RFK Jr: A Total Disaster

It's worse than I thought.

The hearing to confirm RFK Jr. as Secretary of HHS was today. Congrats, Pete Hegseth. You are no longer the least qualified person nominated to run a federal agency. This thing was a total disaster.

I wasn’t planning to write anything about this hearing or any other hearings. With my specific focus on how to engage with less engaged voters, I felt that a lot of these hearings are political theatre that doesn’t connect with the less engaged voters. I even think we risk “crying wolf” when we raise the alarm on some of the nominees if we don’t then connect to the damage they do.

However, this hearing was a disaster, exposing Kennedy's unqualifiedness to run HHS. Sometimes, we need to stop thinking about the perfect message or strategy and just call out danger when we see it.

Here are some key things to know about RFK Jr.’s hearing:

• He was consistently inconsistent. When confronted with his own words questioning vaccines, he denied saying them. When asked about his role in creating a measles outbreak in Samoa, he pretended it didn’t happen. When asked about his stance on abortion, he flip-flopped to ensure that his views aligned with Donald Trump and the anti-choice Republicans on the panel.

• He hinted that he would look to regulate mifepristone, making it harder for women to access this important medicine.

• He consistently confused Medicaid and Medicare to the point that it’s reasonable to assume he doesn’t understand their differences.

Here are some key clips from the hearing:

Senator Hassan questioning RFK Jr on flipping his abortion stance.

Senator Bennett questioning RFK Jr. on his past statements on vaccines.

Senator Warren questioning RFK Jr about making money on lawsuits.

How to talk about this:

As I mentioned before, many of the conversations surrounding these nominees risk being too “inside baseball” for less engaged voters to connect with. Many folks just aren’t paying attention to who the Secretary of HHS is. But it still matters, and everyone once in a while, we just gotta put political strategy aside and raise the alarm.

So here are some thoughts on how to frame the conversation around RFK Jr.

• Focus on how radical he is. His anti-vaccine stance is pretty well known. But do most people know he compared the CDC to Nazis?

• Focus on his abortion flip-flops. This shows how power-craven he is in that he is willing to flip to a lifelong stance to gain power.

• Focus on how unqualified he is for the job, he lacked the understanding of some fundamental concepts, being corrected even by Republican Senators on the committee.

General statement: At the core of RFK Jr.’s nomination is who should make healthcare decisions for children. RFK Jr. and Donald Trump want the government to remove these decisions from doctors and parents. They want to take the option to have your children vaccinated away. They want to regulate women’s bodies, denying critical healthcare. This radical agenda will hurt all Americans.

Talking to an RFK Jr fan: Many people are attracted to RFK Jr. They like his stance on healthy food, vaccines, and environmental advocacy. This hearing made it clear that RFK Jr. will only do what Donald Trump wants. He has been willing to change his stance on abortions to gain power. He will only implement the policies Trump wants him to. RFK Jr.