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WASHINGTON: Democrats and Republicans pushed US Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s Jr. on his recent vaccine policies and their stark contrast to President Donald Trump’s successful first-term pandemic initiative to speed vaccine development during a combative three-hour Senate hearing on Thursday.
Half a dozen heated exchanges focused on the details of his decision to fire Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez, who had started the job with Kennedy’s support only a month earlier.
Republican Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician who played a critical role in Kennedy’s confirmation, grilled him about the cancelation of $500 million in COVID vaccine contracts, while citing examples of doctors and cancer patients who have been unable to obtain the protection against the potentially deadly disease.
“I would say, effectively, we’re denying people vaccine,” concluded Cassidy.
“Well, you’re wrong,” Kennedy responded.
Cassidy, of Louisiana, praised Trump for having accelerated the development, manufacturing, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in 2020.
His line of questioning — mirrored by two other members of his and Trump’s party — underscored the tightrope Republicans critical of Kennedy needed to walk in order to push back against his vaccine policies without criticizing the president.
Cassidy asked Kennedy during the Senate Finance Committee hearing if he agreed with him that Trump deserved a Nobel Peace Prize for the COVID vaccine initiative, known as Operation Warp Speed. Kennedy said he did.

Why then had Kennedy said the vaccines killed more people than COVID? Cassidy asked. Kennedy denied making the statement, would not agree that the vaccines saved lives, and in a later exchange acknowledged the shots prevented deaths but not how many.
COVID vaccines in the first year of their use saved some 14.4 million lives globally, according to a study published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases journal.
Kennedy has also canceled $500 million in funding for research on the mRNA technology that yielded the most widely used COVID vaccines under Trump, which Cassidy characterized as denying people vaccines.
Republicans Thom Tillis of North Carolina and John Barrasso of Wyoming, who like Cassidy is a physician, adopted Cassidy’s tactic, as did Senate Democrats Maggie Hassan of New Hampshire, Raphael Warnock of Georgia, where the CDC is headquartered, and Senator Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats.
The White House backed Kennedy, with Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt and Vice President JD Vance both defending him and Leavitt attacking Democrats in posts on X. Neither mentioned his Republican critics.
“Secretary Kennedy, in your confirmation hearings you promised to uphold the highest standards for vaccines. Since then, I’ve grown deeply concerned,” said Barrasso.
“The public has seen measles outbreaks, leadership in the National Institutes of Health questioning the use of mRNA vaccines, the recently confirmed Director of Centers for Disease Control and Prevention fired,” the senator added.

Under fiery questioning from most Democrats and some Republicans, Kennedy defended the ousting of Monarez, adding that he might need to fire even more people at the agency.
Trump fired Monarez after she resisted changes to vaccine policy advanced by Kennedy that she believed contradicted scientific evidence, further destabilizing the already embattled agency.
In an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday, Monarez said she had been directed to preapprove vaccine recommendations and fire career CDC officials, describing her ouster as part of a broader push to weaken US vaccine standards.
Kennedy said she lied and that he had never told Monarez she needed to preapprove decisions, but that he did order her to fire officials, which she refused to do.
“Secretary Kennedy’s claims are false, and at times, patently ridiculous. Dr. Monarez stands by what she said in her Wall Street Journal op-ed,” her lawyers said in a statement, adding that she was willing to repeat it under oath.

Calls for Kennedy's resignation
Kennedy said the CDC during the COVID-19 pandemic had lied to Americans about mask wearing, social distancing, school closures and the ability of the vaccine to stop transmission.
“I need to fire some of those people and make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Kennedy said.

The CDC’s pandemic recommendations were based on past experience with virus transmission and what was known about the novel coronavirus at the time. By late 2021, with more real-world data, the CDC acknowledged the shots could not stop COVID infection and transmission, but were highly effective in preventing severe cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Since taking the job, Kennedy has made a series of controversial changes to US vaccine policy, including narrowing who is eligible for COVID shots and firing all 17 expert members of a CDC vaccine advisory panel, choosing some fellow anti-vaccine activists to replace them.
Vaccination rates in the US have been on the decline. Florida on Wednesday said it plans to end all state vaccine mandates, including for students to attend schools. No senators asked Kennedy about the announcement in the hearing.
Criticism of Kennedy has intensified since Monarez’s firing, which triggered resignations of four CDC agency officials who cited anti-vaccine policies and misinformation pushed by him and his team. He revisited several issues after the hearing, posting four times on X to address questions and respond to accusations.
Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, the committee’s top-ranking Democrat, called for Kennedy’s resignation, as have Warnock, Sanders, and over 1,000 current and former health employees.
 

BEIJING: Chinese President Xi Jinping and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un pledged mutual support and enhanced cooperation during talks in Beijing after a commemoration of the end of World War II, the countries’ state media said.
Xi and Kim, along with top officials from their countries, met at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People a day after Kim attended a Chinese military parade alongside other foreign leaders including Russian President Vladimir Putin. Kim is making a rare trip outside North Korea.
Xi highlighted the “traditional friendship” between China and North Korea and pledged to consolidate and boost relations, according to a readout of their statements published by Chinese state broadcaster CCTV on Thursday.
“This position will not change regardless of how the international situation evolves,” Xi told Kim, according to CCTV.
North Korea’s official Korean Central News Agency said Friday that the leaders discussed increasing high-level visits and contacts as well as strengthening strategic cooperation and protecting shared interests in international and regional affairs. It said Kim left Beijing by his private train Thursday evening after his meeting with Xi.
China has been North Korea’s biggest trading partner and aid provider, though questions have lingered about the strength of their bilateral relationship.
In recent years, Kim’s foreign policy has focused heavily on Russia. He has sent combat troops and ammunition to back Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in return for economic and military assistance. At a meeting with Kim in Beijing after the parade, Putin praised the bravery of North Korean soldiers in the fighting.
But experts say that Kim would feel the need to prepare for the possible end of the Russia-Ukraine war.
Kim, on his first visit to China in six years, brought his young daughter, adding to speculation that she’s being primed as the country’s next leader.
On Wednesday, he joined 26 foreign leaders who watched the parade marking the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II. It was the first time that Kim had joined an event with a large group of world leaders since taking office in late 2011.
North Korea’s economy has been suffering under heavy US sanctions tied to Pyongyang’s development of nuclear weapons. Some observers say Kim’s trip could also be meant to increase leverage in potential talks with US President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly expressed his hopes to resume diplomacy between the two countries.
China is believed to want its neighbor to return to negotiation and give up its nuclear weapons development.
North Korea’s more recent closer ties with Russia have raised some concern in Beijing, which has long been Pyongyang’s most important ally.
The joint appearance of Kim, Xi and Putin at the parade has sparked speculation about a joint effort to push back at US pressure on their three countries. Trump said as much in a social media post, telling Xi to give his warmest regards to Putin and Kim “as you conspire against The United States of America.”
Putin dismissed that idea at a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday, saying no one has expressed anything negative about the Trump administration during his trip to China.
“The President of the United States is not without a sense of humor,” he said.
Although China, North Korea and Russia are embroiled in separate confrontations with the US, they haven’t formed a clear three-way alliance so far.
Zhu Feng, the dean of Nanjing University’s School of International Relations, said that “ganging up” with North Korea would damage China’s image, because the former is the most closed and authoritarian country in the world.
“It should not be overinterpreted that China-North Korea-Russia relations would see reinforcement,” he said.