sets from hhs' resites. they've denied information from the public. thankfully, a federal court had to step in and stop their refusal to provide the public with important health information at nih and cdc. the administration also early on took this illegal action in

violation of the income by tant ceil act to stop a lot of the federal grants that have already been appropriated. that also put in jeopardy a lot of nih research. again, thankfully a federal court has intervened and issued a tea restraining order. but just in the last three or four days, we had nih decide to change entirely the formula for reimbursing institutions that study diseases around the country, and the overwhelming evidence and testimony from the experts said that by changing those formulas, they will do great damage to important health research in this country. again, a federal judge had to intervene to stop this. we shouldn't have to rely on the courts, madam president, in

order to get the job done for the american people. we certainly aren't going to be able to rely on r.f.k. jr. were he to be confirmed. so he poses a threat to that important research that's going on at nih. in fact just this past november he said, and i quote, we need to act fast. 600 people are going to walk into offices at nih and 600 people are going to leave. unquote. that's r.f.k. jr. back in november. and if he doesn't fire you, he still doesn't want to let you do your job. he's on record saying that his plan for nih is, quote, giving infectious disease a break for about eight years, unquote. madam president, infectious diseases have no plan to give us a break and we should not be

giving them a break. and i can say right now we're seeing avian flu outbreaks across the united states. i'm hearing a lot about it of course from my farmers on the eastern shore of maryland, and it is contributing to a huge spike in the price of eggs around the country. and, yet, as this headline indicates, the trump administration's communication freeze restricted access to critical bird flu information. that's just one story about the effort to shut down information important to our health, and it is our health because if avian flu mutates, it's not just higher egg prices that we've seen, it could start jumping from person to person and we could see another pandemic. so we should never give infectious diseases a break, they will he never give us one.

finally, madam president, i want to look at one last dimension of all of this. because mr. kennedy says to follow the evidence, the evidence shows he's unqualified. the evidence shows that he would actually be worse than unqualified, he would pose a risk to the public health of our country. so it does beg the question whether he believes a these lies and all this disinformation. sometimes it's hard to tell because he seems to believe whatever gets him a lot of money and a lot of attention. and here's the evidence for that. his cousin, caroline kennedy told the senate that he, quotes, vaccinates his own children while building a following by hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs, unquote. so what's good for his family,

he discourages other families from doing. during his time at the misnamed children's health defense which is an anti-vaccine lobbying organization, he made millions of dollars from anti-vaccination lawsuits. at his hearings when he was asked to forego any profits he would gain as secretary of health and human services, at first he said he wouldn't, and then he said okay he won't take that profit for himself, he will assign it to his son. he seems to flip and flop with the independents. when he was -- with the winds. when he was working with the democrats, he said he was ardently pro-choice, now he says he believes whatever donald trump believes. he wrote entire books about climate change, but now with donald trump in the white house, he's willing to agree to disagree. so, madam president, what the

evidence shows is that he will not stand up for our public health. and we've seen this pattern, of course, with other nominees who get nominated for the positions not because of their qualifications but because of the fact that they bow down to everything that donald trump says. we've seen that in nominee after nominee, and while of course the president wants people in his cabinet who are going to follow his guidance, we would also hope that these are people who are qualified and people who didn't pose a danger to the country and people who are not just doing this to make money for themselves. and when it comes to that test, again, let's do what mr. kennedy says, let's follow the evidence. strike one, he's not qualified. strike tro -- strike two, he's

actually a danger to the public health. and number three, he says things according to his own -- own cousin that we're not sure he believes because he doesn't apply the same standard to his own family. he says things to enrich himself even when it puts others at risk. so, mr. president, i would say strike one, strike two, strike three, he's out applying his own test of following the evidence. mr. kennedy is simply not fit to be secretary of the department of health and human services. i urge my colleagues to vote no. and i yield the floor.

the presiding officer: the senator from connecticut. mr. murphy: thank you very much, mr. president. i'm joining my colleagues on the floor today to raise the alarm about the impact on the people that we serve. in particular the most vulnerable people we serve, the frail elderly, children. of the nomination and soon confirmation of robert f. kennedy jr. to be the secretary of the department of health and human services. i don't think it's hyperbole to see that there are very few people in this country that are less qualified to run this agency than robert kennedy jr. i say that because there are few people in the country who have been so enthusiastic, so public and so impactful in their

ability to take some of the wildest conspiracy theories out there on the internet about our health system or about our kids or about our families, internalize them and then disseminate them in a way that does great damage. there is obviously a reputation that comes with being a kennedy. there's an ability to convince and lead people because when a kennedy speaks there's an assumption that that comes with authority and grounding and fact. and so when robert f. kennedy jr., even as a private citizen, has adopted and amplified some of the wildest conspiracy theories out there, most notably his belief that there's not a single safe vaccine in the united states of america, it has

