Hard Wire

Trump Nominee Very Serious Questions During Senate Hearing

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Well, well, well—what do we have here? Just another routine Senate confirmation hearing, or a full-blown exposé on how deeply entrenched Big Pharma and corporate interests are in Washington? Because if you’ve been following the contentious grilling of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services, you’ll know that the real story isn’t just about RFK Jr.’s views on vaccines—it’s about the senators trying to take him down, and the money flowing into their pockets.

Let’s start with the elephant in the room: The very people attacking Kennedy’s skepticism of the pharmaceutical industry are the ones who are practically swimming in donations from that same industry. And it’s not just campaign contributions—some of these lawmakers have personal financial stakes in companies that would be affected by Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” (MAHA) movement. In other words, the people questioning Kennedy’s fitness for the job are the same ones whose bank accounts rely on maintaining the status quo.

Take Sen. Ron Wyden, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee. Between 2019 and 2024, he pulled in $749,316 from health professionals, $652,004 from insurers, and $502,063 from Big Pharma. Oh, and his top donors include Blue Cross/Blue Shield. But sure, let’s pretend he’s giving Kennedy a fair and unbiased hearing.

Then there’s Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Republican chair of the Senate HELP Committee, who spent the hearing attacking Kennedy’s past statements on vaccines. His numbers? A staggering $1.6 million from health professionals and just under a million dollars from pharmaceutical companies in the past five years alone.

And it’s not just these two. Nearly every senator on the committee has taken big checks from health insurers, hospitals, and drugmakers. Even Sen. Elizabeth Warren—who built her entire career railing against corporate greed—has pocketed nearly $500,000 from health professionals and over $126,000 from the pharmaceutical industry. And it just so happens that Moderna, the company that raked in billions from its COVID vaccine, is based in her home state of Massachusetts. And, oh look, they just got a $590 million federal contract from the Biden administration for an H5N1 vaccine. Just a coincidence, right?

Kennedy, of course, is having none of it. He called out the entire system for being rigged, pointing out that most of the panel had taken millions of dollars from the very industry they were defending. His supporters have been hammering this point home on social media, where the hypocrisy of Washington’s “public servants” has been getting millions of views.

And it’s not just campaign donations—there are direct financial conflicts of interest all over the place. Wyden’s spouse owns up to $100,000 in stock in Restaurant Brands International—the company that owns Burger King, Popeyes, and Firehouse Subs. You know, the kind of highly processed food that Kennedy’s MAHA movement wants to regulate? She’s also got money in Starbucks and Pfizer.

Sen. Susan Collins? Her husband owns stock in Hershey, Johnson & Johnson, Merck, and Thermo Fisher Scientific—all companies that have a lot to lose if Kennedy starts rewriting health policy.

Sen. Mark Warner? He has at least a million dollars invested in a hedge fund that pumps money into health tech startups, and up to $500,000 in another venture capital fund that invests in healthcare. But sure, let’s trust him to be an objective voice on Kennedy’s nomination.

This hearing should’ve been about Kennedy’s qualifications for the job. Instead, it turned into a full-scale assault on his views—views that just so happen to threaten the financial interests of the senators questioning him. And that tells you everything you need to know about why he’s facing so much resistance.

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