I'm Ari Melbert, and we are following the news, the facts, the evidence for you.

There's a lot going on in Washington.

If you happened to join us last night, I told you we would keep a close eye on the big things

that are real and remind you and everyone really what might be offered as a big thing that

isn't.

Indeed, we have updates on that story from the freeze that wasn't in the program and a lot coming up.

But we begin with the day on Capitol Hill, where Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who, of course, famously ran

against Donald Trump as a president and said many things about why Donald Trump shouldn't be president,

is now going through the vetting for potentially joining the cabinet if he gets confirmed

as the

Secretary of Health and Human Services. So today is the key day. Kennedy is one of the most controversial

and quite obviously one of the most famous nominees in this new Trump cabinet. Now, the HHS position

is overseen by the Senate Finance Committee and and there were many important topics to address.

From his past misstatements about vaccines to his ever-changing record on women's reproductive

rights, to some of the anti-vaccine rhetoric, some of the headlines you see here, and Medicaid,

where RFK Jr. showed a misunderstanding of how some of that basic payment system works.

As for misunderstandings, well, that was something that we heard about a lot. Sometimes as a type of

defense, he's under oath. He's a lot. Sometimes as a type of defense,

he's under oath. He's got to win enough vote to the Senate here, even if Republicans have the

majority. And so sometimes misunderstandings were offered as an explanation. Other times,

and I'll get into this, it was clear he just doesn't seem to understand how certain parts of

the federal health care system works. Let's take a listen.

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