Murray: “If you think RFK Jr. will change who he is, you are lying to yourself… If you do not draw a line somewhere, you will cross every line you could ever imagine. You will be pushed further and further into accepting things you never thought you would—things you never thought you could.”
ICYMI: In Senate Hearing, RFK Jr. Refuses to Say HPV Vaccine is Safe to Sen. Patty Murray, Pressed on Credible Accusation of Sexual Assault
Murray, a longtime congressional leader on health care who has led hearings on addressing vaccine hesitancy, has been a leading vocal opponent of RFK Jr.’s nomination—speaking out on the Senate floor, holding events, raising the alarm after meeting with him
*** VIDEO of Senator Murray’s floor speech HERE***
Washington, D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), a senior member and former Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee, took to the Senate floor to warn of the very real dangers that lie ahead if Republicans insist on confirming RFK Jr. as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and urge her colleagues to “show some courage… show some conscience” and vote against this nomination.
Murray laid out the many ways RFK Jr. could undermine vaccines as HHS Secretary—as well as so much else that’s at stake with his confirmation. Murray pointed out that, if confirmed, there will be nothing stopping RFK Jr. from firing the CDC’s entire vaccine advisory committee—responsible for making recommendations about vaccines and indirectly determines which vaccines must be covered by insurance—and replacing them all with vaccine skeptics. RFK Jr. will also oversee FDA, another agency he has repeatedly tried to discredit and attack—and where he has said he plans to fire hundreds of scientists on Day One.
“My colleagues should know better. They do know better,” said Murray on the Senate floor. “But they are looking the other way. They are choosing to pretend like it is in any way believable that RFK Jr. won’t use his new power to do exactly the thing he has been trying to do for decades—undermine vaccines.”
Murray spoke about how RFK Jr. will also have jurisdiction over NIH, where he could redirect funds away from promising cures, or make good on his plan to fire hundreds of researchers and pause infectious disease research. Pointing to Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s’ recent attacks on NIH biomedical research funding, Murray said: “At a time when lifesaving research like this is already under attack from the President and the richest man in the world, no one who truly values medical research should vote to install one of the biggest attackers of medical science as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.”
Murray also spoke about health insurance—another huge responsibility for HHS. “Last time Trump was in office, we saw millions of people lose their health coverage,” Murray said. “The uninsured rate went up after years of hard-won progress, and we all know he still wants to rip up the Affordable Care Act—driving up costs and kicking people off their coverage. And there’s no reason to think Mr. Kennedy will stand up to that effort. Indeed, there is no reason to think he has the experience and understanding of the system to do so. During his committee hearings, RFK Jr. confused Medicare and Medicaid—basic stuff—and failed to describe the components of Medicare.”
Murray also hammered how RFK Jr. poses an enormous risk to reproductive health care in America—pointing out that not only did RFK Jr. confess to having no real understanding of the Department’s role in enforcing Americans’ right to emergency care, but he showed he will be totally open to Republicans’ efforts to rip away access to medication abortion nationwide.
Also noting the danger of putting RFK Jr. in charge of pandemic threats, Murray emphasized that “We cannot take this man at his word—something he has changed and gone back and forth on time and again. But we can take him at his record—which is that he has consistently undermined vaccine confidence and even profited from it.”
“I cannot tell my colleagues enough: this isn’t a game, this is not a political role without consequence, the Health Secretary has real power over whether Americans can get basic information and care that impacts whether they live or die,” Murray continued.
“So if my colleagues are feeling the pressure from President Trump or if they are feeling the weight of the richest man in the world on their backs, I would warn them: this will certainly not be the last test we face here in the Senate… If you do not draw a line somewhere, you will cross every line you could ever imagine. You will be pushed further and further into accepting things you never thought you would—things you never thought you could.
“I think most of my colleagues know what is really at stake here. I think most of my colleagues know what sort of man RFK Jr. is and what sort of damage he could do if confirmed. There are political realities, we all get that—but there is also right and wrong… So, I urge all my colleagues to show some courage. I urge them to show some conscience. I urge them to join me in voting NO on RFK Jr.’s nomination,” Murray concluded.
When President-elect Donald J. Trump first announced his intention to select Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Secretary of HHS, Murray immediately and forcefully condemned the move—and she has consistently spoken out and laid out for her colleagues the case against his nomination since, including in a lengthy Senate floor speech earlier this month—VIDEO HERE. Murray met with RFK Jr. on January 15th and released a statement afterward reiterating her opposition to his nomination and urging her colleagues, “to be honest with themselves about the stakes of putting one of the anti-vaccine movement’s loudest, proudest champions in charge of HHS and join me in opposing RFK Jr.’s nomination.” In December, Murray held a roundtable discussion at UW Medicine on the importance of scientific research and vaccines—especially for children—and spoke about how having RFK Jr. lead HHS would threaten Americans’ health and safety. At the hearing on his nomination before the Senate HELP Committee, Senator Murray pressed RFK Jr. to acknowledge that the HPV vaccine was safe and effective—he would not—and respond to credible accusations of sexual assault.
