US Governance — 2026-04-22

Kennedy faces bipartisan Senate grilling on vaccine rollback, NIH cuts in final MAHA budget hearing

HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before the Senate HELP Committee on April 22, his seventh congressional hearing in as many days, as senators pressed him on Trump's FY27 HHS budget proposal, a $15.8 billion cut to the department including more than $5 billion off NIH, NPR and The Hill reported. Chairman Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a physician who cast the deciding 2024 confirmation vote after receiving specific vaccine pledges from Kennedy, led pointed questioning about changes to the childhood immunization schedule made without ACIP input and Kennedy's continued refusal to testify about 2025 measles outbreaks. Three GOP committee members (Cassidy, Collins, and Murkowski) have not endorsed Kennedy's surgeon-general nominee Casey Means. The hearing drew 12.5 percent cuts relative to FY26 discretionary HHS spending and Democratic demands for Kennedy to publicly release pharmaceutical deal terms.

Analysis
Cassidy's physician-led questioning on vaccine-schedule changes, reported across NPR and The Hill, is the clearest signal that Kennedy's 2024 confirmation commitments on ACIP process are now being assessed as broken, making this hearing very likely the last substantial Senate oversight moment for the MAHA agenda before the FY27 continuing-resolution fight. Collins and Murkowski withholding endorsement of the Means surgeon-general nomination opens a possible partisan realignment within the coming weeks, fragmenting Republican Senate health policy between the MAHA wing and traditional GOP health-establishment concern. The $15.8 billion HHS cut, including $5+ billion off NIH, very likely survives FY27 appropriations but at reduced depth. The Kennedy-Cassidy friction gives Democrats an exploitable fault line in Labor-H conference.

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