{"id":12871,"date":"2025-09-03T16:18:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-03T16:18:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/rfk-jr-will-face-hard-questions-over-cdc-shakeup-thune-says\/"},"modified":"2025-09-03T16:18:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-03T16:18:17","slug":"rfk-jr-will-face-hard-questions-over-cdc-shakeup-thune-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/rfk-jr-will-face-hard-questions-over-cdc-shakeup-thune-says\/","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr. will face \u2018hard questions\u2019 over CDC shakeup, Thune says"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Senate Majority Leader John Thune<\/a> said Wednesday that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will face “hard questions” over a recent shakeup of top health officials when he appears before senators Thursday.<\/p>\n

At Kennedy’s appearance before the Senate Finance Committee, which was first reported by POLITICO<\/a>, Thune said that the secretary needs to “restore public trust” after Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez was fired and other top CDC officials quickly resigned.<\/p>\n

“I would say that, you know, because somebody’s supportive or in favor of vaccines is not disqualifying for that job, so I assume he’ll have some questions to answer tomorrow,” Thune said.<\/p>\n

The turnover at the CDC has sparked a wave of concern from some Senate Republicans on public health grounds. But it’s also exposed frustration that the administration is ousting officials just weeks or months into the job after the Senate spent valuable floor time confirming them.<\/p>\n

“Honestly he’s got to take responsibility,\u201d Thune added. \u201cWe confirm these people, we go through a lot of work to get them confirmed, and they’re in office a month?”<\/p>\n

HHS isn\u2019t the only Trump administration department that has seen quick exits. Two Senate-confirmed Treasury officials \u2014 IRS Administrator Billy Long and Deputy Secretary Michael Faulkender \u2014 departed after just months.<\/p>\n

Thune added that Kennedy needs people in key positions who “have some stability and can hopefully command the trust of the American people.”<\/p>\n

Thursday\u2019s hearing was scheduled before the CDC shakeup. While Kennedy is coming to testify about Trump’s health agenda, he’s expected to face questions from both sides of the aisle about the turnover.<\/p>\n

Kennedy defended the changes during a Fox News interview last week. Though he declined to talk about \u201cpersonnel issues,\u201d he added that the CDC \u201cis in trouble, and we need to fix it, \u2026 and it may be that some people should not be working there anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said Wednesday that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will face “hard questions” over a recent shakeup of top health officials when he appears before senators Thursday. At Kennedy’s appearance before the Senate Finance Committee, which was first reported by Blue Light News, Thune said that the secretary needs […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12871"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12871\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}