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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is testifying before Congress for the first time as health secretary on Wednesday. He has been grilled over President Trump’s cuts to public health agencies and research funding.
Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. delivered a defiant defense on Wednesday of his drastic overhaul of federal health agencies as House Democrats accused him of violating the law by shuttering whole divisions and cutting funding appropriated by Congress for medical research.
“We are not withholding money for lifesaving research!” Mr. Kennedy thundered at Representative Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, who lectured him on the language of the Constitution and Congress’s power of the purse.
Ms. DeLauro looked disgusted. “Unbelievable,” she said, shaking her head. “Unbelievable.”
The back-and-forth with Ms. DeLauro was just one of a series of fiery exchanges between Democratic lawmakers and Mr. Kennedy during his first appearance on Capitol Hill since becoming health secretary.
The purpose of Wednesday’s hearing was for Mr. Kennedy to answer questions about President Trump’s health budget for the next fiscal year. But Democrats focused instead about the mass layoffs and cuts Mr. Kennedy is already making, which they have condemned as part of what they call Mr. Trump’s “war on science.”
Mr. Trump has published only the broad outlines of his budget plan, which calls for deep cuts to the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In his opening remarks to the House committee, Mr. Kennedy said the cuts will save money “without impacting critical services,” according to a copy of his remarks.
The budget blueprint “recognizes the fiscal challenges our country faces today, and the need to update and redirect our investments to meet the needs of a rapidly changing world.”