Robert F Kennedy Jr testifies to Congress over healthcare agenda and budget requests – US politics live
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Kennedy testifies before Congress over healthcare agenda and latest budget request
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the president’s health secretary, is currently testifying before the House Ways and Means committee, as part of a sprint of hearings before members of Congress about his leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the White House budget request for the 2027 fiscal year.
As I reported earlier this month, Donald Trump’s blueprint pushes lawmakers to appropriate funding to establish the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA). This, you may remember, is health secretary Kennedy’s planned consolidation of many subagencies whose workforces he slashed last year. Last year, Congress didn’t provide funding for AHA, but in 2027 the administration is hoping to secure funding as part of the $111bn it requests fo the wider HHS.
Notably, the Trump administation is hoping to cut $5bn in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has seen wholesale cuts to research, grants and funding since the president returned to office.
Kennedy’s HHS has been roiled with chaos over the last year. The president has yet to nominate a permanent director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Donald Trump’s controversial pick for surgeon general, Casey Means, remains in limbo as her nomination stalls in the Senate.
Meanwhile, the health secretary’s Make America Health Again (Maha) agenda has been hampered in recent months. In March, a federal judge ruled that the appointment of a controversial slate of vaccine advisers, appointed by Kennedy, likely violated the law. Similarly, all votes made by those advisers was also invalidated. This includes ending the recommendation for the combination measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) and chickenpox vaccine; and the end of the universal birth dose recommendation for the hepatitis B vaccine. The atest version of flu and Covid shots, and the inclusion of the RSV shot for infants are also no longer recommended.
Key events
Melody Schreiber
During his opening remarks, Kennedy focused on alleged fraud by home health aides. Federal payments from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) have allowed aides, including family members, to take care of elderly and disabled people. “These are family members were getting paid to do things that they used to do as family members for free, and this is rife with fraud,” Kennedy claimed. “We are paying for fraud now as much as for medicine.”
Kennedy mentioned food dyes, menopause treatments, and cuts to gender-affirming care, while addressing lawmakers on the House Ways and Means committee, but he didn’t mention any of the administration’s controversial actions on vaccines.
Lawmakers brought them up, though.
“Did President Trump approve your decision to end CDC’s pro-vaccine public messaging campaign?” asked Linda Sánchez, a Democrat from California.
“You’ve got a lot of misinformation,” Kennedy said. A tense exchange followed, with Sánchez repeating the question several times and Kennedy saying he wanted to address her misinformation and pointing to other global outbreaks, which have not made measles circulate in the US.
“I think you don’t want to answer the question, because I think you know the terrible, terrible decisions that impact very, very real lives, especially the lives of children,” Sánchez said.
Democrats questioning Kennedy are making a point to point out the health secretary’s routine vaccine scepticism.
In a particularly heated back and forth, Mike Thompson, a Democratic congressman asked whether Kennedy has a medical or public health degree.
“No,” the health secretary answered.
“Yet you’re overruling doctors, scientists and public health experts across our country. Your dangerous conspiracy theories are undermining safe and effective vaccines,” Thompson said.
Melody Schreiber
During his opening remarks, Kennedy issued one of his common refrains. “We stand at a generational turning point. Our children are the sickest generation in modern history,” the health secretary told the House Ways and Means Committee.
Kennedy says he’s referring to chronic illness – perhaps he’s talking about obesity and other health conditions, though he uses the phrase to talk about autism. But in fact, this generation has less infectious disease and Americans still have long expected lifespans. It’s difficult to know what Kennedy means, other than fear-mongering about children’s health and development.
Democrats pushed Kennedy on Medicare fraud, and the hearing quickly turned acrimonious. “Were you shocked to see that 850 people who were suspended for fraud had been reinstated all at once?” Congressman Lloyd Doggett asked. “Your administration was the one that let them all go back to work.”
Kennedy spoke over Doggett several times. “It’s not a credible story,” he said of Trump’s reinstatement of fraudulent Medicare agents.
It’s worth noting that it’s a packed day for Kennedy. He’ll wrap up his first hearing at 12:30pm ET today, before heading to a second round of questions from House lawmakers at a subcommittee of the appropriations committee at 2pm ET.
Kennedy testifies before Congress over healthcare agenda and latest budget request
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the president’s health secretary, is currently testifying before the House Ways and Means committee, as part of a sprint of hearings before members of Congress about his leadership of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the White House budget request for the 2027 fiscal year.
As I reported earlier this month, Donald Trump’s blueprint pushes lawmakers to appropriate funding to establish the Administration for a Healthy America (AHA). This, you may remember, is health secretary Kennedy’s planned consolidation of many subagencies whose workforces he slashed last year. Last year, Congress didn’t provide funding for AHA, but in 2027 the administration is hoping to secure funding as part of the $111bn it requests fo the wider HHS.