As a longtime appropriator and former Chair of the Senate HELP Committee, Murray has long fought to boost biomedical research, strengthen public health infrastructure, and make health care more affordable and accessible. Over her years as a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, she has secured billions of dollars in increases for biomedical research at the National Institutes of Health, and during her time as Chair of the HELP Committee she established the new ARPA-H research agency as part of her PREVENT Pandemics Act to advance some of the most cutting-edge research in the field. As Chair of the HELP Committee, Murray was also instrumental in crafting the American Rescue Plan Act, including its landmark investments in public health and health care. Senator Murray was also the lead Democratic negotiator of the bipartisan 21st Century Cures Act, which delivered a major federal investment to boost NIH research, among many other investments. Murray is also the lead sponsor of the Public Health Infrastructure Saves Lives Act (PHISLA), legislation to establish $4.5 billion in dedicated, annual funding for a grant program to build up and maintain the nation’s public health system across the board.
In 2019, Senator Murray co-led a bipartisan hearing in the HELP Committee on vaccine hesitancy and spoke about the importance of addressing vaccine skepticism and getting people the facts they need to keep their families and communities safe and healthy. Ahead of the hearing, as multiple states were facing measles outbreaks in under-vaccinated areas, Murray sent a bipartisan letter with former HELP Committee Chair Lamar Alexander (R-TN) pressing the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director and HHS Assistant Secretary for Health on their efforts to promote vaccination and vaccine confidence.
Senator Murray’s full remarks on the Senate floor, as delivered are below and HERE:
“Mr. President, the American people are watching now with alarm—because the vast majority of people know: vaccines are safe, they’re effective, they are lifesaving.
But we are now on the verge of confirming, as our nation’s highest health official, a man who has spent considerable time, money, and effort undermining that basic fact.
“A man who has abused his platform by refusing to acknowledge the well-established science that shows that vaccines arenot linked to autism. Fear about that point—fueled by RFK Jr. and others peddling misinformation—is a leading reason that parents do not get their kids vaccinated against preventable, dangerous diseases.
“That’s why elevating a man like RFK Jr. to lead HHS would be so dangerous. Just giving him any platform to spread vaccine doubt is dangerous. But to give him one of the biggest megaphones in the world? It is truly shameful that we even are debating this.
“My colleagues should know better. They actually do know better. They are looking the other way. They are choosing to pretend like it is in any way believable that RFK Jr. won’t use his new power to do exactly the thing he has been trying to do for decades—undermine vaccines.
“Never mind the fact that CDC has already modified webpages with information about vaccines and other vital public health information—which a federal judge has now ordered the Trump Administration to restore.
“Never mind that the Trump administration is also, reportedly, planning widespread and significant layoffs—layoffs—at CDC and across HHS.
“This is how RFK Jr. substitutes his own beliefs for science. So, when the vaccine conspiracies start swirling—and RFK Jr. turns HHS into ground zero for misinformation—‘I had no idea’ is not going to be an excuse for confirming him.
“Because at the HELP Committee hearing, the Chair pressed him repeatedly about the debunked claim that vaccines cause autism. And when RFK Jr. said he needed to ‘see the evidence,’ he was shown the evidence. But, to no one’s surprise, he did not keep his word, admit he’d been wrong, and spread the good news that vaccines do not cause autism.
“He has had two weeks since that hearing to look at the same settled science as everyone else—crickets. But he won’t hesitate to quote the latest anti-vax conspiracy. He is totally up to speed on that front.
“Are my colleagues really buying this guy will take an impartial look at the science?
“If you think RFK Jr. will change who he is, you are lying to yourself. He has given no evidence to suggest that—and all the evidence in the world to the contrary.
“Given his long, and growing track record, we cannot just pretend if RFK Jr. finally gets power to undermine vaccines—a cause that he has dedicated a considerable amount of time and effort to—that he’ll just give it up. That is not believable.
“And I know I’ve been talking a lot about vaccines—because it is so obviously alarming—but the responsibility he would have goes far beyond that.
“So, let’s break some of this down—both the ways he could undermine vaccines as HHS Secretary, and the other responsibilities that would be at stake.
“To start with, the CDC is under HHS. That means that the Secretary directly appoints people to CDC’s vaccine advisory board. That board is responsible for making recommendations about vaccines—and it is those recommendations that determine whether or not certain vaccines have to be covered by insurance.
