HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s hearing before the Senate Finance Committee on Thursday erupted into shouting, finger-pointing and accusations of malfeasance as a broader cultural fight over vaccine policy explodes across the U.S.
Amid heated questioning, Kennedy defended his recent firing of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Susan Monarez, which resulted in an exodus of senior officials. Kennedy tangled with lawmakers on everything from COVID-19, to his paring-back of access to vaccines and his claims about vaccine injuries.
One fiery exchange with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) captured the back-and-forth.
“I hope you tell the American people how many preventable child deaths are an acceptable sacrifice for enacting an agenda that I think is fundamentally cruel and defies common sense,” Wyden said.
“You’ve sat in that chair for…25 years while the chronic disease in our children went up to 76 percent and you said nothing,” Kennedy responded.
Ahead of the hearing, 11 of the 12 Democrats on the committee demanded Kennedy resign, saying he “endangers the lives of all Americans.”
This comes amid an accelerating red state-blue state divide over vaccines.
Vaccine skepticism was once more often a niche left-wing view but in recent years it’s gone mainstream on the MAGA right.
Florida officials announced Wednesday they’ll seek to make the state the first in the country without school vaccine mandates.
Meanwhile, a coalition of Western states led by Democrats announced a new public health alliance, saying they will provide “science-driven” advice on vaccines.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek (D), Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson (D) and Hawaii Gov. Josh Green (D) are backing the West Coast Health Alliance, arguing “the CDC has become a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science, ideology that will lead to severe health consequences.”
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Much of the action in Washington on Thursday centered around Kennedy’s firing of Monarez, the former CDC director, who was confirmed by the Senate only weeks earlier.
Kennedy opened his remarks on Capitol Hill by saying the CDC needs “new blood.”
“We need bold, competent and creative new leadership at CDC. People are able and willing to chart a new course,” he said.
Monarez says she was fired for refusing to rubber-stamp vaccine recommendations from Kennedy’s hand-picked advisers, whom she described as vaccine skeptics.
In an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal published Thursday, Monarez said she was let go after refusing to give in to pressure to “compromise science itself.”
Monarez said Kennedy pressured her to resign or “face termination” after she refused to comply with some “troubling directives,” including the approval of recommendations from a “vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric.”
Kennedy disputed those claims, saying he fired Monarez because she was not a “trustworthy person.”
Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), who is retiring next year, expressed exasperation with Kennedy.
“I don’t see how you go, over four weeks, from a public health expert with unimpeachable scientific credentials, a long-time champion of MAHA values, caring and compassionate and brilliant microbiologist, and four weeks later, fire her because, at least the public reports say, because she refused to fire people that work for her,” Tillis said.
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VACCINES, COVID IN THE SPOTLIGHT
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Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a former physician who is up for reelection next year, vented at Kennedy for limiting access to vaccines.
“I would say, effectively, we’re denying people vaccines,” Cassidy said.
Sen. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) said children will be less likely to get seasonal vaccines as a result of Kennedy’s newly remade vaccine panel at the CDC.
“It is… the American people’s health that’s on the line here,” Bennet said.
Tillis questioned Kennedy for canceling vaccine research efforts.
Kennedy responded that he thinks “parents should be free” to choose to get their children immunized.
In one fiery exchange, Kennedy accused Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) of having taken $855,000 from pharmaceutical companies.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) scolded him.
“Every Republican got corporate PAC money for the pharmaceutical industry,” Sanders said. “Democrats as well. Everybody is corrupt, but you? It’s not what we’re looking at? I don’t think so.”
“To suggest that every institution — the AMA, the pediatrics people — is corrupt because they disagree with you is an insult.”
Later in the hearing, Kennedy unloaded on what he described as government failures during the pandemic — even as he said President Trump deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for Operation Warp Speed, which brought the COVID-19 vaccine to the market in record time.
Kennedy said experts and government officials “lied about natural immunity,” closed schools based on bad science and politicized the vaccine depending on who was in the White House.