consequences because people listen to the kennedy family. but those consequence pale in comparison to the consequences that will be visited upon this country if a conspiracy theorist, someone who throws science out the window -- not just a science skeptic, someone who is outright who's style to -- hostile to science takes over health and human services. the daerng is deeper -- the danger is deeper because what is happening to our country today is a billionaire takeover. elon musk is running the united states government today for -- as far as any of us can tell, and elon musk is running the government in order to enrich himself. today there is news that he is about to get a major contract

for arbor teslas from the white house, news that he will meet with prime minister modi, and his interest will not be the people of the united states of america, elon musk is going to sit down and talk to prime minister modi and talk about teslas. you couldn't make this up. you couldn't make this up. he's doing press conferences in the white house and then he is leveraging his access to power, his access to the president, his influence over american policy in order to make money for himself and the same thing is happening at the department of health and human services. as we speak, elon musk and his lieutenants have access to all of your personnel data, your medicare data and medicaid data. they're in there to make the

government more efficient, they're in there -- they're in there in order to make money. i -- i don't think that's hard to believe given the fact that it is entirely clear that elon musk's involvement in our foreign policy is with the design to make money for hi himself. the same thing is happening and will happen in the department of health and human services. i want to talk to you for a few minutes tonight about a radical anti-patient, antiscience and pro billionaire agenda that will be realized if our r.f.k. jr. is successfully confirmed by this body. so let me walk you through the r.f.k. jr. policy checklist. the first thing that we are learning aboutthat he is going to -- about is that he is going

to oversee a gutting of nih funding. now, this is a big deal because a massive cut in funding for nih, well, that's life or death. nih does the basic research that private pharmaceutical companies need in order to cure and treat diseases. if the nih can't do research, then our pharmaceutical companies can't build on that research to cower diseases -- to cure diseases. what has happened already that r.f.k. jr. has pledged to implement is one of the biggest cuts to nih that we have witnessed in modern history. now it's done under the disguise of efficiency because the cut is supposedly about reducing the administrative expenses in

research, but anybody that's ever been in a lab will tell you that there's really a distinction with no difference between direct and indirect costs, you can't do the research without the administrative help and the indirect expenditures. for instance, these are the things that would be categorized as indirect expenses. that's what's being limited by the order that r.f.k. jr. is going to implement at the department of health and human services. mri machines that can measure whether a cancer treatment is working or not. that's an indirect expense. the equipment that determines whether the treatment that is being researched is working or not. payment for specialized research

assistants that analyze the critical data that comes out of research like blood samples, so the human beings that analyze the data, that is an indirect expense and that will be eliminated by this executive order. staff that monitor patients who are in clinical trials for adverse reactions, those people are apparently indirect expenses. you're going to have less people monitoring you for adverse expenses. maybe no people monitoring you for adverse events and reactions because those staff are deemed an indirect expense. advanced microscopes that are used to examine genetic alterations within, for instance, a tumor tissue, critical to studying cancer progression, those advanced microscopes are, according to

the trump administration, an indirect expense and thus will be limited or eliminated. at the university of connecticut, the estimate is that they would lose $165 million per year as a result of this new policy that robert f. kennedy jr. is going to enthusiastically embrace. the university of the connecticut tells me it would mean they close labs, entire labs, they would have fewer disco discoveries, that they would do fewer patient trials, and there would be major delays, even on the projects that they would continue, meaning that some people will die unnecessarily, waiting for those cures and therapies to be developed. okay, well, you could say that you shouldn't hold the incoming

secretary of health and human services to account for a policy. but here's the problem, this isn't just a bad idea, it's i illegal. it's illegal. congress specified very specifically in statute how money would flow to research institutions. in fact, we were very pres prescriptive in limiting the ability of any president to be able to unilaterally reduce the amount of money that goes for things like indirect expenses. i am not going to vote for any nominee who is willingly going to implement an illegal order. lawyer of what you are watching is -- what you are watching is an extraordinary seizure of power from the people by the executive branch.

the reason why spending power is in article 1 vested in the legislature, is because here in the legislature, in the congress, we represent every political party, every political faction, every part of the country. when we come to a decision on how the taxpayers' money is spent we have to, by definition, come to an agreement that spreads that money out amongst people from every part of the country. people represented by both republicans and democrats. that means the money is spent fairly. if the president of the united states gets to have unilateral decision-making authority over where money gets spent, it becomes a fundamental unconstitutional corruption because the president can then just decide to spend money only on his friends and to hurt his enemies. and so, i'm not going to support

any nominee, including rfk jr., who are taking jobs with the explicit promise that they're going to implement illegal, unconstitutional orders. and the executive order to destroy nih funding is just that. listen, people rely on this research. people rely on this research. people will die if this research is delayed or if labs at the university of the connecticut or the university of north carolina or the university of wisconsin close. there's no consensus out there in america to destroy medical research. nobody voted for donald trump to stop cancer research. or juvenile diabetes research.

