Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson, and today is Friday, September 5th, 2025. This is USA Today's the X-Aird.

Today, how RFK Jr. was grilled during a Senate hearing. Plus what Medicaid cuts mean for parts of

Appalachia, and we discussed the First Amendment and South Park satirizing of President Trump.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was at the heart of an explosive

hearing yesterday. Among the eyebrow-raising moments, he refused to acknowledge more than a million

Americans died

from coronavirus and was reluctant to give COVID-19 vaccines credit in saving lives. Kennedy and his

comments before the Senate Finance Committee had a particularly heated exchange with Democratic

Senator Mark Warner.

Do you accept the fact that a million Americans died from COVID?

I don't know how many died. You're the Secretary of Health and Human Services. You don't have any idea how many Americans died from COVID?

I don't think anybody knows that because there was so much data chaos coming out of the CDC

and there was so many perverse incentives out of the CDC and there was something

to the two incentives and these are model.

You don't know the answer of how many Americans from COVID.

This is the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

According to the most recent data publicized by the CDC, more than 1.2 million Americans

that died from COVID as of August 23rd.

Numerous independent studies have found COVID vaccinations saved millions of lives in the U.S.

and millions more around the world.

Be sure to tune into the excerpt on Sunday when my colleague Dana Taylor will be joined by USA Today White House correspondent Swapna Vinigopal Ramamoswamy for more on this topic.

Medicaid once boosted parts of the Appalachian U.S.

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