Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified that President Donald Trump didn’t bother to ask him for input on Erica Schwartz, who has been nominated to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The health and human services secretary said that while he had met with her on “multiple occasions” before her nomination, including to discuss her views on vaccines, he admitted that Trump did not seek his input on her nomination.
Kennedy testified to the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health Subcommittee that HHS chief counsel Chris Klomp, the number two at the department, had spoken with Trump about Schwartz’s nomination.
The president tapped Schwartz, who was the deputy surgeon general during his first term, to head the CDC last week.
The agency has been swarmed with controversy, particularly after the termination of former Director Susan Monarez, who was fired less than a month on the job after she refused to terminate top agency scientists and implement changes to vaccine recommendations without a scientific review, both requests of Kennedy.
Schwartz’s nomination comes as the Trump White House has been looking to reel in Kennedy’s controversial health policies, dubbed Make America Healthy Again, ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.
While the Trump administration has indicated it views Kennedy’s MAHA coalition as an essential voting bloc to secure strong turnout in the upcoming election, the White House does believe some of its vaccine messaging is too polarizing.
“Vaccines are not popular issues to talk about,” one administration official told the Washington Post last month. “It goes back to polling.”
Kennedy, a longtime vaccine conspiracy theorist, has not been entirely successful in his quest to entirely upend vaccines in the U.S., but he has been successful in changing the recommendations for the childhood vaccine schedule and making the COVID-19 vaccine more inaccessible.
Schwartz, unlike Kennedy, has no known ties to anti-vaxxers.
In a statement, HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon said “Secretary Kennedy was fully engaged in the process and supports Dr. Schwartz’s nomination,“ adding that Kennedy is ”fully confident in her ability to strengthen the agency and deliver results for the American people.”
During questioning at Tuesday’s hearing, Kennedy did not commit to implementing any vaccine guidance that would be issued by Schwartz.
“You’ll probably fire her because you will not accept recommendations based on science,” California Democratic Rep. Raul Ruiz told Kennedy, in reference to Monarez’s firing.
Trump skirting around his top health advisor comes as he has been rethinking his Cabinet officials as the administration is weighing strategies, including firing more officials, ahead of the midterms, which are already expected to be disastrous for Republicans.
The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Kennedy’s “standing among some staff is at a new low.”
“You must be aware of that,” Ruiz added during the hearing. “It must be nerve-wracking, especially after AG Bondi, and Secretaries Noem and Chavez-Deremer were fired for making the president look bad.”