“So, simply put: changing those recommendations will change what vaccines millions of Americans, including kids, will be able to get from their health care provider.
“If he is confirmed, there would be nothing stopping RFK Jr. from firing the entire board and replacing them all with vaccine skeptics.
“After all, he has said many times, and in many ways, he thinks CDC is corrupt and bought by pharma—as usual, by the way, without any evidence.
“RFK. Jr. would also oversee the Food and Drug Administration; that is another agency he has repeatedly tried to discredit and attack—where he says he plans to fire—fire!—hundreds of scientists on Day One. And an agency that plays the crucial role of making sure our drugs and our treatments—including vaccines—are safe and effective.
“Not only would Mr. Kennedy have a key perch from which he could undermine vaccines on a scale like never seen before, he could also use his platform to peddle quack treatments with no basis in science.
“RFK Jr. would also have jurisdiction over NIH. That alone means influence over billions of dollars in medical research—research that is responsible for a significant portion of our economy, and more importantly, research that patients are desperately hoping will help them find cures.
“But RFK Jr. could redirect those funds to promote his favorite pet conspiracies instead of promising cures.
“Or he could make good on his plan to fire hundreds of researchers and pause infectious disease research—for eight years. It should go without saying: viruses aren’t going to take a break.
“And here’s the thing—the attacks on medical research are now already happening under Trump. From his day one Executive Orders, President Trump has already been threatening medical research.
“Suddenly, all of our grants are at risk because they are looking at addressing ‘barriers to care’ or understanding why Black and Native American women have higher maternal death rates.
“And now—President Trump also is trying to illegally, arbitrarily, and suddenly change NIH guidelines to set an unrealistically low cap on indirect cost rates. That would mean researchers are laid off, studies canceled—including lifesaving clinical trials—and kids are not able to get the treatment they need.
“All because President Trump and Elon Musk don’t seem to understand how we actually fund important research, and couldn’t even be bothered to find out before taking an axe to medical research labs.
“At a time when lifesaving research like this is already under attack from the President, and the richest man in the world, no one who truly values medical research should vote to install one of the biggest attackers of medical science as the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
“And, M. President, insurance is another huge portfolio for HHS. Last time Trump was in office, we saw millions of people lose their health care coverage. The uninsured rate went up after years of hard-won progress, and we all know he still wants to rip up the Affordable Care Act—which will drive up costs and kick people off their coverage.
“There’s no reason to think Mr. Kennedy will stand up to that effort. Indeed, there is no reason to think he has the experience and understanding of the system to actually do so.
“During his committee hearings, RFK Jr. confused Medicare and Medicaid—this is basic stuff! He failed to describe the components of Medicare.
“And yes, Mr. President, I also absolutely have to talk about abortion care. This is of grave importance—especially right now.
“In his hearings, not only did RFK Jr. confess to having no real understanding of EMTALA—that is a law which requires patients have access to lifesaving emergency care including, in some cases, abortion care—he also showed that he will be totally open to Republicans’ fact-free efforts to rip away access to medication abortion.
“Like so many other issues that RFK Jr. is simply wrong about, the science on that has been settled for many years now.
“Mr. Kennedy made clear though, he is very open to revisiting access to the abortion pill, based on a Republican argument against the science that basically boils down to: ‘Nuh uh, nuh uh!’
“Putting up barriers to accessing the abortion pill—or ripping it off the market completely, as Republicans have made very clear they want to do—would be absolutely devastating.
“And let’s not forget about pandemic threats. The lies that RFK Jr. spread during the last pandemic already make clear he is not the man to do this job. But if that weren’t enough, when there was a pandemic threat response planning session for this new Administration—he skipped it! He didn’t go! It would almost be comical if this wasn’t so serious.
“Mr. President, everywhere you look, everything about this nominee is so concerning.
“We cannot take this man at his word—something he has changed and gone back and forth on time and time again. But we can take him on his record—which is that he has consistently undermined vaccine confidence and, by the way, note: he even profited from that.
“And we can take the threat of what he might do seriously, especially given the alarming things that are already happening.
“If RFK Jr. gives you his word of honor, that he won’t freeze research—well guess what? We are already seeing the Trump Administration totally upend medical research. Thanks to the Trump funding freeze, NIH hasn’t issued any grant awards in weeks!
“If RFK Jr. swears that he is not going to take down information about vaccines, that he is not going to silence experts, well don’t look now—but the Trump Administration has already taken down or changed CDC pages about vaccines. They have already silenced public health experts.
