RFK Jr grilled over US health secretary nomination
Newshour
BBC
4.4 • 984 Ratings
🗓️ 29 January 2025
⏱️ 48 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Robert F Kennedy Jr, the man Donald Trump wants to run America's health policy, denies being an anti-vaxxer. We hear from the US senate grilling critical to his chances of getting the job.
Also on the programme: Belgium's foreign minister says it is time to consider cutting aid to Rwanda for its role in the worsening crisis in the Democratic Republic of Congo; and could chemicals which helped kick start life on earth have been delivered by an asteroid?
(Photo: Robert F Kennedy Jr testifies during his confirmation hearing in the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, DC. Credit: ALLISON DINNER/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock.)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello and welcome to NewsHour from the BBC World Service. We're coming to live from London. I'm Sean Lay. |
| 0:11.0 | Robert F. Kennedy is a major figure in US politics, a member of perhaps the most famous political dynasty of the last century, |
| 0:17.5 | the nephew and son of assassinated political leaders and himself a former |
| 0:21.4 | independent candidate for president. Mr. Kennedy is also a highly contested choice for |
| 0:26.9 | Health and Human Services Secretary in Donald Trump's cabinet. An environmental lawyer by experience, |
| 0:32.2 | he spent decades as a vocal critic of existing health practice. He's made baseless health |
| 0:37.2 | claims in the past, |
| 0:38.5 | including that vaccines cause autism or can cause autism. |
| 0:42.4 | His views have not endeared him to members of his wider family. |
| 0:45.5 | On Tuesday, his cousin Caroline, daughter of the late President John F. Kennedy, |
| 0:49.4 | wrote a letter to senators sitting out why she thought he shouldn't be confirmed. |
| 0:52.8 | Here she is reading out the conclusion. She's talking about people who work in America's health care system. They deserve a |
| 0:59.4 | knowledgeable leader who is committed to evidence and excellence. They deserve a secretary |
| 1:05.5 | committed to advancing cutting-edge medicine to save lives, not to rejecting the advances we have already made. |
| 1:13.7 | They deserve a stable, moral and ethical person at the helm of this crucial agency. |
| 1:20.2 | They deserve better than Bobby Kennedy, and so do the rest of us. |
| 1:24.7 | I urge the Senate to reject his nomination. |
| 1:29.9 | Well, today, with members of his immediate family sitting behind him, Robert F. Kennedy faced a Senate nomination hearing, |
| 1:34.5 | knowing senators have the final say on whether or not he gets confirmed. This is from his |
| 1:40.3 | opening statement, including a brief interruption from the public gallery. In it, Mr. Kennedy declared no, he was not opposed to vaccination, one of the charges most |
| 1:48.3 | frequently levelled against him. |
| 1:50.3 | News reports have claimed that I am any vaccine or any industry. |
... |
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