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robert f. kennedy
'Abdication of Your Sworn Duty': Senate Dems Grill RFK Jr on Mass Firing of Health Workers
They warn cuts "will endanger children, seniors, and at-risk communities, set medical progress back by decades, curtail patient access to care, and make the nation less prepared for emerging public health threats."
Feb 21, 2025
Senate Democrats on Friday demanded answers from U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. regarding the purge of more than 5,000 agency workers after HHS "blindly followed" a "baseless directive" by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency that the lawmakers said is "blatantly undermining Americans' health and safety."
In one
letter to Kennedy signed by all 45 Democratic senators plus Independent Sens. Angus King of Maine and Bernie Sanders of Vermont, the lawmakers said that "as HHS secretary, the consequences of epidemics, lost treatments, and lack of access to care are your responsibility."
"The Trump administration is firing staff and harming programs that Americans rely on every day."
"These firings represent the abdication of your sworn duty to ensure the health and well-being of America's families," the letter states. "You have an obligation to the American people, who rely on you as the nation's top public health official, to stop these ill-conceived and dangerous attacks on agencies and programs that Americans rely on every day."
"These uninformed, baseless firings will reportedly continue across HHS under your leadership," the senators continued. "The Trump administration is firing staff and harming programs that Americans rely on every day, and these arbitrary cuts will endanger children, seniors, and at-risk communities, set medical progress back by decades, curtail patient access to care, and make the nation less prepared for emerging public health threats."
The lawmakers want to know:
- How many HHS employees were fired between January 20, 2025 and February 18, 2025?
- How many of these employees were probationary?
- How were HHS employees notified that they were being fired, and on what grounds?
- What, if any, analysis was conducted prior to firings to determine the immediate and long-term impact they will have?
- What role did the Department of Government Efficiency have in identifying or prioritizing employees for termination?
- What metrics did DOGE use in doing so?
- What specific guidance was given to HHS for identifying additional employees to lay off?
Roll Callreported that Sens. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) and Patty Murray (D-Wash.), and Reps. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) and Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.) also sent Kennedy a letter on Friday, this one expressing concern that mass firings at the Food and Drug Administration—an HHS agency—could adversely affect food safety and drug and medical device approvals.
"Without adequate staff at each center that receives user fees, the FDA may not be able to collect or spend user fees for the upcoming fiscal year," the lawmakers wrote, according to Roll Call. "This would be seriously detrimental to our medical drug and device programs by slowing the premarket review process, stifling innovation and preventing patients from accessing potentially lifesaving products."
Ten Senate Democrats so far have also signed a letter to Trump condemning the looming layoff of hundreds of staff at the Indian Health Service (IHS)—another HHS agency—amidst a healthcare worker shortage in Indigenous communities across the nation.
"Not only will this lead to worse health outcomes, but overall costs will also rise," the letter argues. "With less healthcare services at existing IHS facilities, there will be increased Purchased Referred Care referrals. This will increase costs for the federal government and require increased travel, accommodations, and expenses, creating increased hardships and barriers for patients and families seeking care far from where they live on tribal lands."
The lawmakers' letters come as thousands of federal workers—especially those employed under probationary conditions—are being fired from their jobs, many under what critics claim are false pretexts of poor performance.
The HHS layoffs also come amid
fears that Trump will not protect Medicare after the president's Thursday endorsement of a plan by GOP House lawmakers that would slash social spending so severely that even far-right Sen. Josh Hawley (D-Mo.) has warned against it. This, in order to fund an extension of the president's 2017 "tax scam" that primarily benefited the wealthy.
Early Friday, Senate Republicans
approved a separate and narrower budget resolution after rejecting Democratic amendments to avert cuts to federal health and other social programs.
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Voting for President Is Not an Exercise in Personal Expression
Whatever flaws you may see in Joe Biden, he is the only actual alternative to Trump’s reign.
Nov 26, 2023
Many Americans are unhappy about the likely 2024 choice being offered them for president—Joe Biden versus Donald Trump. However, two third-party alternatives surfaced recently: Jill Stein of the Green Party and West Virginia Senator Joe Manchin, who appears to be seeking the “No Labels Party” nomination.
They join two other non-major-party candidates, anti-vaxxer Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and left-wing intellectual and activist Cornel West.
These candidates appear to offer voters a broad menu of political ideologies and beliefs from which to choose—from Kennedy’s contention that Americans are enslaved by vaccination record-keeping to Manchin’s claimed centrism to West’s plans for abolishing poverty and Stein’s condemnation of corporate-dominated politics.
Voting for Nader, the candidate who appeared to have stronger liberal credentials, proved to have far-reaching consequences—but the opposite of what most Green Party voters would likely have desired.
One thing that is not on the third-party menu is an opportunity to vote for someone who could actually become president. There isn’t a ghost of a chance Jill Stein, Joe Manchin, Robert F. Kennedy, or Cornel West will be elected.
Nonetheless, their campaigns could have a powerful impact: helping elect Donald Trump. The Green Party achieved an equivalent disaster before.
In 2000, the Green Party fielded a candidate, Ralph Nader, against Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore. In what turned out to be a remarkably close election, the result turned on Florida.
Nader received 97,488 votes in the state, votes that otherwise would have tilted strongly in favor of Gore: In his book, Crashing the Party, Nader acknowledges that 13% more of his voters would have gone for Gore than for Bush. These 12,700 votes would have given Gore an indisputable victory.
Instead, the vote was close enough for a right-wing Supreme Court to be in a position to halt the voting when Bush was only 537 votes ahead, bestowing Florida—and the presidency—on Bush.
How did voting for the Green Party work out?
