What Went Down at the Kennedy Hearing — And Why It Matters
“We pay you to defend us - now get out there and dance!”
What Went Down at the Kennedy Hearing — And Why It Matters
Subtitle: “We pay you to defend us - now get out there and dance!”
By Jim Reynolds | www.reynolds.com
The Senate Finance Committee dragged HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. into a hearing and tried to sell a story: he must have cut some kind of deal with drug executives at Mar-a-Lago. Not proof—just suspicion dressed up as certainty. No memo, no check, no quid-pro-quo. Mind-reading.
Senator Elizabeth Warren led the attack, accusing Kennedy of limiting vaccine access: “If you don’t recommend, then the consequence is that you can’t walk into a pharmacy and get one,” she said, referring to new FDA rules requiring clinical data for COVID boosters. “You promised you would not take away vaccines from anyone who wanted them. You just changed the classification of the COVID vaccine.”
Senator Ron Wyden faced a direct challenge from Kennedy, who shot back, “Senator, you’ve sat in that chair for how long? Twenty, twenty-five years? While the chronic diseases in our children went up to 76%. And you said nothing.”
Michael Bennet joined in, questioning Kennedy’s CDC overhaul: “Mr. Secretary, your overhaul of the CDC’s vaccine committee raises concerns about undermining trusted science. How can we ensure your changes prioritize public health?”
Even Republican Bill Cassidy, while praising transparency, expressed worry: “I’m approaching this as a doctor, not as a senator. I am concerned about children’s health, seniors’ health, all of our health.”
Kennedy didn’t back down. “I’m not taking them away from people, Senator,” he told Warren, defending his FDA changes. “I didn’t politicize ACIP, I depoliticized it,” he insisted, referring to his shakeup of the CDC’s vaccine advisory committee.
Meanwhile, the accusers stood on a mountain of health-sector money. Warren alone pocketed $818,997 from pharma in 2020. That doesn’t make them puppets—but it turns their sermons on “influence” into theater. And the target? A guy who spent his career suing the very companies they claim “own” him.
Here’s the real fight: control of the health policy apparatus. Kennedy has shaken up the CDC’s vaccine decision-making and fired entrenched leadership, arguing, “The U.S. is home to 4.2% of the world’s population yet we had nearly 20% of the COVID deaths. 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.” If you believe the old guard failed during the pandemic—and many Americans do—then a reset is overdue. If you’re invested in the status quo, a shake-up looks like sabotage. That’s why the senators were so angry and so personal: they’re defending a pipeline of influence that runs through committee rooms, advisory panels, and donor lists.
And about those meetings: a cabinet secretary meets everyone. Defense meets contractors. Education meets unions. Commerce meets industry. Listening is reconnaissance, not surrender. You learn the terrain so you can set the rules. Meeting the people you regulate does not make you beholden to them; it makes you accountable for what you decide afterward.
It’s the perfect setup for the lying party: claim “guilt by association” for meeting with the people you need to meet to do your job.
Strip away the theatrics and you get a simple picture: accusations without receipts, launched by officials with very large health-sector bankrolls, against a secretary whose record is defined by opposition to those same interests. That’s not oversight—it’s brand protection for a captured system that failed when it mattered most.
Bob’s button: If you’ve got evidence, present it. If all you’ve got is outrage, check your donors—and let the secretary do the job: meet everyone, learn everything, and put the public first.
Receipts
• Elizabeth Warren (2020 election cycle):
Pharmaceuticals/Health Products: $818,997 (individuals and PACs).
Source: Daily Caller Magnet Link (Daily Caller, “Democrats Grill RFK Jr. Over Pharma Meetings, Ignore Their Own Industry Cash,” Jan. 31, 2025).
• Ron Wyden (2019–2024 Senate cycle):
Health Professionals: $580,901; Pharmaceuticals/Health Products: $350,270; Hospitals/Nursing Homes: $250,325; Health Services/HMOs: $360,106.
Source: OpenSecrets.
• Michael Bennet (2010–2024 election cycles):
Health sector total: $3,269,361 (individuals: $2,179,761; PACs: $1,089,600).
Health Professionals: $1,542,347; Pharmaceuticals/Health Products: $731,962.
Source: OpenSecrets.
(Note: OpenSecrets counts money from industry-linked individuals and PACs; either way, the scale is real—and it destroys the “pure as snow” routine.)