Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s tumultuous tenure atop the US Health and Human Services Department is starting to wear on some prominent Republicans.
But so far, President Donald Trump is not one of them. He said at a White House event Thursday that he didn’t watch the hearing, but added: “I heard he did very well today.”
“It’s not your standard talk. I would say that, and that has to do with medical and vaccines,” Trump said. “But if you look at what’s going on in the world with health, and look at this country also with regard to health — I like the fact that he’s different.”
Trump aides and advisers similarly cheered Kennedy’s combative performance at a Senate hearing on Thursday, casting it as the fiery display he needed to solidify his standing within the administration following days of controversy.
Kennedy mounted an aggressive defense of his abrupt moves to fire the head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and impose new restrictions on Covid-19 vaccine eligibility — decisions that caught even some White House officials off guard. He confronted Democratic and Republican senators alike over their criticisms, at multiple points brushing away questions by declaring they were “just making stuff up.”
And crucially, nearly a half-dozen aides and allies said, Kennedy refused to allow any lawmakers to drive a wedge between Trump and himself.
“He sparred well,” one White House official said after the hearing concluded. “And he got to the points he wanted to.”
As the three-hour session drew to a close, Vice President JD Vance summed it up on X as a lengthy attempt to “lecture and ‘gotcha’ Bobby Kennedy,” accusing critical senators of being “full of sh*t.”
In an official statement, the White House called the hearing an example of “exactly why President Trump put Secretary Kennedy in charge of HHS: to fix this broken system that has overseen America’s unprecedented disease crisis.”
It was an outpouring of support that reflected Kennedy’s ability to remain close to Trump despite seven months of near-constant turmoil at HHS, even as Kennedy’s agenda has pushed him further from the public health mainstream and alarmed a growing contingent of Republicans.
Since taking over the department, the HHS secretary has overseen mass firings, upended decades of public health practices and taken increasingly bold steps toward a reassessment of vaccines that critics worry will make it harder to for people to receive widely accepted immunizations.
The sudden ouster last week of CDC Director Susan Monarez pushed that consternation to a fever pitch, especially since the move came amid existing confusion over new limits on access to the next round of Covid shots.
On Thursday, Sen. John Barrasso became the latest GOP lawmaker to voice alarm over Kennedy’s decisionmaking, saying he’d grown “deeply concerned” about his stance on vaccines. Barrasso, the No. 2 Senate Republican, joined Senate Majority Leader John Thune in declining to say whether he still supported Kennedy.
“I support the president,” Barrasso said. “Not going to second-guess him.”
GOP Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Thom Tillis of North Carolina also questioned Kennedy’s leadership during the hearing.
Still, within the White House, Trump officials dismissed the dismay within the party. They also brushed off efforts by Democrats and some Republicans to frame Kennedy’s skepticism of the Covid vaccine as a rebuke of the Operation Warp Speed initiative that first developed the shots — and that Trump recently called “one of the greatest achievements ever in politics.”
While Trump has bristled at times at Kennedy’s past criticism of Warp Speed, two people familiar with the matter said, the HHS leader has dialed back his rhetoric since joining the administration. And he sought publicly on Thursday to draw a distinction that his allies have advanced internally: That there’s a difference between the merits of the initial Covid vaccine developed through Warp Speed and the debate over whether it’s wise to keep recommending additional booster shots each year.
“Kennedy has a good answer for that,” said one Trump adviser. “But even the Republicans weren’t letting him answer the questions.”
The hearing followed days of internal discussion over how to manage the fallout from Kennedy’s ouster of Monarez, aides and allies said, which occurred less than a month after the HHS secretary called her “a public health expert with unimpeachable scientific credentials” at her swearing-in ceremony. Kennedy had pushed for her firing without any concrete plan for what came next, prematurely announcing it on X in a move that sparked widespread confusion after Monarez contested her removal.
The decision came on the same day that the Food and Drug Administration announced it would narrow its recommendation for who should receive the next Covid vaccine — a policy change made with little explanation that contradicted health officials’ insistence that anyone could still get the shot if they wanted it.
The chaotic moves irritated some in the White House who have long complained about Kennedy’s habit of making major announcements with little warning or prepared messaging, three people familiar with the matter said. But the White House has thrown its support behind both decisions, and Kennedy allies have subsequently sought to shore up support throughout Trump’s extended orbit. It also sparked some concern over whether blindsided Senate Republicans might slow-walk or even halt future HHS nominees, though the people familiar said there’s been no sign as of yet that will happen.
Kennedy and other top health officials made a public case for the upheaval in a series of op-eds and television appearances, portraying Monarez and a handful of senior CDC officials who quit in protest as obstacles to the president’s agenda. They sought to clarify their plans for the Covid vaccine, leaning into fresh arguments that there was little justification for healthy people to get additional shots.
And both publicly and privately, allies have circulated polling in recent days that shows Kennedy remains one of the most popular of Trump’s Cabinet officials (though even that reflects overall unfavorable views) — arguing that the HHS secretary and his agenda is crucial to expanding the MAGA base.
Ahead of Thursday’s hearing, one of the people familiar with the matter described the mood in the White House as increasingly confident that Kennedy would weather the firestorm — and feel emboldened to continue carrying out his vision for overhauling the government’s health apparatus.
Afterward, aides and allies said Kennedy made the most effective case for his security within Trump’s orbit, delivering the kind of defiant and often-argumentative testimony that appeals most to the president himself.
“Bobby Kennedy came out at the beginning breathing fire,” Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief strategist, said on his War Room podcast Thursday. He concluded that, by the end: “Kenndy gave as good as he got.”
This story has been updated with additional developments.
