‘Shirtless in the hot tub with Kid Rock’: Democrats in Congress question RFK Jr.’s priorities

WASHINGTON – Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before Congress on Thursday that he is unhappy with how spending cuts to programs that facilitate lower-income Americans afford food will affect his efforts to promote fit eating habits.

“Am I happy about the cuts? No, I’m not happy about the cuts,” Kennedy said during a lengthy hearing before the House Ways and Means Committee, one of several congressional panels before which he will testify in the coming days.

Kennedy added that President Donald Trump and White House Budget Director Russ Vought also would not propose any real cuts to funding for the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children, often called WIC, and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.

“Nobody wants to make the cuts. Russ Vought doesn’t want to make the cuts. President Trump doesn’t,” he said. “But we have $39 trillion in debt.”

Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Gwen Moore, who asked the questions, then referenced comments Kennedy made earlier in the hearing about Froot Loops when he said it was “not even food. It’s just poison.”

Moore noted that the cereal was “much cheaper than good, healthy food.”

Froot loops contains a corn flour mixture, sugar, wheat flour, whole grain oat flour, modified food starch and other ingredients.

Trump supports cuts to HHS

That of the Trump administration Budget request For the fiscal year that begins Oct. 1, Congress is proposing to augment defense spending by more than half a trillion dollars, a 43% augment, and for lawmakers to cut domestic spending by 10%.

However, Congress proposed cutting HHS spending by $15.8 billion, or 12.5%, to $111.1 billion The legislature largely rejected this proposed spending cuts for the department as part of the state funding process last year.

Vought testified earlier this week that the administration expects to ask Congress for additional defense spending for the war in Iran, although he said he could not give lawmakers a coarse estimate of how much that would add to the current $1.5 trillion defense funding request.

Lawmakers questioned Kennedy on dozens of other issues throughout the year hearingincluding how he has spoken about vaccines since becoming HHS secretary, the rise in measles cases across the country and comments Kennedy and Trump have made about the possible causes of autism.

Republican Rep. Blake Moore of Utah said after sharing that his 10-year-old is on the autism spectrum, he was “disappointed” by what the government has released so far about possible causes.

He also said his wife was hurt by it Claims by Trump and Kennedy that women who take Tylenol during pregnancy could augment the risk of their children being diagnosed with autism later in life.

“We don’t even know if she took Tylenol during her pregnancy, but that was a hurtful moment for her,” Blake Moore said. “And I just want to encourage the administration and your team to keep going. And I think we can do more here with low expectations.”

This is what medical experts say Decades of research shows Autism is the result of a combination of genetic and environmental factors.

Death from measles

California Democratic Rep. Linda T. Sánchez questioned Kennedy about his comments during his Senate confirmation hearing on vaccines, arguing that he did not comply the commitments he has made during this process.

She then asked him whether the measles vaccine could have prevented a boy in Texas from dying from the disease.

“It’s entirely possible,” Kennedy said.

However, he repeatedly declined to answer a question from Sánchez about whether Trump approved of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s decision to remove a messaging campaign promoting vaccinations, even though she had asked this several times.

Sánchez then displayed a poster with a photo of Kennedy and Kid Rock to illustrate her dissatisfaction with his previous work as HHS secretary.

“One thing that I find unbelievable is that you suspended this vaccination campaign. But somehow you’re spending taxpayer money to drink milk in a hot tub with a shirtless Kid Rock,” she said. “And somehow you think that’s a better public health message than educating the public about the importance of vaccines.”

Daycare, Medicaid, Black Maternal Health

Illinois Democratic Rep. Danny K. Davis pressed Kennedy on whether he agreed with a statement Trump made earlier this month, when the president said: “We can’t take care of day care. It’s not possible for us to take care of day care. Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things. You can do it at the state level. You can’t do it at the federal level. We have to take care of one thing: military protection.”

Kennedy responded that he was “told to make a 12% cut across our entire department” because the national debt, accumulated over decades, had reached $39 trillion.

“We need to tighten our belts now,” Kennedy said.

Davis also questioned Kennedy about funding and initiatives to reduce black maternal mortality, saying, “The Trump administration is undermining the health of black mothers from all sides.”

“The GOP has cut over $1 trillion from Medicaid, which funds over 40% of births in the United States. President Trump just proposed cutting maternal and child health programs by over $800 million,” he said. “DOGE has cut funding for several research projects that could save countless Black mothers, such as Morehouse School of Medicine’s research to improve the health of Black pregnant and postpartum women.”

Kennedy responded by arguing that he and others in the Trump administration “are doing more for maternal health than any other administration in history.”

“There was tremendous duplication across departments. We had 42 different maternal health services in our department,” Kennedy said. “And we’ve cut and consolidated some of those. Right now we’re investing huge amounts of money in maternal health.”