so, when i say there's an anti-patient, a radical anti-patient agenda, i want to start with this plan to illegally gut nih funding, because that is anti-patient and it's radical, because the american public do not support it. i know my colleagues have spent a lot of time talking about rfk jr.'s efforts to undermine vaccines, but i just think it's worth it to once again read into the record some of the things he has said, because it was stunning to me, i'm a member of the help committee, i listened to his testimony of mr. kennedy. he said i'm not anti-vaccine. and yet, let's just remind our colleagues of what he has said. he called the covid vaccine a crime against humanity. he said taking the vaccine would increase your risk of getting

covid. he said the covid vaccines may have contaminated the country's blood supply. he described the hpv vaccine as dangerous and defective. with this level of risk, it would seem that no loving parents would ever allow their daughter to receive this vaccine. he said the polio vaccine may have led to the increase in cancer. he wrote that the measles vaccine, quote, instead of protecting children, not only delays onset of disease to later age cohorts, but has the potential to cause serious and permanent injury. he wrote that the tetanus vaccine makes children more susceptible to dying from other causes. he stated i do believe autism does come from vaccines. most famously, he stated there is no vaccine that is safe and effective. yet he has the gall to come before the help committee and

said that he is not anti-vaccine. that is like somebody that sets fire to a building every single day and claim they are not an arsonist. there is danger, danger in creating an impression that vaccines are unsafe. that vaccines cause autism. it's been debunked. there is such thing as truth in this country. there is scientific consensus. i'm not saying we shouldn't question science, but there are questions that have been settled, and it has been settled that vaccines are not just safe but are essential for the preservation of the health of our children. third, i want to talk about these attacks on the fda. mr. kennedy said if you work for the fda and you're a part of

this corrupt system, i have two messages for you -- preserve your records and pack your bags. listen, i don't think there's a single senator here who would say we shouldn't be having a conversation about fda reform, about making sure the system works better. but there is a draft executive order out there, apparently, that's been reported on, that talks about having -- halving the staff at fda. you're literally about to confirm somebody who says that everybody at the fda should pack their bags. that sounds like somebody who is going to enthusiastically shut d down, or at the very least ne neuter, the fda. now, i talked about what this means at the outset. this is both anti-patient and pro-billionaire. it's anti-patient because -- i

didn't even check anti-patient. it's absolutely anti-patient. it's anti-patient because if you have the staff of the fda you're going to get less drugs and therapies approved as quickly. that's clear. ultimately, patients are going to be hurt. but it's pro-billionaire because once you shrink the resources it's up to the administration who gets the access to the regulatory system and who doesn't. if you're a billionaire friendly to donald trump, or a pharmaceutical company that's friendly, you might get that access. here's the other thing that happens when it's harder for science to dictate what drugs and therapies ultimately end up in the hands of consumers. it allows the snake oil salesman, the people who are peddling the snake oil cures, the unproven cures, it allows

them to gain a foothold, because there are less actual proven drugs and therapies moving through the pipeline. so the unproven, unregulated drugs get a leg up. i'm going to show you one other chart here. it's gif extraordinary how many people coming into the administration or associated with the administration are peddling these scammy products. a lot are these things called vitagummies. this vitagummy scam, the surgeon general nominee is hocking these vitagummies. mehmet oz who is going to be director of chs is hocking what he called miracle drugs, unregulated drugs and supplements. alex jones, a big trump supporter, is hocking super male

vitality similar. the guy who is in line to be the next fbi director is making money online selling something called vaccine reversal pills. let me say that again. kash patel, who is about to be voted on here to run the fbi, is making money online selling something called vaccine reversal pills. so when you curtail the ability of the fda to be able to regulate and to be able to move legitimate drugs through the process, you are benefiting the people who are hocking the unregulated, often charl tan drugs. i don't know that it's coin coincidental that a lot of those people are either close to donald trump or getting jobs in

the trump administration. the fourth thing i want to talk about is the erasure of public health data. so, this is a big deal. researchers, clinicians, doctors, they rely on data that is posted on the cdc and fda webpages. there's really important data on those webpages. but because of these executive orders that have mandated that agencies scrub anything, for instance, that refers to terms like sex or gender, the cdc and fda have taken off line numerous webpages and data sets, including recommendations on how physicians should treat sexually

transmitted infections. why? because i guess the word sex is in sexually transmitted infections. so the attack on science, the attack on patients includes the erasure of public health data that our clinicians rely on. rfk jr. has made no commitment that he would put that data back online. this crazy, insane assault on what they call dei means that if you've done research on anything with the term sex in it, like sexually transmitted infections, apparently your research is no good. that's wild. but rfk jr. is apparently going to implement the destruction of basic public health data that has anything to do with gender or sex. that's radical. that's anti-patient.