Notably, the Trump administation is hoping to cut $5bn in funding for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which has seen wholesale cuts to research, grants and funding since the president returned to office.
Kennedy’s HHS has been roiled with chaos over the last year. The president has yet to nominate a permanent director for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and Donald Trump’s controversial pick for surgeon general, Casey Means, remains in limbo as her nomination stalls in the Senate.
Meanwhile, the health secretary’s Make America Health Again (Maha) agenda has been hampered in recent months. In March, a federal judge ruled that the appointment of a controversial slate of vaccine advisers, appointed by Kennedy, likely violated the law. Similarly, all votes made by those advisers was also invalidated. This includes ending the recommendation for the combination measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) and chickenpox vaccine; and the end of the universal birth dose recommendation for the hepatitis B vaccine. The atest version of flu and Covid shots, and the inclusion of the RSV shot for infants are also no longer recommended.
Donald Trump will spend the first half of the day in meetings at the White House, before heading to Las Vegas, where he’ll talk about tax cuts enacted through his sweeping policy bill, the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which was signed into law last year.
He’ll deliver remarks around 4pm, but we’ll bring you the latest in case the president speaks to the press before that.
Tom Ambrose
Asked whether there is any update on the welfare of the new Iranian supreme leader, Hegseth says his status “remains the same”.
He adds that Mojtaba Khamenei is believed to be alive, wounded and disfigured.
Caine told reporters today that as of this morning no US forces have had to “board any particular” ships that have defied the blockade.
Earlier this week, experts said that it is unlikely the military would fire missiles or other weapons at tankers, given the risk of an environmental disaster. The most likely option is the US navy will try to force vessels to change course through threats, and if that doesn’t work, they will launch armed boarding parties to take physical control of the ships.
Tom Ambrose
Chairman of the joint chiefs of staff Dan Caine says the US military remains ready to re-engage in combat “at literally a moment’s notice”.
He says the blockade covers Iran’s ports and coastlines and applies to all ships, regardless of which flag they are sailing under.
“This includes dark fleet vessels, carrying Iranian oil,” he says.
The defense secretary used his media briefing to again scold they “legacy, Trump hating press” for its “politically motivated animus” that, he claims, blinds reporters from the “brilliance of our American warriors”.
Hegseth urged members of the media, to “open your eyes to the goodness, the historic success of our troops, the courage of this president.”
This comes after failed peace talks in Pakistan over the weekend, whipsawing oil prices, stalled shipping in the strait of Hormuz and no clear sense of what the two-week ceasefire agreement actually includes.
At his Pentagon press conference, Pete Hegseth warned that the US blockade of Iranian ports is the “polite way this can go”.
He reiterated that while Iranian officials still claim to control the strait of Hormuz, they don’t have “a navy or real domain awareness”.
Hegseth noted that the regime’s repeated threats to strike ships “lawfully transiting international waters. That is not control. That’s piracy, that’s terrorism.”
Pope Leo decries world ruled by ‘tyrants’ after Trump attacks
Pope Leo blasted leaders who spend billions on wars and said the world was “being ravaged by a handful of tyrants“, in unusually forceful remarks in Cameroon on Thursday after US president Donald Trump attacked him again on social media.
Leo, the first US pope, also decried leaders who used religious language to justify wars and urged a “decisive change of course” in a meeting in the biggest city in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions, where a simmering conflict going back nearly a decade has left thousands dead.
On Tuesday, JD Vance capped several days of insults by insinuating the pontiff was not being truthful in matters of theology, and did not understand the concept of war.
“How can you say that God is never on the side of those who wield the sword?” the vice-president said during a Turning Point USA event at the University of Georgia, at which he was heckled by anti-war protesters.
“Was God on the side of the Americans who liberated Holocaust camps? It’s very, very important for the pope to be careful when he talks about matters of theology … you’ve got to make sure it’s anchored in the truth.”
Trump’s plan to build Triumphal Arch gets hearing before key federal agency
Donald Trump’s design for the Triumphal Arch he wants built at an entrance to the US capital comes up for a review and possible vote on Thursday by a key federal agency.
It is one of several projects he is pursuing alongside a White House ballroom to leave his lasting footprint on Washington.
Trump said on social media that the arch “will be the GREATEST and MOST BEAUTIFUL Triumphal Arch, anywhere in the World” and a “wonderful addition to the Washington D.C. area for all Americans to enjoy for many decades to come!”
Also on the agenda for the monthly meeting of the US Commission of Fine Arts, whose seven members were appointed by the Republican president, is his plan to paint the gray granite exterior of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, next to the White House white.
A third White House-related project, construction of an underground center to conduct security screenings of tourists and other guests, is also up for consideration.
Commissioners are scheduled to review design plans for all three projects. They will be reviewing the arch and the paint job for the first time. The White House visitors’ center was discussed at the March meeting. It was unclear if the commission would approve any of the projects on Thursday.
