“We must not confirm a man who so willingly endeavors to be the enemy of the truth when it comes to our health. We need to vote like our lives depend on it, because for a great many Americans, it will.”
Washington, D.C. — U.S. Senator Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) delivered remarks on the Senate floor last night to speak out against RFK Jr., President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, and his dangerous rhetoric against vaccinations, lack of qualification to be a top leader in healthcare, and efforts to dismantle public services.
Watch Schiff’s full remarks HERE. Download remarks HERE.
On RFK Jr.’s unfitness to protect public health:
[…] When a government works the way it’s supposed to, when public health and security is taken seriously, HHS exists to ensure that no American has to choose between their health and bankruptcy.
It exists because we decided, as a nation, that we would not let people lose everything just because they get sick. That we would not let children die from preventable diseases. That we would set basic rules on food and drug safety to protect families. That we would invest in science not as an indulgence, but as a way to improve the life and the quality of life for all Americans.
And tonight, we are being asked to hand over that responsibility to a man who has spent his career undermining scientific achievement. To a man who has told Americans, a thousand different times in a thousand different ways, not to trust the very science that has saved millions of lives.
[…]
RFK is not the best or the brightest, he will not bring back Camelot or make America healthy again, but his ignorance of science just may make people sick again, might deprive them of the treatment they need again, may cause hospitals to close again, might discourage young people from enter the sciences again. He just might.
We must not confirm a man who so willingly endeavors to be the enemy of the truth when it comes to our health. We need to vote like our lives depend on it, because for a great many Americans, it will.
On RFK Jr.’s conspiracies over science:
In 2005, he wrote an article – one so riddled with falsehoods that even the publisher, Rolling Stone, retracted it – accusing the government of covering up a supposed link between vaccines and autism. An article that said vaccines “poison[ed] an entire generation of American children.” That claim has been debunked more times than any of us can count.
The New England Journal of Medicine, the CDC, the WHO, the American Academy of Pediatrics – every credible institution that studies this issue has confirmed what the science has long established: Vaccines do not cause autism.
But Mr. Kennedy did not retract the claim. He did not acknowledge the overwhelming scientific consensus. No, no. He doubled down. He founded the Children’s Health Defense, an organization that masquerades as a public health group while spreading disinformation that has fueled vaccine hesitancy across this country and beyond.
His group has falsely linked vaccines to neurological disorders, to chronic illnesses, and to developmental delays. They have suggested – without a shred of evidence – that childhood immunization schedules are unsafe. They have flooded social media with scare tactics, with conspiracy theories, with outright lies that have led parents to refuse vaccines for their children. They even sold children’s onesies with catch phrases like “no vax no problem” and “unvaxxed unafraid.” And because words have power, because a lie repeated enough can masquerade as truth, the damage has been staggering.
[…]
In 2021, in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic, as COVID-19 tore through communities and filled emergency rooms to capacity, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. used his platform not to encourage vaccination, not to protect the public, but to do quite the opposite. He promoted the lie that mRNA vaccines alter human DNA. False. They do not.
He suggested – without evidence – that the COVID vaccine was more dangerous than the virus itself. False. He compared vaccine mandates to Nazi Germany, invoking Anne Frank – a grotesque and offensive distortion of history.
As recent as 2023, RFK was on podcasts arguing that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” This is the man we are considering for Secretary of Health and Human Services. A man who, when presented with life-saving science, does not champion it. He undermines it.
On Trump choosing Cabinet officials who don’t champion the public’s interest:
[…] To understand why Donald Trump would support a nominee so unqualified, it is worth asking ourselves why scientists like Anthony Fauci, who have devoted their long careers to deploying science in the service of better health, have been made a villain by Donald Trump. Because the answer lies in the mirror image of the two. Why promote RFK Jr., the vaccine charlatan, and at the same time vilify Anthony Fauci, the vaccine champion?
I will say this. Out of all the attacks on our institutions during the first four years of Donald Trump, nothing was more corrosive to our democracy than his relentless assault on the truth. Because nothing is more useful to a demagogue than to destroy the very idea of truth. If nothing is to be believed, then nothing is to be believed. And if there is not some shared experience to draw upon, then what is left to decide who should govern, but political tribe or violence, and one man rule?
Read the transcript of his remarks as delivered below:
Today, we consider the nomination of RFK Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. In a time when science has given us the tools to extend life, to eradicate disease, to protect the most vulnerable among us, this body is being asked to confirm a man who has dedicated the better part of his career to attacking science.
But the debate over RFK Jr. and his anti-science agenda, does not take place in isolation. It is part of a broader, far more reaching and destructive agenda – it is part of an effort to dismantle public services, to strip away all the country’s resources, to defund the Department of Health and Human Services, to take away from those who have little and hand it to those who have everything.