let me talk to you about one particular conspiracy theory, because it just matters to me gre greatly, and this one's both anti-patient and pro-billionaire. so robert kennedy has lots of really wild, really dangerous ideas, but one of them is that treating kids for depression, treating kids for depression is what has caused school shootings. in this country. kids always had access to guns, he said on a talk show. there's no time in american history or human history that kids were going to schools and shooting their classmates. it happened, you know, it happened coterminus with the introduction of these drugs, prozac and other drugs. what he is saying is that it's

not the amount of guns that are out there, it's not the assault wea weapons. it's the fact that we are trying to humanely treat children for mental illness. he also says that we've always had an abundance of guns in the united states, in the last 20 years there has been no per capita increase in the number of guns. that is totally inaccurate. totally inaccurate. so as somebody who spent their career working to protect kids from gun violence, who believes that gun violence is a public health issue, it is heartbreaking and unacceptable to me that we are about to nominate a candidate to lead the preeminent public health agency, not just in the united states but in the world, who believes that guns are not the primary cause of school shootings, but antidepressants are. there is zero evidence of that

fact. zero evidence of that fact. that should be offensive to every parent in this country, who may not know exactly how we solve the problem of school shootings in this country, but certainly knows the problem is not that we are treating kids for mental illness. i want to talk about two last important elements on rfk jr.'s policy checklist. first, and i've referred to this throughout my remarks, is this idea that you are going to have to take a loyalty pledge to the president and his political agenda in order to receive funding. this is that dei executive order that says that they're going to end radical and wasteful government dei programs. they say if your research program has

anything to do with diversity, equity,sex,gender that they're going to cease funding your program. now, once again that's illegal. the president cannot, cannot apply additional conditions to grant programs authorized by congress beyond those that are explicitly authorized by congress. sometimes the president has some wiggle room, some ability to make decisions and apply extra conditions. but congress has not given the president the ability to issue an order as wide and as broad and as vague as this. nobody out there in the medical research field has any idea what this means. they have no idea whether they're running a dei research program or not. and so what it allows for is another fundamental corruption. for oto-department of health and human services to just -- for the department of health and human simplifies to just decide within a closed, walled-off room

what's dei and what's not. and i just speculate there's probably going to be a whole bunch more dei research programs in oregon and connecticut than there will be in mississippi or texas. it's just another way to move money away from people who may not line up with your political ideology or your political agenda as a president and hand it to your loyalists and to the people who are with you. and then finally i'll just come back to one of the places that ail started. elong musk and his -- elon musk and his billionaire crowd, they're inside the department of human services right now. right now. an unaccountable billionaire that didn't get elected to anything has access to your most intimate personal information. your medicare records, whether

you've seen a doctor, whether you've had a surgery, whether you've had a treatment for mental illness or addiction. elon musk, an unaccounted billionaire, the richest man in the world, he has access to that data. and maybe we aren't certain what elon musk is going to do with all that data, and by the way he apparently has access to your treasury data, to your tax records, to your social security information as well. but rfk jr. is not going to stop that. he's not going to stop an unaccountable billionaire from having access to some of the most sensitive data that exists -- your health records. elon musk is interested in having access to this data, in

part because it gives him a competitive edge over the folks that he's trying to win business against. and so any way you cut it, robert kennedy's agenda for the department of health and human services is antipatient and it's pro-billionaire. gutting nih funding, undermining reams, attacking the fda, e-reagan administration key public health data, blaming shootings on antidepressants. and that's pro-billionaire because who gets helped when guns aren't the problem? it's the wealthy, rich owners of the gun companies. using this vaguely termed notion of dei to force people to pledge loyalty to donald trump in order to receive federal funds and then giving elon musk and his friends access to very sensitive

health records. i know a lot of my republican friends know in their hearts that this is a very dangerous choice, and i am very sad for this body that on this nomination that's so clearly -- that so clearly implicates one of the most sacred responsibilities of the united states congress, the protection of the health and welfare of our children, of our families, that we weren't able to find a way to tell president trump, pick somebody else. pick somebody else. find somebody who isn't so enthusias sticksly going to -- enthusiastically going to gut funding for research. who doesn't show such affection for conspiracy theories. find somebody who doesn't blame shootings on treating kids for mental illness.

there are a lot of really conservative health care leaders out there, a lot of health leaders that supported donald trump, who won't do as much damage as rfk jr. will do. there is still time for my republican colleagues to join us and send a message that loyalty to the people of this country, a commitment to protecting health care of this country, matters more than loyalty to president trump. i yield the floor. mr. m mr. merkley: mr. president. the presiding officer: the gentleman from oregon. mr. merkley: well, the gentleman from connecticut is here past midnight? and why is he here past midnight? because the health and welfare of our families are at stake. that's why i'm here, too. because it matters. it matters that you have someone in charge of health and human services who has some at least