Foreign Policy: The neocons around Bush had long targeted Iraq for overthrow. Following 9/11, they lied us into an invasion that led to 4,500 dead American soldiers, more than 165,000 dead Iraqi civilians, and a Middle East in the chaos that spawned ISIS.
Climate change: In Al Gore, we could have had a president in 2001 who really understood the climate threat. Instead, we had the pro-oil Bush presidency, initiating nearly two decades of political stagnation on the emerging climate crisis.
Democracy and Constitutional Rights: Bush got to appoint two right-wing Supreme Court justices, who joined three other Republican Justices to give us the 5-4 decision in the money-rules-all Citizens United case. The two Bush justices were also part of 5-4 majorities in cases that (1). invented a personal constitutional right to own firearms, and (2). eviscerated the Voting Rights Act, precipitating an avalanche of laws disenfranchising large numbers of minority, elderly, and youth voters.
Voting for Nader, the candidate who appeared to have stronger liberal credentials, proved to have far-reaching consequences—but the opposite of what most Green Party voters would likely have desired.
Third party candidates regularly tell us we’re entitled to express our own views in voting. But voting for president is not an exercise in personal expression and it is not like seeking your true love or dream candidate. Voting is what you do to effect the best outcome for your country among the real possibilities.
The GOP has ceased to be a normal party that respects majority rule and the rule of law, and Donald Trump has made clear his intentions of dismantling our democracy. Whatever flaws you may see in Joe Biden, he is the only actual alternative to Trump’s reign.
It’s as simple as this: If you vote for supposed “progressives” Jill Stein or Cornel West, you’re reducing the votes needed to stop Trump.
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RFK Jr.'s Own Siblings Denounce Independent Run, Call It 'Perilous for Our Country'
"Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision, or judgment," said four of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s siblings. "We denounce his candidacy."
Oct 09, 2023
Family members of 2024 U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy—including several of his siblings—said in no uncertain terms on Monday that they oppose his continued bid to lead the country, as the lawyer and anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist announced he would run as an independent instead of as a Democrat.
Four of Kennedy's siblings—documentary filmmaker Rory Kennedy, human rights advocate Kerry Kennedy, former Congressman Joseph Kennedy II (D-Mass.), and former Democratic Maryland Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend—released a statement saying their brother's decision to run as a third party candidate is "dangerous to our country."
"Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision, or judgment," they said. "We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country."
After saying repeatedly in recent weeks that the Democratic National Committee is "rigging" the 2024 election against him, Kennedy—who was previously running for the party's nomination as a challenger to President Joe Biden—said Monday that he was proposing a "new Declaration of Independence" for the country.
"I've come here today to declare our independence from the tyranny of corruption which robs us of affordable lives, our belief in the future, and our respect for each other," Kennedy said. "But to do that I must first declare my own independence. Independence from the Democratic Party and from all other political parties."
Though Kennedy is a scion of one of the most prominent Democratic families in the U.S., polling has shown Republican voters think more highly of his candidacy than Democrats.
After building a career as an environmental lawyer, Kennedy has become well-known in recent years for spreading anti-vaccine propaganda, including a claim that "there's no vaccine that is safe and effective" and the long-debunked belief that childhood vaccines cause autism.
Kerry Kennedy has spoken out about her brother's presidential aspirations at least twice before, including when he said "Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese" people have the most immunity to Covid-19 and that the pandemic was "targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people."
Kennedy's cousin and the grandson of assassinated former President John F. Kennedy, Jack Schlossberg, also expressed disgust earlier this year over Kennedy's campaign, saying in a video posted to social media that he had "no idea why anyone thinks he should be president."
"What I do know is his candidacy is an embarrassment," said Schlossberg. "Let's not be distracted again by somebody's vanity project. I am excited to vote for Joe Biden in my state's primary and again in the general election, and I hope you will too."
As author and activist Naomi Klein noted earlier this year, Kennedy's political priorities bear little resemblance to the anti-poverty, civil rights, and pro-labor work of his father, assassinated former U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.).
Despite running as a so-called "populist," she wrote, Kennedy has shown little interest in advocating for policies that would center working and low-income people, such as higher taxes for the rich or Medicare for All.
"Kennedy is not actually proposing any of this," Klein wrote after a media appearance by Kennedy early in his Democratic campaign. "On Fox, he would not even come out in favor of a wealth tax; he has brushed off universal public healthcare as not 'politically realistic'; and I have heard nothing about raising the minimum wage."
Climate experts and advocates have also noted that Kennedy's background in environmental law does not make him the candidate the U.S. needs to combat the climate emergency.
As University of California, Berkeley environmental law professor Dan Farber and UCLA Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment official Evan George wrote in the San Francisco Chronicle on Monday, Kennedy said in one campaign video that the climate crisis "is being used as a pretext for clamping down totalitarian controls, the same way the Covid crisis was."
Overall, as a presidential candidate Kennedy has "stayed largely silent on climate change," said Farber and George, except to call the crisis and the environment "a divisive issue" and to say he would push for policies "that make sense to skeptics and activists alike" in order to build "a broad environmental coalition."
"Make no mistake: Creating a big tent open to climate skeptics will only achieve one thing—empower business interests opposed to climate action," wrote Farber and George.
"RFK Jr. is not a Democratic challenger," said economist Robert Reich. "He is not an independent. He is a right-wing tool being used to help elect [Former Republican President Donald] Trump."
"RFK Jr. has nothing to do with his father—who stood for racial, economic, and social justice (and for whom I worked in the 1960s)," Reich added. "His candidacy saddens me. He could have done something meaningful with his life and name."
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