“If RFK Jr. pinky promises you that he won’t undermine medical science or studies, and he won’t ignore global health threats, well, you might want to sit down for this—but President Trump has completely demolished our global health aid work. He has already completely demolished it.
“The fallout is utterly heart wrenching. Already we know of a woman who died—because the USAID-supported hospital she went to for oxygen was forced to discharge her because they got a ‘stop-work’ order from the Trump administration.
“It is not clear if she was the first death caused by Trump’s complete freeze, but there is no question, she will not be the last.
“And Mr. President—let me make a really important point here: it is not just people across the world who will be affected by this.
“There was a study being done on a new HIV treatment with thousands of volunteers, a study being done already having a thousand volunteers doing the treatment. But now, without their regular injections, which are cut off because of Trump’s move, there is going to be too little of the drug in their system to protect those people from HIV—but enough of the drug that if they contract HIV, it could mutate to become drug resistant.
“So, for all the absolutely unhinged conspiracies we have heard about medical research from RFK Jr. and the like, where is the concern for this actual risk, in this actual study, happening right now all because President Trump cut off foreign assistance?
“RFK Jr. has been silent about that risk, silent about how wrong that is—and so, even as he is making these empty promises on one hand to some of our colleagues, he is already standing by as President Trump breaks them on the other hand.
“Oh, and here’s one more—if RFK Jr. says he is going to consult you on health care personnel, please do not be fooled.
“Look, I don’t know why my colleagues need me to tell them this—I like to think we have some pretty smart people around here—but this vote, RFK Jr.’s own nomination, this is your consultation on health care personnel. Not some made up promise for later. This is the point you have the most power.
“Whatever he might say, you don’t get to choose who RFK Jr. will appoint to this or that—heck, he doesn’t get to choose who President Trump appoints.
“The decision you get to make, all of us on this floor get to make, is the decision on this floor before us right now. You get to choose who you vote to confirm. And you will have to live with that decision.
“And, if you ignore the warning signs, and confirm RFK Jr.—then, when the wheels fall off the wagon, you may try to tell yourself you were lied to, but you knew who you were dealing with. You knew who you were dealing with. You knew what he has said before, and what he has refused to say.
“You had all the knowledge you needed to do the right thing.
“I cannot tell my colleagues enough: this is not a game, this is not a political role without consequence. The Health Secretary has real power over whether Americans can get basic information and care that impacts whether they live or die.
“As I have tried to drive home throughout this process—vaccines save lives. That is not a question. It is not a slogan. It is a fact.
“If, when parents look to you, worried about their newborn, wanting to do what is best for their baby, and trusting your advice as a public health leader—if you cannot tell them the same truth that centuries of science and experience tells us, which is that vaccines are safe, effective, and lifesaving, then you have absolutely no business leading the Department of Health and Human Services. None.
“And so, just as I did at the hearing, I want to warn all of my colleagues: by merely voting to confirm Mr. Kennedy, we would be telling our constituents he is worth listening to on vaccines. That alone will get people killed—before he even lifts a finger.
“Because he does not even need the levers of power to get people killed—all he needs is a megaphone.
“To affirm his views by voting to confirm him as our highest health official—let’s not mince words about what that will mean.
“When babies die from whooping cough because parents weren’t sure the vaccine was safe—will you be able to look them in the eye? When the flu sweeps our nursing homes, when measles sweeps through our communities—will it be worth it?
“Mr. President, I will end on this—I’m sure there are plenty of members who know perfectly well just how dangerous it would be to confirm RFK Jr. They don’t need to hear it from me—in fact, some of them may even know the danger better than I do.
“But here’s what I do know: conscience is a muscle. Courage is a muscle. The less you use them, the more they fade away.
“So if my colleagues are feeling the pressure from President Trump or if they are feeling the weight of the richest man in the world on their backs on this vote, I would warn them: this will certainly not be the last test we face here in the Senate.
“Giving into pressure now won’t make it go away. It won’t soften the pressure you face later, and it will not strengthen your resolve when the stakes are higher. It will just show: pressure works.
“If you do not draw a line somewhere, you will cross every line you could ever imagine. You will be pushed further and further into accepting things you never thought you would—things you thought you never could.
“I think most of my colleagues know what is really at stake here. I think most of my colleagues knowwhat sort of man RFK Jr. is, and what sort of damage he could do if confirmed.
“There are political realities, we all get that—but there is also right and wrong. There is also fact and fiction.
“There is people staying healthy, and people dying pointlessly—kids dying pointlessly—from diseases that we can prevent, because they thought Congress took its job vetting our health secretary seriously.
“So, M. President, I urge all my colleagues to show some courage. I urge them to show some conscience. I urge them to vote NO on RFK Jr.’s nomination.”
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