The hearings are continuing for President Donald Trump’s Cabinet picks, with the headline battle in the Senate on Wednesday, January 29 being Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s battle with Senator Elizabeth Warren over pharmaceutical companies. Warren, during the spat, started yelling at Mr. Kennedy, who fought back with vigor.
The spat began with Warren demanding that Mr. Kennedy not make money in his profession, which consists to no small degree of suing companies like drug companies that act abominably, after he is no longer in the Cabinet. She demanded, “So, Mr. Kennedy, will you also agree that you won’t take any compensation from any lawsuits against drug companies while you are secretary and for four years afterwards?”
Kennedy fired back and snapped that she was mischaracterizing him and that he of course would not be taking money from drug company suits while HHS secretary. He said, “Well, I’ll certainly commit to that while I’m secretary, but I do want to clarify something because you’re making me sound like a shill! I did a Science Day presentation to the judge on that case to get it into court-”
Warren cut him off and her voice started to rise as she again demanded he not return to his line of work after his time in the Cabinet is over. She said, “Mr. Kennedy, it’s just a really simple question. You’ve taken in $2.5 million. I want to know if you will commit right now that not only will you not go to work for drug companies, you won’t go to work suing the drug companies and taking your rake out of that while you’re secretary and for four years after.”
Kennedy, not having it, fired back, “I’ll commit to not taking any fees from drug companies while I am secretary.” Warren then made the question even broader, saying, “I’m asking about fees from suing drug companies. Will you agree not to do that?” Mr. Kennedy again refused to back down, saying, “You’re asking me to not sue drug companies, and I’m not going to agree to that, senator.”
That’s when she started yelling. Her voice rising to a shout, Warren snapped, ridiculously, “No! You can sue drug companies as much as you want!” Kennedy pointed out the absurdity of her line of questioning, in that case, saying, “I am not going to agree to not sue drug companies or anybody.”
Warren then accused him of being a conspiracy theorist, saying, “So let’s do a quick count here of how, as secretary of HHS, if you get confirmed, you can influence every one of those lawsuits. Well, let me start the list. You can publish your anti-vaccine conspiracies, but this time on U.S. government letterhead, something a jury might be impressed by.”
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Kennedy told her he didn’t understand her point, and she let loose with a lengthy tirade, saying, “You can appoint people to the CDC vaccine panel who share your anti-vax views and let them do your dirty work. You can tell the CDC vaccine panel to remove a particular vaccine from the vaccine schedule. You could remove vaccines from special compensation programs, which would open up manufacturers to mass torts. You could make more injuries eligible for compensation, even if there is no causal evidence. You could change vaccine court processes to make it easier to bring junk lawsuits.”
Continuing with the rant, she said, “You could turn over FDA data to your friends at the law firm and they could use it however it benefited them. You could change vaccine labeling. You could change vaccine information rules. You can change which claims are compensated in the vaccine injury compensation program. There’s a lot of ways that you can influence those future lawsuits and pending lawsuits while you are secretary of HHS. And I’m asking you to commit right now that you will not take a financial stake in every one of those lawsuits so that what you do as secretary will also benefit you financially down the line.”
Kennedy told her, reasonably, “I’ll comply with all the ethical guidelines.” She snapped, in reply, “That’s not the question.” Again pointing out how absurd her demand was, he said, “Senator, you’re asking me not to sue vaccine and pharmaceutical companies!” Then, as she again insisted she was not asking that, he snapped, “Yeah you are. That’s exactly what you are doing!”
Watch their spat here:
Featured image credit: CSPAN