Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has blamed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for being responsible for America having the highest rates of COVID deaths during the global pandemic, omitting the fact that Donald Trump was president at the time.
During a heated hearing on Capitol Hill, the controversial Health Secretary sought to justify the chaos at the CDC by accusing the agency of failing in its central mission: protecting Americans from infectious disease.
“America is home to 4.2% of the world’s population, yet we had nearly 20% of the COVID deaths,” said Kennedy, a known conspiracy theorist and vaccine sceptic.
“We literally did worse than any country in the world, and the people at CDC who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving.”
The comments come after CDC director Susan Monarez was forced out of her job, claiming she was resisting controversial policies pushed by the Health Secretary, leading to a leadership exodus at the agency and calls for Kennedy to resign.
But in a fiery series of exchanges on Thursday, the former Democrat failed to mention that Trump was in office when the pandemic hit in 2020 and ravaged America throughout that year.
While the president ended up creating “Operation Warp Speed” to speed up the development of COVID-19 vaccines, the U.S. was initially slow to roll out widespread testing.
Trump also minimized the threat in its early stages, calling it comparable to the flu and suggesting it would “disappear.”
He contradicted scientists, promoted unproven treatments such as hydroxychloroquine, and famously even suggested looking into whether coronavirus might be treated by injecting disinfectant into the body.
Trump himself would ultimately contract COVID-19 in October 2020, and by the time his first administration ended in January 2021, about 400,000 Americans had died from the disease.
However, speaking at the Senate Finance Committee hearing on Thursday, Kennedy insisted that the agency was to blame.
“That’s why we need bold, confident and creative leadership at CDC, people who are able and willing to chart a new course,” he said.
Kennedy, the scion of America’s most famous political dynasty, was handpicked by Trump to lead the Department of Health and Human Services after the former Democrat-turned-independent presidential candidate promised to support him at last year’s election.
But he has come under fire for making sweeping changes to vaccine policies, including withdrawing federal recommendations for COVID shots for pregnant women and healthy children, and replacing the CDC’s expert advisory panel with anti-vaccine activists and other hand-picked advisers.
He traded blows with both sides of the aisle during Thursday’s committee hearing.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician who voted to confirm Mr. Kennedy on the condition he wouldn’t disrupt access to vaccines, accused him of denying people access to vaccines.
Democrat Senator Maggie Hassan hit out at him over the F.D.A.’s decision to restrict authorization of COVID vaccines for people 65 and older.
And Democrat Senator Mark Warner lashed out at Kennedy for seemingly not knowing how many people died of COVID and whether the vaccines prevented deaths.
“You’ve had the job for eight months and you don’t know the data?” Warner fumed.
“How can you be that ignorant?!”