basic understanding of the issues and basic experience managing a department or managing an organization. but the candidate, the nominee, rfk jr. fails, fails on experience, fails onneth iraq, fails on qualifications -- fails on ethics, fails an qualifications. i must say the diagnosis is grim in each of these three areas. let's talk a little about his experience running an agency or his medical experience. in fact, when mr. kennedy was asked during his confirmation hearings about some of the agencies he'd overseekers he got his facts completely wrong about just the core basics, about medicare, a critical health care program for seniors throughout

our nation. it has these parts -- a, b, and c -- and people in the medical world all know every detail about this. and when he was asked about it, he kind of just guessed. he said, well, part a covers primary care and part b covers physicians and part c is a full menu of health care services. well, not even close. not -- not even close. part a inpatient hospital services, part b, outpatient and home health services, part c, medicare advantage. i don't know if he could have explained what medicare advantage is. everyone who works in this field of providing health care through medicare understands these core basic foundations as well as lots of other details. senator cassidy talked about

another piece of the health care puzzle. we have medicare. we also have medicaid. medicaid in oregon is the oregon health plan. it provides health care to families that are struggling, who are not yet fully into the middle class. and he said that all of medicaid is fully paid by the federal government. no -- no, no it's not. in fact, in oregon, the state picks up two-fifths of the tab. and there are different categories and different ratios. and maybe one could say these details, one doesn't need to know every aspect of it. but the architecture of our health care system, the basic architecture, just the simplest, most fundamental pieces he has no idea about. and niece are incredibly

important programs in our states -- medicare and medicaid. 44% of the births in or are covered by medicaid -- in oregon are covered by medicaid. oregon is a very rural state. we have a lot of big cities, but we have a lot of rural areas. medicaid rates are higher in rural areas. medicaid is incredibly important in the counties that are very rural in my state. of my 36 counties, a good two-thirds of them or three-fourths of them would be considered extremely rural. it is important to people in rural america that you have a leader who understands and cares about the health care program for rural america. but that individual is not rfk jr. not only that, it's vital that the health and human services

secretary understands ideas -- which ideas don't work. once again, our republican colleagues are pushing to impose work requirements on medicaid enrollees. now, every developed country but the u.s. fully backs the idea that health care is a right. it's not a privilege that comes out of your wealth. and they understand that in order to be able to work, you have to have health care so you can be well enough to work. that's ever other country. but here, the elite across the aisle only want health care for the rhode island they want to cut down medicaid. they want to poor people to struggle and never be able to get well so they can never get a job, so they can keep talking about how lazy people are. well, that's just absurd and wrong in every possible way. 91% of medicaiden rollees who --

medicaid enrollees are either employed, in school, caring for family members. yet every few years my colleagues across the aisle trot out this myth and every few years it gets debunked and then they bring it back -- it's like sunspots or something, comes around every few years. well, we actually have facts on what's happened when this misbegotten idea is undertaken. when arkansas implemented new work requirements during the first trump administration, to maintain their health insurance, arkansas medicaid enrollees had to fill out new paperwork. some works several jobs to make ends meet. not surprisingly, it's very hard when you're struggle with making multiple jobs fit to not have the time to do massive paperwork all the time.

they're working one of their jobs, taking care of their families. so what happens? other medicaid enrollees were working, but could not reliably meet the required number of house, given the normal fluxuations of -- fluctuations of low-wage and hourly work. and if you ever, ever have lived in a blue-collar community -- and i live in a blue-collar community -- people who are patching together various part-time jobs, the managers change the schedules continuously. and so now you're scheduled for one job conflicts with the schedule for the other job. anyway, it's very stressful, and it's very challenging to be getting minimum wage or near minimum wage and conflicting schedules and managers changing those schedules and still trying to deal with raising kids and being there when you need to be there. roughly 18,000 people lost health insurance in arkansas

before a federal judge halted the new work requirements for violating the intended purpose of the medicaid program. well, there was another state that tried this out -- georgia. they implemented work requirements in 2023. not wanting their work requirements to be strung down by courts, georgia lowered the requirements by technically expanding coverage to fulfill the purples of the program. in doing so, the state of georgia estimated that another 175,000 people would enroll in the program. they estimated 175,000. only 6,500 people enrolled. and the state of georgia spent $60 million in administrative fees track ago compliance with the work requirements. $10,000 per medicaid enrollee in georgia just on administrative overhead, not providing health care. the cost just kept piling up.