So, this is not just about RFK Jr. It’s about every senior who relies on Medicare. Every low-income family whose children get healthcare through Medicaid. Every person who depends on the government not as a luxury, but as a necessity.
I want to take us back for a moment to talk about why we even have a Department of Health and Human Services in the first place. Because when a government works the way it’s supposed to, when public health and security is taken seriously, HHS exists to ensure that no American has to choose between their health and bankruptcy.
It exists because we decided, as a nation, that we would not let people lose everything just because they get sick. That we would not let children die from preventable diseases. That we would set basic rules on food and drug safety to protect families. That we would invest in science not as an indulgence, but as a way to improve the life and the quality of life for all Americans.
And tonight, we are being asked to hand over that responsibility to a man who has spent his career undermining scientific achievement. To a man who has told Americans, a thousand different times in a thousand different ways, not to trust the very science that has saved millions of lives.
So who exactly is RFK Jr and what does he believe? Let’s talk about what this nominee has actually said: In 2005, he wrote an article – one so riddled with falsehoods that even the publisher, Rolling Stone, retracted it – accusing the government of covering up a supposed link between vaccines and autism.
An article that said vaccines “poison[ed] an entire generation of American children.” That claim has been debunked more times than any of us can count.
The New England Journal of Medicine, the CDC, the WHO, the American Academy of Pediatrics – every credible institution that studies this issue has confirmed what the science has long established: Vaccines do not cause autism.
But Mr. Kennedy did not retract the claim. He did not acknowledge the overwhelming scientific consensus. No, no. He doubled down. He founded the Children’s Health Defense, an organization that masquerades as a public health group while spreading disinformation that has fueled vaccine hesitancy across this country and beyond.
His group has falsely linked vaccines to neurological disorders, to chronic illnesses, and to developmental delays. They have suggested – without a shred of evidence – that childhood immunization schedules are unsafe. They have flooded social media with scare tactics, with conspiracy theories, with outright lies that have led parents to refuse vaccines for their children. They even sold children’s onesies with catch phrases like “no vax no problem” and “unvaxxed unafraid.” And because words have power, because a lie repeated enough can masquerade as truth, the damage has been staggering.
The 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa. Why did that happen? Because vaccination rates plummeted – down to just 31% – after anti-vaccine activists spread fear and misinformation. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was part of that. His organization amplified the very lies that led Samoan parents to hesitate, to delay, to forgo the measles vaccine.
Reckless, irresponsible. And deadly. 83 lives were lost when measles tore throughout the region. Most of those killed were children. There were parents who trusted, as all parents do, that the world would be safe for their sons and daughters. And what did they find? They found that trust abused. By people peddling misinformation. By reckless speculation dressed up as concern. By the very ideas that Mr. Kennedy has trafficked in for years.
Let’s not pretend that there is some harmless contrarian at play here. That this is some cocktail party eccentricity or that this is some kind of lively academic debate. When a man tells millions of people not to vaccinate their children, and they listen – children die.
And it did not stop there. In 2021, in the middle of a once-in-a-century pandemic, as COVID-19 tore through communities and filled emergency rooms to capacity, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. used his platform not to encourage vaccination, not to protect the public, but to do quite the opposite. He promoted the lie that mRNA vaccines alter human DNA. False. They do not.
He suggested – without evidence – that the COVID vaccine was more dangerous than the virus itself. False. He compared vaccine mandates to Nazi Germany, invoking Anne Frank – a grotesque and offensive distortion of history.
As recent as 2023, RFK was on podcasts arguing that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective.” This is the man we are considering for Secretary of Health and Human Services. A man who, when presented with life-saving science, does not champion it. He undermines it.
A man who, when given a choice between protecting public health and indulging conspiracy theories, chooses conspiracy every single time. It is worth asking ourselves why Donald Trump would support a nominee so unqualified for this position, whose views are so contrary to science? Yes, I get it, RFK dropped out of the presidential race and endorsed Donald Trump, but is there more to it than that? And I think the answer is yes.
To understand why Donald Trump would support a nominee so unqualified, it is worth asking ourselves why scientists like Anthony Fauci, who have devoted their long careers to deploying science in the service of better health, have been made a villain by Donald Trump. Because the answer lies in the mirror image of the two. Why promote RFK Jr., the vaccine charlatan, and at the same time vilify Anthony Fauci, the vaccine champion?
I will say this. Out of all the attacks on our institutions during the first four years of Donald Trump, nothing was more corrosive to our democracy than his relentless assault on the truth. Because nothing is more useful to a demagogue than to destroy the very idea of truth. If nothing is to be believed, then nothing is to be believed. And if there is not some shared experience to draw upon, then what is left to decide who should govern, but political tribe or violence, and one man rule?
