Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cited his father, Robert Kennedy, a former U.S. attorney general and senator from New York, while testifying on Capitol Hill about backlash over the Trump administration’s efforts to reform the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).    

The Health and Human Services Department (HHS) head signaled a dramatic course-correction at the CDC several days before the hearing, which came amid reports of the administration’s decision to fire CDC Director Susan Monarez. Monarez’s firing spurred backlash among Democrats who complained that the administration’s efforts to reform the CDC, including through staff and budget cuts, were politicizing public health and undermining scientific integrity.

‘The people at the CDC who oversaw [the COVID-19 mitigation] process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving,’ Kennedy said during his opening remarks, shortly after the hearing was briefly interrupted by a heckler. ‘That’s why we need bold, competent, and creative new leadership at CDC. People who are able to and willing to chart a new course.’

‘As my father once said, ‘Progress is a nice word, but change is its motivator. And change has its enemies.” The health secretary, who is also the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, continued: ‘That’s why we need new blood at CDC.’

Thursday’s brief moment when Kennedy invoked his father, who was shot and killed while serving as a U.S. senator in 1968, would not be the first time the Kennedy family has been invoked in the health secretary’s approach to governing. In the lead-up to President Donald Trump’s 2024 election victory, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s sister, Kerry Kennedy, slammed him for supporting Trump and ‘desecrat[ing] and trampl[ing] and set[ting] fire’ to their dad’s memory.

The quote from RFK Jr.’s father comes from a speech he made to the United States Conference of Mayors in Chicago in 1963. The remarks came while he was serving as attorney general under former Democratic Party president Lyndon B. Johnson. 

Kennedy’s speech in Chicago discussed contemporary economic stresses and poverty in the early 1960s, noting they had resulted in an ‘unwanted stockpile of idle youth,’ according to a copy of the speech shared by the Department of Justice (DOJ). The then-attorney general suggested the issue was exacerbated by a lack of equal access to education, vocation training and poor housing that was occurring at the time.

‘The hardest task is to appoint and incorporate in our work a group of men and women with the power and willingness to look at our community difficulties, dissect them, criticize areas of shortcoming, and make meaningful suggestion,’ Kennedy said during his speech to the conference of mayors. ‘Sometimes, too, it is hard to accept that sort of recommendation. For, sometimes, it carries with it announced or implied criticism of programs that have failed us in the past. Change means that someone’s professional feathers will be ruffled, that a glass-topped desk might be moved to another office or abandoned, that pet programs might die.’

‘Progress is the nice word we like to use. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies,’ Kennedy continued. ‘The willingness to confront that change will determine how much we shall really do for our youth and how truly meaningful our efforts will be.’

Amid the CDC shakeup being spearheaded by RFK Jr., over 1,000 current and former federal health officials penned a letter this week calling for the HHS secretary’s resignation, arguing he is ‘endanger[ing] the nation’s health.’ Following Monarez’s ouster, several other top CDC officials resigned in protest of the Trump administration’s policies on public health.

Meanwhile, Kennedy penned an op-ed earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal echoing his Thursday remarks on Capitol Hill that the changes coming to the CDC are restoring confidence in an agency that lost the public’s trust due to its response to the COVID-19 virus.

‘Most CDC rank-and-file staff are honest public servants,’ the health secretary wrote. ‘Under this renewed mission, they can do their jobs as scientists without bowing to politics.’

The Secret Service’s counter sniper team is understaffed, jeopardizing the safety of U.S. leaders like the president, according to a new inspector general report. 

The report comes just over one year after the counter sniper team took out the gunman who opened fire on President Donald Trump in July 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania, and as the agency has ushered in a series of reforms in response to the assassination attempt. 

The Department of Homeland Security Inspector General determined that the Secret Service’s counter sniper team is staffed 73% below the level necessary to meet mission requirements and does not have an adequate pipeline to hire more. 

‘Failure to appropriately staff CS could limit the Secret Service’s ability to properly protect our Nation’s most senior leaders, risking injury or assassination, and subsequent national-level harm to the country’s sense of safety and security,’ the report, was released Friday, states.

Meanwhile, demand for snipers is up. Events the sniper team supported increased by 151% from calendar year 2020 to 2024, even though staffing only increased 5% over that span, according to the report. 

As a result, the watchdog recommended that the agency execute a plan to beef up staffing to meet the counter sniper staffing requirements. The Secret Service concurred, per the report. 

Fox News Digital reached out to the Secret Service for comment and has not yet received a reply. 

Meanwhile, the agency has already spearheaded a series of reforms after the assassination attempt against Trump in 2024 in Butler, Pennsylvania. 

For example, a bipartisan House task force that investigated the attack found that the attempted assassination was ‘preventable’ and concluded various mistakes were not an isolated incident.