uninsured people still need to see a doctor. but instead of seeing their doctor and getting care early, uninsured people wait to get care until they wiped wind up in the emergency room. there is an old but accurate saying -- an uninsured patient is the most expensive patient. so anyone with half a brain would want people to be insured. they'll get care earlier. they don't end up in the emergency room, save money, people are healthier, they're more likely to work, and it costs less. it's a win-win. well, if you strike down the support for medicaid here, states have to figure out if they can pick up the difference and picking up the difference means they have to wrestle with whether they can raise taxes, why do they have to race

factions for basic are being? oh, my goodness, yes, impose that burden on families trying to get on their feet and be able to thrive. according to the congressional budget office, every medicaid dollar spent today reduces future deficits by $2. that's a pretty good return. that's an investment we can't afford not to make. and the lost of medicaid coverage hits rural communities particularly hard. as i've noted, most of my home state is rural, a couple of weeks ago we saw what happened when medicaid funding was frozen after donald trump's dead of night directive to cut off a program that families depended on, critical access hospitals, rural clinics, federally qualified health centers were terrified they would have to lay

off staff or shut their doors and loss of medicaid funding for these communities would threaten what was often the only hospital or clinics in these rural areas. they're always struggling, but when medicaid was expanded, when oregon seized that opportunity, a lot of patients who were never able to pay a bill could pay a bill. that meant a stronger foundation for health care. don't we want a stronger foundation for rural health care? it's critical to a secretary for health and human services who understands these issues, and that individual is not r.f.k. jr. he is, however, something else. one of the world's best known purveyors of conspiracy theories, about the alleged harm that comes from effective vaccines.

that is he is a conspiracy theorist who says these effective vaccines that everyone knows is effective, he will tell you something different. he'll tell you that hpv and tetanus and polio vaccines don't work. his conspiracy theories have been debunked time and time again, they have been repudiated time and time again, including the big one, and that's that vaccines cause autism. this is a straightforward thing. it's been studied time and time and time again, and it's powerful conspiracy theory if you happen to have a child who has autism and it starts to appear at the same time you're giving childhood vaccines, you could believe that may be the cause. it's been studied time and time again, children who have the vaccine, it does not cause

autism. yet, what has he done? he says i believe autism comes from vaccines. in the middle of a 2017 measles o outbreak in somalia, he told people the following, africans may be particularly vulnerable to vaccine injuries, including autism. that was the end of his quote. he claimed that the global decline in measles was caused by nutrition and clean water, not the measles vaccine. and that the children in california were getting measles from the vaccine or somebody who got the vaccine. in other words, he stood it on his head and said those who were getting sick because they did not have the vaccine were getting sick because they had the vaccine. all of this misinformation does real harm.

he even raised doubt over flu shots claiming zero evidence that the flu shots prevents any hospitalization or any deaths. this is completely untrue and wrong. american people die every year from the flew. i didn't get a flu shot until the covid epidemic came, and the nurse said while you get that covid shot, get the flu shot. i had never gotten a flu shot before. i didn't think about it, it never ee cured to me. -- occurred to me. it's very easy to study those who get flu shots and those who don't. and what r.f.k. jr. did was not to be true to people. the result is more people get sick, more people die. finally, kennedy also referred to the covid vaccine as the deadliest vaccine ever made.

well, we know how many people were dying before we had the covid vaccine, and we now know how much safer things are. we're not sitting here on the floor with a mask over our face, the folks in the elevator didn't have a mask, because the threat of covid has receded because we have the covid vaccine. these misinformation isn't just some harmless fun. these conspiracy theories are not some harmless fun. they do real harm. they do real harm. i want to read to you a letter from josh green. he is the current governor of hawaii, and he is a physician. he wrote the following, and i quote, i will quote it extensively. mr. kennedy has spent years undermining one of the greatest public health achievements in history, vaccines. his rhetoric directly

contributed to the tragic 2019 measles epidemic in samoa which infected thousands and killed 83 people, primarily children. he said, i witnessed this personally, as the -- as a practicing physician at the time, i led an emergency medical team to samoa to administer lifesaving vaccinations after misinformation, much of it spread by mr. kennedy and his network led to a collapse in immunization rates, we saw first hand the devastating consequences, grieving parents, overwhelmed hospitals, a nation in crisis. the impact of mr. kennedy's reckless actions extends beyond samoa. he has spread vaccine misinformation globally, leading to outbreaks that have affected

countless people. that's the letter from the governor of hawaii, also a physician who witnessed first hand in samoa, people, children, dying because of the lives from -- lies from robert f. kennedy jr. that is not a person you bring in to lead your health care system, and every one of my colleagues across the aisle knows it. they are hurting people by putting him into this office. so i asked them -- i ask them, rethink your responsible to serve the people of the united states. that is your responsibility as a member of the u.s. senate. you have constituents in your home state. the president is not your constituent. the president has platinum plated health care. we're not worried about the president getting the best health care, we are concerned

about our constituents. i can tell you a lot more because i have a lot of information here. my colleague from california is here, and i'm looking in his direction to see if he's ready to speak. if he is, i'm going to wrap-up. i'm particularly struck by the letter written to us by caroline kennedy, first cousin to r.f.k. jr. i'll just summarize it and say, it's not complimentary. he says in the most dramatic terms that we're making a massive mistake to put him in charge. that he has served his wallet, he has served without ethics, he has served in a way that has hurt people time and time again, and it is -- he does not belong in office. mr. president, we're here, as my

