Sept. 5, 2025:
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump launched Operation Warp Speed in the throes of the COVID-19 pandemic, an effort he has credited with saving tens of millions of lives. During a Cabinet meeting last week, he likened it to “one of the greatest achievements ever.”
Sitting at the table as a proud Trump spoke was Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who came under fire at a congressional hearing Thursday (Sept. 4, 2025) for his work to restrict access to vaccines, including the very COVID-19 shots still touted by his boss.
The three-hour hearing exposed an odd dichotomy: One of Trump’s most universal successes in his first term remains Operation Warp Speed, yet his handpicked health chief and a growing cadre of Trump’s “Make America Great Again” supporters are distrustful of the very mRNA vaccine technology that the president has championed.
Highlighting that divide, much of the praise of Trump’s unprecedented effort to find a vaccine for COVID-19 came Thursday from Democrats.
Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., called Operation Warp Speed “a monumental achievement.” Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., told Kennedy he was a health hazard and said Trump, “who put forward Operation Warp Speed, which worked,” should fire him. Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, who caucuses with Democrats, said he doesn’t “usually agree with” Trump but cited the president’s remarks on the COVID-19 vaccine and said the scientific community is aligned behind him.
Republicans were also critical of Kennedy’s approach to vaccines.
Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., a physician whose vote for Kennedy ensured his narrow confirmation, noted the overarching success of Operation Warp Speed at a time when thousands of people a day were dying from COVID-19, businesses were shuttered and much of everyday life had ground to a halt.
“Others said it couldn’t be done. We saved millions of lives globally. Trillions of dollars. We reopened the economy. An incredible accomplishment,” Cassidy said as he questioned Kennedy. “Do you agree with me that the president deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?”
When Kennedy answered, “Absolutely, Senator,” Cassidy pivoted sharply.
He pressed Kennedy on denouncing the vaccine in the past, working on lawsuits targeting pharmaceutical makers and filling vacancies on a powerful vaccine advisory committee with expert witnesses who testified against the drugmakers, suggesting they posed a conflict of interest.
“It just seems inconsistent that you would agree with me that the president deserves tremendous amount of credit for this,” Cassidy responded.
Hassan read from a June 2024 post on X in which Kennedy wrote that Trump “has a weakness for swamp creatures, especially corporate monopolies, their lobbyists, and their money” and called the vaccine operation among “the most devastating impact of President Trump’s weakness, but not the only one.”
“If you agree with President Trump that the vaccine saved millions of lives, why have you acted behind closed doors to overrule scientists and limit the freedom of parents to choose the COVID vaccine for their children?” Hassan asked.
Kennedy told Hassan she was “just making stuff up.”
Limiting vaccine access
Still, under Kennedy, U.S. regulators have limited the availability of COVID-19 vaccines for many Americans.
Last month, U.S. regulators approved updated COVID-19 shots but limited their use for many Americans — and removed one of the two vaccines available for young children. The new restrictions are a break from the previous U.S. policy, which recommended an annual COVID-19 shot for all Americans 6 months and up, sparking confusion and frustration from some Americans, including parents interested in vaccinating healthy children against the virus.
Many pharmacies are unwilling or legally barred from giving vaccines outside the uses endorsed by the Food and Drug Administration and other federal authorities.
Several administration officials came to Kennedy’s defense on vaccines. Mehmet Oz, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said what Kennedy wants is “integrity and honesty” in the vaccine review process.
“Democrats are, as usual, being intellectually dishonest to try — and fail — to drive a wedge between President Trump and Secretary Kennedy,” White House spokesman Kush Desai said Thursday. “Instead of playing politics and trying to get stupid sound bites, Democrats should spend more time working with Secretary Kennedy and the rest of the Administration to Make America Healthy Again.”
The White House on Thursday did not directly address the criticism from Cassidy. Asked later about Kennedy’s testimony, Trump said he hadn’t watched but Kennedy “means very well” and he likes the fact that Kennedy is different.
But the Louisiana Republican was not the only one from his party chastising Kennedy over vaccines.
“If we’re going to make America healthy again, we can’t allow public health to be undermined,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming, a staunch Trump ally, told Kennedy. “I’m a doctor. Vaccines work.”
Meanwhile, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis had a multitude of questions for Kennedy, including how he really feels about Operation Warp Speed, saying he’d accept Kennedy’s answers later in writing.
