Things got heated during a Senate hearing when RFK Jr. slammed a Democrat senator for being complicit in the alleged “destruction” of Americans’ health, with Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary making the case that Americans are sicker than they have ever been and asking the senator what she has done about issues like chronic disease during her 32-year-long career.
For context, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., ripped into Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA) during a Senate hearing on Tuesday, May 20, 2025, voicing his concerns about the lack of perceived efforts to address the “epidemic” of chronic disease, which RFK asserted was making Americans “the sickest people in the world.” In response, Sen. Murray shot back, calling Secretary Kennedy’s decisions into question on multiple fronts.
During the tense back-and-forth, Secretary Kennedy began by pointing out that Sen. Murray had served in the Senate chamber for 32 years, adding, “You presided over the destruction of the health of the American people. Our people are now the sickest people in the world.” In response, Sen. Murray retorted, “Seriously?”
Continuing, Sen. Murray asked RFK about the recent decision to withhold Child Care and Development Block Grant funding, to which the secretary replied, “It was made by my department, okay?” Sen. Murray replied, “And you said last week, quote, ‘We were not cutting thousands of scientists. We are not cutting clinical trials.'”
Next, Sen. Murray continued to grill RFK, saying that in the first four months of 2025, he “fired or pushed out nearly 5000 NIH staff and terminated more than 1600 NIH grants” before asking again, “Whose decision was it to fire scientists and terminate these NIH grants and the clinical trials?” RFK responded, “Senator, I don’t trust your information.”
Building the tension, RFK told Sen. Murray why he did not believe her accusations were valid, saying, “With all due respect, you told me to what, three days ago or four days ago, that we had cut a clinical trial in your state, and what you turned out, what you said, turned out to be completely untrue. And you knew it was untrue, because you corresponded with Jay Bhattacharya.”
In response, Sen. Murray implied that Secretary Kennedy was not fulfilling the responsibilities of his role, saying, “It shouldn’t take me, first of all, raising an issue with you face to face to make sure NIH is working its way through this.” She later told RFK, “Your staff didn’t get back to me until 5 minutes ago,” to which RFK responded, “We have the emails. We have emails from your staff two weeks ago.”
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Finally, RFK called out Sen. Murray for what appeared to be an inconsistency in her story, saying, “Two weeks ago, you were corresponding. What you said, you knew was untrue when you said it.” In addition, the secretary made the case that Sen. Murray was discussing confidential information in the Senate chamber, telling the senator, “We shouldn’t be talking about patients” in reference to a specific individual that Sen. Murray used as an example to prove a point. Indignant, Sen. Murray told RFK, “You came here to argue with me.”
Watch the tense exchange:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video