colleague was before me, chris murphy from connecticut, as my colleague from california is here now, we're here after mid midnight. we're here after midnight because this matter. because more people will suffer and die across this country. more children will die because of the incompetence and the full lack of ethics of the individual being considered to head up our health care system. let's not make this mistake when we vote on his final nomination. thank you, mr. president. mr. schiff: mr. president. the presiding officer: the gentleman from california. mr. schiff: today we consider the nomination of robert f. kennedy jr. to lead the department of health and human services. in a time when science has given us the tools to extend life, to

eradicate disease, to protect the most vulnerable among us, this body is being asked to confirm a man who has dedicated the better part of his career to attacking science. but the debate over r.f.k. jr. jr. and his antiscience agenda does not take place in isolation. it is part of a broader and far more reaching and destructive agenda. it is part of an ert to dis -- effort to dismantle public services, to strip away the country's resourced, to defund the department of health and human services, to take away from those who have little and hand it to those who have everything. so this is not just about r.f.k. jr. it is about every senior who relies on medicare, every low-income family whose children get health care through medicaid, every person who depends on the government not as a luxury, but as a necessity.

i want to take us back for a moment to talk about why we even have a department of health and human services in the first place. because when a government works the way it's supposed to, when public health and security is taken seriously, hhs exists to ensure that no american has to choose between their health and bankruptcy. it exists because we decided as a nation that we would not let people lose everything just because they get sick, that we would not let children die from preventable diseases, that we would set basic rules on food and drug safety to protect families, that we would invest in science, not as an indulgence but as a way to improve the life and the quality of life for all americans. and tonight we are being asked to hand over that responsibility to a man who has spent his career undermining scientific

achievement, to a man who has told americans a thousand different times in a thousand different ways not to trust the very science that has saved millions of lives. so who exactly is our r.f.k. jr. and what does he believe? let's talk about what this nominee has actually said. in 2005, he wrote an article, one so riddled with falsehoods that even the publisher of rolling stone retracted it, he covered the supposed link between vaccines and autism. an article that said vaccines poisoned an entire generation of american children. that claim has been debunked more times than any of us can count. the new england journal of med medicine, the cdc, the who, the american academy of pediatrics, every crediblence using to has -- credible institution

confirmed what science established, vaccines do not cause autism. he doubled down. he founded the children's health defense, an organization that masquerades as a public health group while spreading disinformation that has fueled vaccine hesitancy -- across the country. it has falsely linked vaccines to neurological disorders, to chronic illnesses, to developmental delays. they have said that childhood immun immunization schedules are unsafe. they have scared the public with outright lies that have led parents to refuse vaccines for their children. they even sold children's

onesies, no vax, no problem. because words have a power, because a lie repeated enough can masquerade as truth, the damage has been staggering. the 2019 measles outbreak in samoa, why did that happen? because vaccination rates plummeted, down to just 31% after anti-vaccinate activists spread fear and misinformation. robert f. kennedy jr. was part of that. his organization amplified the very lies that led samoan parents to hesitate, to delay, to forgo the measles vaccine. rec reckless, irresponsible, and deadly. 83 lives were lost when measles tore throughout the region, most

of those killed were children. there were parents who trusted, as all parents do, that the world would be safe for their sons and daughters. what did they find? they found that trust abused, by people peddling misinformation, by reckless speculation dressed up as concern. by the very ideas mr. kennedy has tracked in for years. let's not pretend this is some harmless contrarian at play here, that this is some cocktail party eccentric, or that this is some kind of lively ac definitelyic debate. when a man tells millions not to vaccinate their children, and they listen, children die. and it did not stop there. in 2021 in the middle of the once in a century pandemic as covid-19 tore through communities and filled emergency rooms to capacity, robert f. kennedy jr. used his platform not to encourage vaccination,

not to protect the public, but to do quite the opposite. he promoted the lie that mrna vaccines alter human dna. false, they do not. he suggested without evidence that the covid vaccine was more dangerous than the virus itself. false. he compared vaccine mandates to nazi germany invoking anne frank, a grotesque distortion of history. as recent as 2023 rfk was on podcasts arguing, quote, there's no vaccine that is safe and effective. this is the man we're considering for secretary of health and human services. a man who, when presented with lifesaving science, does not champion it, he undermines it. a man who when given a choice between protecting public health and indulging conspiracy theories chooses conspiracy every single time.

