Five Things to Watch as RFK Jr. Starts Grueling Week of Hearings

Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is beginning his marathon of congressional testimony on the Department of Health and Human Services’ budget Thursday.

The appointee of President Donald Trump will appear at seven hearings in seven days. Democrats are expected to question Kennedy over his childhood vaccine policy, as well as the administration’s proposal to slash sectors of HHS with bipartisan support, like the National Institutes of Health. Republicans are likely to ask about efforts to crack down on alleged fraud in social services programs like Medicaid.

“When you look at his attacks on vaccines, I thought that was all settled science,” said House Ways and Means ranking member Richard Neal (D-Mass.). “I think that’s worrisome.”

Lawmakers on the Ways and Means Committee and the House Appropriations Committee are slated to grill the secretary Thursday, and he’s invited to testify before the House Education and Workforce Committee Friday.

Kennedy also plans to testify next week before the House Energy and Commerce Committee, the Senate Finance Committee, the Senate Appropriations Committee, and the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Here’s five things to watch for during the hearings:

1) What will Kennedy say about vaccines?

Though Kennedy rose to political power through his alignment with vaccine skepticism, he appears to be losing momentum around that aspect of the Make America Healthy Again movement.

Kennedy recently received instructions from the White House to focus his messaging on topics like lowering health care costs, improving food quality, and attacking fraud—not vaccines, per an internal memo obtained by Bloomberg News.

The HHS Secretary has also recently steered clear of vaccine skepticism at public events, signaling that he may be avoiding the topic as the 2026 midterm elections approach. Recent polling from a Trump-aligned group has shown that voters in competitive swing districts broadly approve of routine childhood vaccinations.

Democrats will likely still press Kennedy on the agency’s efforts to no longer broadly recommend influenza, Covid-19, and other routine vaccinations. A federal judge recently paused the Trump administration’s decision to drastically slash the number of recommended childhood vaccines, halting the implementation of unprecedented change to national immunization policy.

2) How will Kennedy defend proposed cuts to NIH and other parts of HHS?

The White House proposed cutting $5 billion from NIH’s budget for fiscal 2027, which received significant pushback from some lawmakers and the research community.

The HHS budget also called for another roughly $11 billion in cuts, part of which was devoted to reorganizing parts of HHS into a newly formed Administration for a Healthy America.

Trump had previously called for far more draconian cuts during his first year in office, but Kennedy will still likely face significant pressure to justify further trims to the budget—particularly when Congress rejected them in this year’s government funding bill.

3) Will lawmakers pressure Kennedy on proposed NIH grant overhauls?

The pitched White House budget called for major changes to how the NIH issues grants, including implementing cost caps on indirect research costs and forward-funding research grants. Both policies have received bipartisan criticism. In the last year, HHS has also moved to terminate numerous grants.

The federal grant system is deeply intertwined with the nation’s research institutions and universities, and the administration’s previous efforts to make changes to it were roundly rejected by Congress.

4) Will Kennedy mention the lack of action on Trump’s Surgeon General nominee?

Surgeon General pick Casey Means is an ally of Kennedy and the Make America Healthy Again movement, but her nomination to be the nation’s top public health official has stalled for several months.

Since her February confirmation hearing before the HELP Committee, Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), both panel members, have expressed reservations about Means’ nomination. MAHA movement supporters are also closely watching Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who has declined to speak to reporters on his views on the nominee.

Whether Means comes up will be a test of the MAHA movement’s strength.

5) Will Kennedy be asked about breaking his quarterly testimony commitments?

When Cassidy decided to cast his vote to confirm Kennedy last year, the senator said he had received a commitment from the HHS Secretary to appear before the committee quarterly for updates, if requested. But Kennedy’s appearances on Capitol Hill are far sparser.

HELP Committee Democrats and ranking member Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) have demanded Kennedy appear before the committee to answer questions about his vaccine policy, and Cassidy recently acknowledged to reporters that Kennedy had not met his commitment.