Cantwell to RFK Jr. at Explosive Finance Committee Hearing: “You’re a Charlatan”

Cantwell to RFK Jr. at Explosive Finance Committee Hearing: "You're a Charlatan"

Cantwell puts HHS Secretary on blast for cancelling $500 million for mRNA vaccine research, disregarding science, and "taking away the science and technology that has made us the leader that has saved, according to the first Trump Administration Surgeon General, millions of lives"; Senator joins Senate Finance Democrats calling for RFK Jr. to resign

WASHINGTON, D.C. - Today, at a Senate Finance Committee Hearing titled, "The President's 2026 Health Care Agenda," U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA), a senior member of the Committee, called out Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on his efforts to dismantle the American health care system and deny access to lifesaving vaccines.

"You've made a statement here today in your testimony that you would follow science, and yet you're not following science … You canceled $500 million of research, because the mRNA technology is about continuing the research to be ready for the next influenza, the next pandemic, and you have to do the research -," said Sen. Cantwell.

HHS Sec. Kennedy interjected: "You're so wrong on your facts."

Sen. Cantwell replied: "You're interrupting me, and sir, you're a charlatan. That's what you are. You're the ones who conflate chronic disease with the need for vaccines. The history on vaccines is very clear."

Sen. Cantwell also referenced the West Coast Health Alliance, launched yesterday by the governors of Washington state, Oregon, and California, in order to provide credible, science-based healthcare information to residents in the midst of the Trump Administration and RFK Jr. continued efforts to undermine and dismantle the entire U.S. health care delivery system.

"Yes, the governors of the West -- Washington, Oregon, and California -- will take up the efficacy of science," said Sen. Cantwell. "Yes, the University of Washington will deliver the science that America will depend on, because you don't want to depend on it. And his own Surgeon General of the Trump Administration said over 2 million lives were saved because the mRNA technology, and you don't want to continue that."

Prior to today's hearing, Sen. Cantwell joined fellow Finance Committee Democrats in calling for RFK Jr. to resign. The full joint statement is available HERE.

Sen. Cantwell also called attention to RFK Jr.'s history of peddling misinformation, asking him: "The women who were talking about Epstein. Do you think they were a hoax yesterday?"

RFK Jr. has been photographed with the disgraced financier and admitted in 2023 to flying on his private plane multiple times.

RFK Jr. replied: "…I have no idea what they were saying. This the first I'm hearing about."

"[The] first that you're hearing about the women on the Capitol steps saying that they believe that the Epstein information should be made public? That's the first you're hearing about it?", asked Cantwell. "What I'm saying is you are perpetrating hoaxes. You as the Secretary of Health, so you're undermining the whole health care delivery system, and you keep trying to point to chronic disease. But you're not putting solutions on the table to cover more Americans, and you're taking away the science and technology that has made us the leader that has saved, according to the first Trump Administration Surgeon General, millions of lives! And you don't want to keep that going!"

Sen. Cantwell opposed RFK. Jr.'s nomination as HHS Secretary every step of the way. In February, she delivered a speech on the Senate floor highlighting all the ways in which he is unsuitable for the role - including his proposed cuts to medical research and his longstanding alignment with dangerous conspiracy theories. Later that month, Sen. Cantwell joined the entire Senate Democratic Caucus in sending him a letter expressing serious alarm over the Trump Administration's multiple decisions that threatened to undermine America's life-saving biomedical research infrastructure, in violation of federal law.

A full transcript of Sen. Cantwell's Q&A is available HERE, video HERE, and audio HERE.

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