it is worth asking ourselves why donald trump would support a nominee so unqualified for this position, whose views are so temporary contrary to -- so contrary to science. i get it, rfk dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed donald trump. is there more to it than that? i think the answer is yes. to understand why donald trump would support a nominee so unqualified, it is worth asking ourselves why scientists, like anthony fauci, who have devoted their long careers to deploying science in the service of better health, have been made a villain by donald trump. because the answer lies in the mere image of the two. why promote rfk jr., the vaccine charlatan and at the same time vilify anthony fauci, the vaccine champion? i will say this, of all the

attacks on our institutions during the first four years of donald trump, nothing was more corrosive to our democracy than his relentless assault on the truth. because nothing is more useful to a demagogue than to destroy the very idea of truth. if nothing is to be believed, then nothing is to be believed. if there's not some shared experience to draw upon, then what is left to decide who should govern, but political tribe or violence and one-man rule? this is why the demagogue always attacks a free press and calls it fake. he must cause the public not to believe its lying eyes. a vicious mob attacks the capitol, the would-be despot calls them tourists. the mob attacks police and beats them. the would-be despot calls them political prisoners. he fires inspectors general whose job it is to root out corruption and says it is to fight disruption. he wants to dismantle the agency

that protects consumers. he says it is to protect consumers. he wants to plunder the treasury, to make his rich friends richer and shower them with tax cuts. he says he is saving the treasury by emptying it. why the attack on science? what has science to do with a despot's need to attack the truth? well, what is the scientific inquiry but a search for fact and truth? what is the scientist but the symbol of the search for fact and truth? want to attack the truth? you must attack the truth tellers. you must attack science itself. out with the faucis and in the charlatans. the truth cannot be made to disappear so easily. i remember who saved our country during its most deadly pandemic in a hundred years. it wasn't the charlatans. it was the scientists, the

health care workers and essential workers. we saw true heroes during that pandemic. i remember the images clear as day. first responders without the necessary ppe, rushing into homes where infected individuals were afraid and alone. nurses and emt's working back-to-back shifts and watching their friends, neighbors, communities torn apart, inside and out, by this horrible disease. we got out of that pandemic in significant part because of the vaccine and the brave health care provider who administered it and other lifesaving care, not despite it. while mr. kennedy postures as a skeptic, he frames himself as a crusader against corruption, his organization did nothing to help us through that deadly pandemic. in fact, he has profited handsomely from the fear that organization sows. in 2020 alone, children's health defense saw its revenue double,

raking in millions as the pandemic worsened. mr. kennedy built himself a lucrative career not by exposing anti-science falsehoods but by spreading them, by cultivating them and profiting on them. this is opportunism of the most grotesque kind. this is grift masquerading aspirins pel. now we're -- as principle. now we're sex to trust -- now we're asked to trust the health of 330 million americans to this man? i have to ask because it demands to be asked, what exactly is the vision here? what kind of health and human services secretary does the trump administration believe they're appointing? i think they know, and i think though know they have their man in rfk jr., because if your goal is to dismantle public health, if your goal is to dismantle the truth, if you want a secretary who will tell people to ignore doctors and trust whatever

random youtube video they last saw, yes, this is your guy. if you want a secretary who won't say no, even if the falsehoods cost lives, like advocating bleach or horse dewormer to cure covid this is your guy. if you want a secretary who has no will, desire, or guts to stands up to elon musk or donald trump, who craves nothing more than the attention that high office will bring, then this, this is most definitely your guy. if your goal is to make sure medicaid, the single largest source of health insurance in this country, becomes nothing more than a cautionary tale at the behest of rfk jr. and dr. oz, if you want millions of people to lose coverage, if you want seniors to see their medicare protections gutted, then by all means, let's give mr. kennedy the job. because while they're gutting health care, while stripping away protections, while they're making middle easts great again -- making measles great again, they want to hand out tax

cuts to billionaires. trillions taken out of our health care system and handed over to the wealth nest among us. trillions of dollars to people who already have more than they could spend in a hundred lifetimes. but that child on medicare or medicaid who needs insulin? that senior on medicare who has a heart condition? no, we're told there's just not enough in the budget for them. well, i reject the cynical notion government exists only to serve the powerful. i reject the idea that expertise is optional, that science is negotiable, that the well-being of the american people is just another chip to be bargained away. i reject it, and i know i am not the only one. i do not believe in a government that exists only to protect the powerful. i do not believe we are at our best when we are our most indifferent. and i do not believe that the

american experiment was meant to end with a nation that surrenders its own future to cynics and con men. so let me tell you what i do believe. i believe in the doctor pulling a double-shift in a community hospital, exhausted but unwavering, because she took an oath to heal. i believe in the mother who walks her child into a free clinic and breathes easier knowing today, at least, her son's asthma will be treated, and he will breathe easier. i believe in the scientist who spends a lifetime working in obscurity so that one day that child has to suffer such a terrible and specific disease again. and i believe in a government that does not mock these people, that does not sabotage them, that does not sell them out for the benefit of a few at the expense of the many. and i believe we need the best and brightest to shepherd our health care system, our resources to maximize every

dollar in search of every cure. rfk is not the best or the br brightest. he will not bring back camelot or make america healthy again. but his ignorance of science just might make people sick again, deprive them of the treatment they need again, might cause hospitals to close again, might discourage young people from entering the sciences again. he just might. we must not confirm a man who so willingly endeavors to be the enemy of the truth when it comes to our health. we need to vote like our lives depend on it because, for a great many americans, it will. mr. president, i yield.