Things got loud and heated on Capitol Hill Tuesday when Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. lost his cool during a tense Senate hearing. At one point, he even shouted, “What have you done about the epidemic of chronic disease?” catching pretty much everyone off guard.
Kennedy was in the hot seat in front of the Senate Appropriations Committee to talk about President Donald Trump’s proposed 2026 budget for the Department of Health and Human Services. It’s a pretty controversial plan that calls for slashing discretionary funding for HHS by 26 percent. That kind of cut would hit big-name agencies like the CDC and the NIH hard, which had several lawmakers pretty fired up.
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But the temperature in the room spiked when Sen. Patty Murray, a Democrat from Washington, pressed Kennedy about the budget’s impact on childcare and development block grant funding. “Secretary Kennedy, whose decision was it to withhold child care and development block grant funding?” she asked.
Kennedy seemed ready to shift blame, starting with, “President Biden submitted his budget —” but Murray wasn’t having it and tried to cut him off. That didn’t work.
“You know what? You made an accusation of me and I’m going to answer it,” Kennedy shot back. Things got real from there.
“I also want to point out — I want to point out something, Senator. You’ve presided here, I think, for 32 years. You presided over the destruction of the health of the American people,” Kennedy snapped. “Our people are now the sickest in the world because you have not done your job!”
Murray, visibly stunned, responded with, “Mr. Secretary, seriously?” But Kennedy didn’t back down and kept pushing. The two began talking over each other in a messy back-and-forth as Murray tried to steer the conversation back to her original question. “What have you done about the epidemic of chronic disease?!” Kennedy shouted again, clearly not letting the moment go.
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That’s when Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, a Republican from West Virginia, stepped in, trying to cool things down a bit. “Mr. Secretary, I would ask you to hold back and let the senator ask the questions,” she said.
Finally, Murray tried to clarify her point. She wanted to know exactly who was behind the decision to cut childcare and development funding. Kennedy finally gave a straight answer. “That was made by my department,” he admitted.
The exchange was wild, and it’s likely to be replayed and dissected for days. What was supposed to be a routine budget hearing turned into a full-blown shouting match, shining a spotlight not just on the Trump administration’s controversial budget, but on Kennedy’s fiery style and what some might call a meltdown in real time.
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