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President Donald Trump stood by Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. after he faced an intense grilling from senators on Capitol Hill on Thursday, telling reporters, “I like the fact that he’s different.”
While speaking with the press during his dinner with technology industry leaders at the White House, Trump was asked about the hearing.
“Mr. President, Sen. Bill Cassidy [R-La.] said, effectively, we’re denying people vaccines. Do you have full confidence in what RFK Jr. is doing?” asked a reporter.
Trump noted that he “didn’t get to watch the hearings today,” but spoke highly of Kennedy, saying, “he’s a very good person.”
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“He means very well. And he’s got some little different ideas. I guarantee a lot of the people at this table like RFK Jr., and I do, but he’s got a different take, and we want to listen to all of those takes,” said the president.
“But I heard he did very well today,” Trump went on. “It’s not your standard talk, I would say that, and that has to do with medical and vaccines. But if you look at what’s going on in the world with health and look at this country also with regard to health, I like the fact that he’s different.”
While testifying before the Senate Finance Committee, Kennedy faced intense criticism from Democratic senators, including Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., who accused Kennedy of putting children into “harm’s way” with his policies.
Wyden pressed Kennedy during the hearing, saying that he believed Kennedy had “no regrets” about a “fundamentally cruel” agenda.
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“This is about kids being pushed into harm’s way by reckless and repeated decisions to get scientists and doctors out of the way and allow conspiracy theories to dictate this country’s health policy,” Wyden said at the end of his questioning.
“I don’t see any evidence that you have any regrets about anything you’ve done or plans to change it. And my last comment is, I hope that you will 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,” said Wyden.
Kennedy countered by noting Wyden’s decades in office while chronic disease rates climbed significantly.
“Senator, you’ve sat in that chair how long? Twenty, 25 years, while the chronic disease of our children went up to 76%. And you said nothing.”
“You never asked the question of why it’s happening. Why is this happening? Today, for the first time in 20 years, we’ve learned that infant mortality has increased in our country. It’s not because I came in here. It’s because of what happened during the Biden administration that we’re going to end,” he continued.
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Vice President JD Vance also came to Kennedy’s defense on Thursday, saying the senators who grilled him are “full of s— and everyone knows it.”
“When I see all these senators trying to lecture and ‘gotcha’ Bobby Kennedy today all I can think is: You all support off-label, untested, and irreversible hormonal ‘therapies’ for children, mutilating our kids and enriching big pharma,” Vance wrote in an X post. “You’re full of s— and everyone knows it.”
Kennedy reposted the vice president, writing, “Thank you @JDVance. You put your finger squarely on the preeminent problem.”
Kennedy’s testimony came one day after over 1,000 current and former HHS employees signed a letter calling for his resignation on Wednesday. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., also called for his resignation.
Fox News Digital’s Alexandra Koch, Jasmine Baehr and Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
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