This is why the demagogue always attacks a free press and calls it fake. He must cause the public not to believe its lying eyes. A vicious mob attacks the Capitol, the would-be despot calls them tourists. The mob attacks police, and beats them, the would-be despot calls them political prisoners. He fires inspectors general whose job it is to root out corruption, and says it is to fight corruption. He wants to dismantle the agency that protects consumers, he says that it is to protect consumers. He wants to plunder the treasury to make his rich friends richer and shower them with tax cuts, and he says he is saving the treasury by emptying it.
But why the attack on science? What has science to do with a despots need to attack the truth? Well, what is the scientific inquiry but a search for fact and truth, and what is the scientist but the symbol of the search for fact and truth. Want to attack the truth, you must attack the truth tellers. You must attack science itself. Out with the Fauci’s and in with the charlatans.
But the truth cannot be made to disappear so easily. I remember who saved our country during its most deadly pandemic in 100 years, and it wasn’t the charlatans. It was the scientists and the healthcare workers, and the essential workers. We saw true heroes during that pandemic.
I remember the images clear as day. First responders without the necessary PPE, rushing into homes where infected individuals were afraid and alone. Nurses and EMTs working back-to-back shifts and watching their friends, neighbors, communities torn apart inside and out by this horrible disease.
We got out of that pandemic in significant part because of the vaccine and the brave healthcare providers who administered it and other life-saving care, not despite it. And while Mr. Kennedy postures as a skeptic, while he frames himself as a crusader against corruption, his organization did nothing to help us through that deadly pandemic, in fact, has profited handsomely from the fear that organization sows.
In 2020 alone, Children’s Health Defense saw its revenue double, raking in millions as the pandemic worsened. Mr. Kennedy built himself a lucrative career not on exposing anti-science falsehoods, but by spreading them, by cultivating them, and profiting from them. This is opportunism of the most grotesque kind. This is grift masquerading as principle. And now, we are being asked to entrust the health of 330 million Americans to this man?
I have to ask, because it demands to be asked – what, exactly, is the vision here? What kind of Health and Human Services Secretary does the Trump administration believe they are appointing? I think they know. And I think they know they have their man in RFK Jr. Because if your goal is to dismantle public health, if your goal is to dismantle the truth, if you want a Secretary who will tell people to ignore doctors and trust whatever a random YouTube video they last saw, then yes – this is your guy. If you want a Secretary who won’t say no, even if the falsehoods cost lives — like advocating bleach or horse dewormer to cure Covid — this is your guy. And if you want a Secretary who has no will, desire, or guts to stand up to Elon Musk or Donald Trump, who craves nothing more than the attention that high office will bring, then this, this is most definitely your guy.
If your goal is to make sure that Medicaid, the single largest source of health insurance in this country, becomes nothing more than a cautionary tale at the behest of RFK Jr. and Dr. Oz. If you want millions of people to lose coverage. If you want seniors to see their Medicare protections gutted — then, by all means, let’s give Mr. Kennedy the job. Because while they are gutting healthcare, while they are stripping away protections, while they are making measles great again, they want to hand out tax cuts to billionaires like party favors. Trillions of dollars taken out of our healthcare system and handed over to the wealthiest among us. Trillions of dollars to people who already have more than they could spend in a hundred lifetimes.
But that child on Medicaid who needs insulin? That senior on Medicare who has a heart condition? No, we’re told – there’s just not enough in the budget for them. Well, I reject the cynical notion that government exists only to serve the powerful. I reject the idea that expertise is optional. That science is negotiable. That the well-being of the American people is just another chip to be bargained away. I reject it. And I know that I am not the only one.
I do not believe in a government that exists only to protect the powerful. I do not believe that we are at our best when we are most indifferent. And I do not believe that the American experiment was meant to end with a nation that surrenders its own future to cynics and conmen.
So let me tell you what I do believe. I believe in the doctor pulling a double shift in a community hospital, exhausted but unwavering, because she took an oath to heal. I believe in the mother who walks her child into a free clinic and breathes easier knowing that today, at least, her son’s asthma will be treated and he will breathe easier.
I believe in the scientist who spends a lifetime working in obscurity so that, one day, no child has to suffer such a terrible and specific disease again. And I believe in a government that does not mock these people, that does not sabotage them, that does not sell them out for the benefit of a few at the expense of the many. And I believe that we need the best and brightest to shepherd our healthcare system, our resources, to maximize every dollar in search of every cure.
RFK is not the best or the brightest, he will not bring back Camelot or make America healthy again, but his ignorance of science just may make people sick again, might deprive them of the treatment they need again, may cause hospitals to close again, might discourage young people from enter the sciences again. He just might.
We must not confirm a man who so willingly endeavors to be the enemy of the truth when it comes to our health. We need to vote like our lives depend on it, because for a great many Americans, it will.
Mr. President – I yield.
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