Rachel Leingang
When federal agents arrived at Georgia Fort’s front door to arrest her, she knew what to do: be a journalist.
Fort, an independent Minnesota reporter who faces criminal charges after covering a protest inside a St Paul church, took out her phone and spoke directly to the camera, livestreaming to her audience that her lawyer advised her to go with the agents. Her three kids were in the house at the time, she said.
“I’m going to have to hop off here and surrender to agents,” she said in the video on 30 January. “As a member of the press, I filmed the church protest a few weeks ago, and now I’m being arrested for that. It’s hard to understand how we have a constitution, constitutional rights, when you can just be arrested for being a member of the press.”
Fort was one of two journalists, alongside Don Lemon, charged for covering the 18 January protest during services at St Paul’s Cities church, where the pastor reportedly works as a field director for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
“I decided to go live [during my arrest] because I felt like it was necessary to be able to tell my story about who I am and my longstanding commitment to journalism,” she said, “and to alert the public that this was a violation of my first amendment rights.”
Three people were killed in a US strike on another alleged drug-trafficking boat, the fifth such deadly attack in as many days, military officials have announced.
US southern command said it conducted “a lethal kinetic strike on a vessel operated by Designated Terrorist Organizations” in the eastern Pacific, without naming the alleged group, in an X post.
“Three male narco-terrorists were killed during this action.”
The latest strike brings the total toll to at least 177 killed, according to a tally compiled by the AFP news agency.
On Monday the US military said that it blew up two boats that it accused of smuggling drugs in the eastern Pacific Ocean, killing a total of five people and leaving one survivor. Then on Tuesday, the military said it killed four more people in the eastern Pacific Ocean.
President Donald Trump’s administration insists it is effectively at war with what it calls “narco-terrorists” operating in Latin America. But it has provided no definitive evidence that the vessels it targets are involved in drug trafficking, prompting heated debate about the legality of the operations.
Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth is due to hold a press conference later this morning, in which he expected to update the media on the US-Iran peace talks.
It is due to begin at 8am ET and you can expect journalists to ask him about the impeachment attempt against him as well.
We will bring you any news lines from that here but you can also follow it via our Middle East crisis live blog:
The first impeachment article alleges that Pete Hegseth started the conflict with Iran “without a declaration of war or specific statutory authorization by the Congress,” and “knowingly exposing members of the Armed Forces of the United States to substantial and foreseeable risk of injury or death.”
Another article held Hegseth responsible for the strike on an Iranian primary school on 28 February – the day the United States and Israel began bombing Iran – which killed at least 170 people, including students and teachers.
The impeachment resolution is led by Yassamin Ansari, a Democratic Congresswoman from Arizona, and has slim chances of passing due to the Republican majority in the House.
“I’ve introduced Articles of Impeachment against Pete Hegseth for violating his oath, endangering U.S. servicemembers, and committing war crimes, including attacks on civilians and a girls’ school in Minab, Iran,” Ansari wrote on X.
“Only Congress can declare war; his actions demand immediate removal.”
Other allegations included “negligence and reckless handling” of sensitive military information, as well as obstructing congressional oversight, referring to Hegseth’s use of commercial messaging app Signal to discuss strikes on Yemen.
Scrutiny mounts on Hegseth as Democrats attempt to rein in Trump administration over Iran war
Hello and welcome to the US politics live blog.
House Democrats filed six articles of impeachment against Pete Hegseth on Wednesday, accusing the defense secretary of “high crimes and misdemeanors”, in reference to the attack on Iran without congressional authorization and deadly strikes on suspected drug smuggling boats, among other official acts.
The move comes as the Trump administration faces mounting scrutiny over recent foreign action, particularly the war with Iran. The impeachment attempt can be seen as more symbolic than the realistic prospect of removing Hegseth from office.
In Wednesday’s resolution, Yassamin Ansari, a Democratic congresswoman from Arizona, and colleagues including John Larson of Connecticut accused the Pentagon chief of disregarding rules to minimize civilian casualties during armed conflict.
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats again failed to pass a war powers resolution to curb the Trump administration’s military campaign in Iran in a vote of 47-52.
Republican senator Rand Paul voted yes on the measure, bucking his party, while John Fetterman was the only Democratic senator to vote against the resolution. It was the upper chamber’s fourth failed attempt but its first since Congress returned from its most recent recess and the ongoing two-week ceasefire with Iran began.
It comes as senator Bernie Sanders’ effort to block the sale of bombs and bulldozers to Israel also failed yesterday, although the votes reinforced the growing appetite among Democrats to impose limits on US weapons transfers to a longtime US ally.
It was the fourth time Sanders, an independent who caucuses with Senate Democrats, had forced consideration of resolutions cutting off military aid for Israel in the Senate, all of which have been rejected by the chamber’s Republican majority, and many Democrats.
In other developments:
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