Among the mistakes found, the report concluded that the Secret Service did not secure a ‘high-risk area’ next to the rally, the American Glass Research (AGR) grounds and building complex. 

Failure to secure this area ‘eventually allowed Crooks to evade law enforcement, climb on and traverse the roof of the AGR complex, and open fire.’

Former Secret Service acting director Ronald Rowe told lawmakers in December 2024 that immediate changes to the agency after the Pennsylvania assassination attempt included expanding the use of drones for surveillance purposes and incorporating greater counter-drone technology to mitigate kinetic attacks from other drones. 

The agency also overhauled its radio communications networks and interoperability of those networks with Secret Service personnel and state and local law enforcement officers, Rowe told the lawmakers. 

‘The reforms made over this last year are just the beginning, and the agency will continue to assess its operations, review recommendations and make additional changes as needed,’ the Secret Service said in a news release in July. 

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended the Trump administration’s firing spree at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, promising ‘new blood’ will soon take over the agency.

‘America is home to 4.2% of the world’s population, yet we had nearly 20% COVID deaths,’ Kennedy said Thursday in front of the Senate Finance Committee. ‘We literally did worse than any country in the world.’

Kennedy said CDC leaders ‘who oversaw that process, who put masks on our children, who closed our schools, are the people who will be leaving.’

‘And that’s why we need bold, competent and creative new leadership at CDC,’ he continued. ‘People are able and willing to chart a new course. As my father once said, progress is a nice word, a change that’s a motivator. And change has its enemies. That’s why we need new blood at the CDC.’

Kennedy testified before the committee hearing, which focused on President Donald Trump’s healthcare agenda and vaccine guidance. Senate Democrats grilled Kennedy on his moves to limit access to COVID-19 shots for children, his dismissal of health officials, and his ties to figures who have questioned the safety of mRNA vaccines.

In recent months, the Trump administration has carried out a sweeping shake-up inside the CDC and federal health agencies. All 17 members of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices were dismissed in June, and CDC Director Susan Monarez was fired in August. Kennedy has repeatedly argued the changes are necessary to restore public trust in health guidance.

Monarez, who had been in the position for less than a month after earning Senate confirmation, said in an op-ed that Kennedy and his aides told her she must either step down or face dismissal. She wrote that she was instructed to ‘pre-approve the recommendations of a vaccine advisory panel newly filled with people who have publicly expressed anti-vaccine rhetoric.’

During the pandemic, the CDC recommended vaccines for children as young as six months and for pregnant women to help pass immunity to newborns, while older children were required to wear masks in schools and daycares.

For many, former National Institutes of Health Director Anthony Fauci’s shifting mask guidance became one of the most controversial flashpoints of the pandemic. In early 2020, he discouraged Americans from wearing masks, citing supply shortages and limited evidence of asymptomatic spread. Weeks later, the CDC reversed course and urged cloth mask use nationwide. Fauci later said the mixed messaging ‘fooled’ the public and fueled mistrust.

The FBI raid on John Bolton’s home last month led to the seizure of multiple computers, cell phones, USB drives and documents in folders labeled ‘Trump,’ among other items, court documents revealed Thursday.

The list of over a dozen items seized from the Bethesda, Md., home of President Donald Trump’s former national security advisor was included in search warrant documents filed with the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland.

Among the technology seized from Bolton’s home were two iPhones – a red one with two camera lenses and a black one in a black case – and three computers, including a silver Dell XPS laptop with cables, a Dell Precision Tower computer model 3620 and a Dell Inspiron 2330 computer. One Seagate hard drive and two Sandisk 64 gigabyte USB drives were also seized.

The list shows the FBI also took a white binder labeled, ‘Statements and Reflections to Allied Strikes…’ and typed documents in folders labeled ‘Trump I-IV.’

Four boxes containing what federal officials called ‘printed daily activities’ were also hauled from Bolton’s home.

The FBI raid on Aug. 22 is reportedly linked to a probe of mishandling classified documents.

During Trump’s first administration, a probe into classified documents was launched but later shut down by the Biden administration. The Justice Department argued that Bolton’s 2020 memoir, ‘The Room Where It Happened,’ contained classified material and attempted to block it from being published.

Days after the raid on his home, Bolton unleashed a blistering critique of Trump’s Ukraine policy in an op-ed published in the Washington Examiner, claiming it is marked by ‘confusion, haste and disarray.’ 

Bolton said Trump’s attempt to fast-track a peace deal was ‘inevitably’ doomed, arguing the Alaska summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Aug. 15 was arranged at a pace ‘almost surely unprecedented in modern history.’

When reporters asked Trump about the raid shortly after it unfolded, the president didn’t hold back his disdain for his former adviser.