Trump’s changing messages
Asked in early August about Kennedy’s cancellation of the mRNA contracts, Trump said the effort was “now a long time ago and we’re on to other things,” but said he would continue to speak on it.
“Operation Warp Speed was, whether you’re Republican or Democrat, considered one of the most incredible things ever done in this country,” Trump said. “The efficiency, the way it was done, the distribution, everything about it was, has been amazing.”
But Trump himself has been inconsistent in his attitude toward vaccines.
He said in a social media post this week that the companies were responsible for the recent turmoil at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention because they were not transparent about the science behind the shots. He has sometimes embraced discredited theories that vaccines could cause autism. Trump has also ferociously opposed vaccine mandates, threatening to withhold funding from schools with such policies.
The anti-vaccine movement within Trump’s party has been growing since the early days of the vaccine. Trump himself was booed at an event in December 2021 when he revealed that he had gotten the COVID-19 booster.
He tried, in vain, to rally his supporters back around Operation Warp Speed and remind them of what had been accomplished.
“Look, we did something that was historic. We saved tens of millions of lives worldwide. We together, all of us — not me, we — we got a vaccine done, three vaccines done, and tremendous therapeutics,” Trump said. “This was going to ravage the country far beyond what it is right now. Take credit for it. Take credit for it. … Don’t let them take it away. Don’t take it away from ourselves.”
Sept. 4, 2025, update:
UNDATED-AP- U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has faced questions from a congressional committee about the turmoil at federal health agencies. Kennedy told the committee on Thursday (Sept. 4, 2025) that Centers for Disease Control and Prevention leaders who left the agency last week deserved to be fired and criticized CDC recommendations during the COVID-19 pandemic. He wrongly claimed they “failed to do anything about the disease itself.” The U.S. Senate Finance Committee called Kennedy to a hearing about his plans to “Make America Healthy Again.” But the health secretary was grilled over layoffs and planned budget cuts that detractors say are wrecking the nation’s ability to prevent disease.
Sept. 4, 2025:
NEW YORK (AP) — U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is to appear before a congressional committee Thursday (Sept. 4, 2025), where he is expected to face questions about turmoil at federal health agencies.
The Senate Finance Committee called Kennedy to a hearing about his plans to “Make America Healthy Again.”
But the health secretary is expected to face questions about layoffs and planned budget cuts that detractors say is wrecking the nation’s ability to prevent disease.
That may include having Kennedy speak to the events of last week, when the Trump administration fired the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention less than a month into her tenure.
Several top CDC leaders resigned in protect, leaving the agency in turmoil.
The ousted director, Susan Monarez, wrote in The Wall Street Journal on Thursday that Kennedy was trying to weaken public health protections.
“I was told to preapprove the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed antivaccine rhetoric,” Monarez wrote. “It is imperative that the panel’s recommendations aren’t rubber-stamped but instead are rigorously and scientifically reviewed before being accepted or rejected.”
In a statement last week, U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon — the highest ranking Democrat on the committee — said Kennedy must “answer to the public and their representatives about the chaos, confusion, and harm his actions are inflicting on American families.”
Republicans including Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, a physician and vaccines supporter, are also likely to press Kennedy.
Asked if he has confidence in the health secretary, North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, a Republican on the committee, said he wants to hear from Kennedy in person.
“He’s got to reconcile what he said during his confirmation process with what we’ve seen over the past few months, particularly on vaccine policy,” Tillis said.
In May, Kennedy — a longtime leader in the anti-vaccine movement — announced COVID-19 vaccines would no longer be recommended for healthy children and pregnant women, a move opposed by medical and public health groups.
In June, he abruptly a panel of experts that had been advising the government on vaccine policy. He replaced them with a handpicked group that included several vaccine skeptics, and then shut the door to several doctors groups that had long helped form the committee’s recommendations.
A number of medical groups say Kennedy can’t be counted on to make decisions based on robust medical evidence. In a statement Wednesday, the Infectious Diseases Society of America and 20 other medical and public health organizations issued a joint statement calling on Kennedy to resign.
“Our country needs leadership that will promote open, honest dialogue, not disregard decades of lifesaving science, spread misinformation, reverse medical progress and decimate programs that keep us safe,” the statement said.
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