“The whole process was politicized… I mean, we were lied to about everything,” Kennedy said.
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FED BOARD NOMINEE IN THE HOT SEAT
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The Kennedy drama overshadowed the confirmation hearing for Stephen Miran, Trump’s pick for the opening on the Federal Reserve board.
In remarks to the Senate Banking Committee, Miran told lawmakers that “independence” is crucial to the central bank’s mission.
“In my view, the most important job of the central bank is to prevent depressions and hyperinflations,” Miran said. “Independence of monetary policy is a critical element for its success.”
“If confirmed, I plan to dutifully carry out my role pursuant to the mandates assigned by Congress,” he added. “My opinions and decisions will be based on my analysis of the macroeconomy and what’s best for its long-term stewardship.”
Miran declined to say whether he agreed with Trump’s claim that the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) manipulated federal jobs data to help former President Biden get reelected.
Trump fired the head of the BLS after a bad jobs report in July, claiming without evidence that the official faked jobs data to help Biden.
The BLS on Friday will deliver its first jobs report since Trump’s firing of the data chief.
There were ominous signs for the economy in two reports released Thursday:
• U.S. private sector hiring rose less than expected in August, according to data from processing firm ADP.
• Layoffs surged nearly 40 percent last month, the largest August hit since the height of the pandemic in 2020, according to the Challenger, Gray & Christmas consulting firm.
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💡Perspectives:
• The Liberal Patriot: Redistricting isn’t the Democrats’ problem.
• The Hill: Tinkerbell politics won’t save progressive Democrats.
• The Economist: Trump is unpopular. Why is it so hard to stand up to him?
• Vox: Why Democrats keep losing.
• The Hill: Democrats can’t escape their toxic co-dependency with Trump.
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President Trump on Thursday night will host two dozen high-profile tech and business leaders for the first event in the newly renovated White House Rose Garden, including Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook, Microsoft founder Bill Gates and OpenAI founder Sam Altman, according to an invite list obtained exclusively by The Hill.
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The Justice Department filed two lawsuits against Southern California Edison alleging the power provider’s negligence contributed to the deadly Eaton and Fairview fires in the Golden State earlier this year and in 2022.
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GOP Rep. Tim Burchett (Tenn.) got into a physical altercation with a protester Thursday outside of the Longworth House Office Building.
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House Republicans craft their own ‘Epstein list’
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House Republicans are promising to go after people alleged to have participated in convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, after the Department of Justice (DOJ) said no official “client list” exists.
House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.) told NewsNation’s Blake Burman that his panel is crafting its own “list” of potential Epstein clients based on testimony from victims.
“At the end of the day, there’s going to be a list, whether or not there’s a list in an envelope that Epstein left behind,” Comer said. “It doesn’t appear that there was, but I think we could put together a list.”
“We want to know everyone that was in the circle, as well as the people who were victimizing those young girls,” Comer added.
Comer’s panel has issued subpoenas for high-profile individuals spanning multiple administrations in both parties. He said he’s still waiting to hear back from former President Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
“They’ll have to answer that subpoena, so they have a few more days before he’s supposed to show up,” Comer said. “I believe it’s in a couple of weeks, but we will hear from them, and I do expect them to testify.”
Reps. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) held a press conference Wednesday with some of Epstein’s victims, as they seek to rally support for a discharge petition to force the release of the government’s unredacted documents pertaining to Epstein.
As of now, the petition does not have enough support from Republicans to pass the House.
Instead, Republicans voted to pass a resolution this week in support of Comer’s investigation.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) says there are no plans for the upper chamber to vote on legislation directing the DOJ to release the so-called Epstein files.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) said she got “a lot” of pushback from the White House over her support for the discharge petition.
“I got phone call after phone call last night. They didn’t want me to sign the discharge petition,” Greene said on on Real America’s Voice “Bolling!” “They want to focus on the oversight investigation. They hate Thomas Massie more than they can hate any Democrat, which makes no sense to me. And they don’t want to work with Democrats at all.”
