Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the anti-vaccine advocate and healthy living message proponent, faced a tough grilling from Democratic senators in his first confirmation hearing on Wednesday. He sometimes displayed limited knowledge of crucial programs and had a hard time persuading skeptical legislators that he was not ‘anti-vaccine.’ ‘I am pro-safety,’ Mr. Kennedy, the President Trump’s nominee for health secretary, declared in his opening remarks, but was quickly interrupted by a protester in the audience who shouted, ‘He lies!’ Kennedy’s contentious appearance before the Senate Finance Committee, his first of two confirmation hearings, was filled with heated arguments with Democrats on the committee who quoted his past comments back to him, their voices raised. Kennedy insisted that many of the statements had been taken out of context and that he had been labeled a conspiracy theorist ‘mainly to keep me from asking difficult questions of powerful interests.’ Republicans, and Kennedy himself, tried to focus on issues that had bipartisan support, such as his pledge to reverse the chronic-disease epidemic and his commitment to promoting nutrition and healthy eating. After the hearing, the committee chairman, Senator Mike Crapo from Idaho, Republican, said Kennedy had ‘done well’ and deserved to be confirmed. The hearing was a significant moment for adherents of the so-called medical-freedom movement, a right-left coalition of ‘crunchy granola moms’ and libertarians whose voices had been on the periphery of American society for years. Kennedy’s rise during the coronavirus pandemic and his subsequent embrace of Trump have brought the movement he named ‘Make America Healthy Again’ to the brink of power in Washington.
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