‘I’m not a fan of John Bolton. He’s a real lowlife,’ Trump told reporters, adding that he did not know about the raid ahead of time, claiming he saw it on television. He went on to call Bolton ‘not a smart guy’ and said ‘he could be very unpatriotic.’

Bolton was Trump’s national security advisor in 2018 and 2019, until the pair had a falling out. Trump revoked Bolton’s security clearance and Secret Service detail in January 2025.

Fox News Digital’s Rachel Wolf and Morgan Phillips contributed to this report.

Three Democratic governors on the West Coast are banding together to sidestep President Donald Trump’s health agenda – a move the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) blasted as rooted in the ‘failed politics of the pandemic.’

The governors have decided to reject Trump’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) rules and create their own vaccine guidelines, potentially putting state policies at odds with federal guidance.

‘Democrat-run states that pushed unscientific school lockdowns, toddler mask mandates, and draconian vaccine passports during the COVID era completely eroded the American people’s trust in public health agencies,’ HHS spokesperson Andrew Nixon told Fox News Digital on Thursday. 

Nixon added the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) ‘remains the scientific body guiding immunization recommendations in this country,’ and that the health department ‘will ensure policy is based on rigorous evidence and Gold Standard Science.’

All 17 members of the ACIP were dismissed in June as HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. vowed to ‘restore public trust’ in vaccine guidance.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Oregon Gov. Tina Kotek and Washington Gov. Bob Ferguson launched the West Coast Health Alliance Wednesday, just a day before Kennedy testified on vaccines before the Senate Finance Committee. The hearing comes just a month after CDC Director Susan Monarez was fired. 

‘President Trump’s mass firing of CDC doctors and scientists — and his blatant politicization of the agency — is a direct assault on the health and safety of the American people,’ the governors said in a joint statement. ‘The CDC has become a political tool that increasingly peddles ideology instead of science, ideology that will lead to severe health consequences. California, Oregon, and Washington will not allow the people of our states to be put at risk.’

The governors plan to disregard CDC guidelines under Trump and will issue their own coordinated vaccine and health guidelines in their states, grounded in medical groups like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. If finalized, the alliance could create dueling health systems, where millions of residents in California, Oregon, and Washington follow state vaccine recommendations that may conflict with federal guidance.

‘Through this partnership, the three states will start coordinating health guidelines by aligning immunization recommendations informed by respected national medical organizations,’ a news release on Newsom’s website said.

Tribal nations will continue to exercise full sovereignty over vaccine programs, according to the news release, noting the alliance will not interfere with federally recognized tribes’ authority to set their own health policies.

The CDC has been in turmoil for months after the Trump administration moved to clean house at the agency, firing hundreds of staffers and dismantling divisions long accused of political bias. In late August, CDC Director Susan Monarez was ousted less than a month into the job after resisting new vaccine directives, triggering a wave of resignations by senior officials.

According to the Washington Post, anonymous CDC officials said HHS leaders, including Kennedy Jr., pressed Monarez to withdraw approvals for certain COVID-19 vaccines. When she refused to go along, administration officials told her she had to resign or face termination. Monarez has since retained attorneys Mark Zaid and Abbe Lowell, who previously said she ‘has neither resigned nor yet been fired.’

The blue states say the new policies will be finalized in the coming weeks. 

The Restoration of America Foundation (ROAF) is calling on the Senate Finance Committee to hold Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. accountable at Thursday’s 10 a.m. hearing, demanding answers about the removal of safety protocols for the abortion pill mifepristone.

In a letter provided exclusively to Fox News Digital, ROAF argues the rollback leaves women more vulnerable and shifts costs to taxpayers.

ROAF argues that the Biden-era rollback of Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) requirements, safeguards in place for more than two decades, endangers women by allowing abortion pills to be prescribed via telehealth and delivered through the mail.

‘The removal of key Risk Evaluation and Mitigation Strategy (REMS) requirements for mifepristone has eliminated essential safeguards that protected women’s health for over two decades,’ said Doug Truax, founder and CEO of the Restoration of America Foundation. ‘We urge the Senate to demand clear answers about why these safety protocols were removed and when they will be reinstated.’

The Food and Drug Administration originally required mifepristone to be dispensed in person to ensure women were screened for potential complications such as ectopic pregnancy. That changed under the Biden administration, when telehealth prescribing and mail-order delivery were permitted for the first time.

Truax warned that ‘allowing these powerful drugs to be ordered online and sent through the mail without proper medical screening puts women at serious risk.’ He added, ‘Women deserve to know about potential complications and have immediate access to emergency care if needed.’

‘As previously mentioned, Secretary Kennedy asked Commissioner Makary to review the latest data on mifepristone,’ said HHS spokeswoman Emily G. Hilliard to Fox News Digital. ‘Commissioner Makary will ensure gold standard science is used while incorporating practical, common-sense considerations to its regulatory processes.’