Massie says he’s compiling his own Epstein “client list.”
The Kentucky Republican said that if the victims named Epstein’s clients, they’d be “sued into homelessness” by powerful people.
Massie said he’d be willing to read the alleged client names aloud on the House floor under protection of the Constitutional “speech or debate” immunity clause.
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© Mark Schiefelbein, Associated Press
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Roundup: DC National Guard deployment extended through December
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National Guard troops deployed to Washington, D.C., as part of President Trump’s crackdown on crime will remain on active duty through December.
Trump’s emergency declaration authorizing the federal takeover of the nation’s capital will expire this month. However, D.C., Mayor Muriel Bowser (D) signed an order this week authorizing coordination between federal and local forces to extend for longer.
The Associated Press reports:
“The main purpose of the extension is to ensure that any D.C. Guard members out on the streets of Washington will continue to have uninterrupted benefits and pay for a mission that seems likely to persist for months.”
Meanwhile, the attorney general for D.C. sued the Trump administration to end the deployment of National Guard troops.
Brian Schwalb, D.C.’s attorney general, said the administration has “run roughshod” over the tenet that the U.S. military should not be involved in domestic law enforcement.
“None of this is lawful,” Schwalb wrote.
This comes as Trump considers dispatching federal troops Chicago, New Orleans, Los Angeles and New York City.
There’s been heavy speculation that Chicago is next up, although Vice President Vance said there are “no immediate plans” for the National Guard to be sent to the nation’s third-largest city.
Trump and Vance say they want the Democratic leaders of those states to ask for federal help. Illinois Gov. JB Prtizker (D) has warned the administration not to intervene.
“We want the governor to be a partner here,” Vance told reporters in Minneapolis after visiting the site of last week’s school shooting. “We would love it, Democrat or Republican, if we had governors who were willing to actually be partners in cutting down crime and our country, unfortunately, looks like that’s not what we have in JB Pritzker.”
ELSEWHERE…
Trump joined a call Thursday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and world leaders, where he urged Europe to stop purchasing Russian oil as a way to undercut Moscow’s war in Ukraine.
“President Trump emphasized that Europe must stop purchasing Russian oil that is funding the war — as Russia received €1.1 billion [$1.28 billion] in fuel sales from the EU in one year,” a White House official said in a statement. “The president also emphasized that European leaders must place economic pressure on China for funding Russia’s war efforts.”
The Hill’s Brett Samuels reports:
“The call took place as progress has appeared to stall on efforts by Trump and others to end the war in Ukraine. The president has sought to arrange a meeting between Zelensky and Russian President Vladimir Putin, but there has been little progress on getting the two leaders together.”
MEANWHILE…
Trump justified a deadly strike against a Venezuelan drug boat, saying it’s necessary to send a message to Latin American cartels.
“There was massive amounts of drugs coming into our country to kill a lot of people, and everybody fully understands that,” Trump said at the White House.
“Obviously, they won’t be doing it again,” he added. “And I think a lot of other people won’t be doing it again. When they watch that tape, they’re going to say, ‘Let’s not do this.’”
Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned that lethal operations against suspected drug vessels “will happen again.”
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said the military campaign against drug traffickers in the Caribbean “won’t stop with just” the Venezuelan strike, which Trump said killed all 11 “terrorists” on board.
The Hill’s Filip Timotija writes:
“The strike on the vessel came as the Trump administration has increased the military’s presence in the Caribbean, arguing it is an effort to combat threats from the Latin American cartels the president has accused of flowing fentanyl and other drugs into the U.S.”
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💡Perspectives:
• Racket: The UK earns status as a censorship state.
• TechDirt: The censorship cry babies are now the censors.
• Spiked: Will I be arrested next?
• The Hill: Ukraine has always had Trump’s back.
• Foreign Affairs: A Palestinian state would be good for Israel.
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