Five months after Sen. Bill Cassidy asked RFK Jr. to testify, it still hasn’t happened

WASHINGTON — Five months after Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy invited Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to appear before the powerful Health Committee he chairs, the hearing has not happened and the senator continues to say no date has been set for it to take place.

Cassidy, a pro-vaccine Louisiana doctor, publicly asked Kennedy to testify before the Senate Health Committee on September 18 for an oversight hearing to “share her side of the story” after Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Susan Monarez was abruptly ousted from her post. Monarez’s lawyers said at the time that she was fired for refusing “to approve unscientific and reckless guidelines and fire dedicated health experts.”

In a September press release, Cassidy wrote that, in the spirit of President Trump’s mandate for “radical transparency in government,” he would use his committee to conduct “oversight” of “recent high-profile departures from the agency,” including that of Monarez. The hearing would aim to “give Americans the complete picture so they can judge for themselves.”

Since that invitation, Cassidy has said several times that a date for the hearing is being worked out.

Cassidy was the key vote in getting Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, to assume his role as HHS secretary. The senator openly expressed his concerns about Kennedy, particularly his skepticism about the vaccine, and said he “struggled” with this decision. But ultimately, Cassidy supported him after Kennedy made several promises, including to meet with Cassidy “regularly” and to appear before the health committee he chairs “on a quarterly basis, if requested.”

Asked about the status of the hearing Thursday, Cassidy told NBC News, “I’m just not following what’s going on. I know it’s happening. I know it’s working. Believe me, there’s obviously an appearance of delay, but that’s not what I’m focused on,” and said to check with his team.

The same day, a member of Cassidy’s staff told NBC News that he had “no updates” on whether or when the hearing would take place. Meanwhile, several other Cabinet members have already appeared this year for oversight hearings.

A Kennedy spokesperson told NBC News in a statement: “Secretary Kennedy continues to uphold his commitments to President Cassidy and engages regularly and frequently with him and his staff. As part of these commitments, HHS has accepted President Cassidy’s many recommendations for key agency roles, maintained specific language on the CDC website, and adopted ACIP recommendations. Secretary Kennedy speaks with the President during a regular clip.”

Cassidy’s repeated public clashes and initial hesitation to support Kennedy have become a focal point of his re-election campaign, as he faces a Trump-backed primary challenger, Rep. Julia Letlow, R-La.

Prior to his confirmation, Kennedy also assured Cassidy that he would maintain the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) without changes. Yet in June, Kennedy fired all 17 ACIP members and replaced them with members of his choosing, including several known vaccine skeptics. Cassidy immediately requested that the next ACIP meeting be postponed until the panel gets “stronger, more balanced representation.” The meeting went as planned.

Kennedy had also promised Cassidy that he would not remove statements on the CDC website that vaccines do not cause autism. The site was rewritten in November to suggest, without evidence, that health authorities had “ignored” possible links between the injections and autism. He stood by the statement that “vaccines do not cause autism” but with an asterisk pointing directly at Cassidy, saying it was left there “because of an agreement with the chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.”

Cassidy was quick to denounce the revamped website and criticized Kennedy’s overhaul of the childhood vaccination schedule and the secretary’s skepticism of the Covid vaccine. Although Kennedy did not respond to Cassidy’s invitation to testify before his health committee, the Louisiana Republican had the opportunity to question him on his stance on vaccines, Covid-related troubles and the CDC during a September oversight hearing before the Senate Finance Committee.

Kennedy previously testified before Cassidy’s panel once, in May last year, where Cassidy said Kennedy had “kept” his promises and largely avoided the issue of vaccines.

Kennedy ally Tony Lyons is backing Cassidy’s primary challenger and has pledged $1 million through his “Make America Healthy Again PAC” to help Letlow defeat him before she even enters the race.

“MAHA is all about LETLOW! “, the MP published on social networks on Tuesday.

In a memo obtained by NBC News and sent to Republican congressional leaders and fundraisers, Lyons shared new polling and argued that Republicans must embrace the MAHA program to increase their chances of winning in the 2026 midterm elections.

“Republicans who failed to take advantage of the gift of the MAGA movement saw their political careers meet an untimely end,” Lyons wrote.

The memo was first obtained by Politico.

Cassidy has maintained a busy schedule on the health committee, holding 18 hearings since he invited Kennedy, with a focus on issues that are central to Trump’s agenda. His most recent hearing focused on “preventing fraud in child care assistance programs.”

But Democrats criticized his delay in having Kennedy testify. “Failing to conduct an oversight hearing on Secretary Kennedy’s actions would be an abdication of our responsibility, both as a moral matter and as a matter of good public health policy,” Democrats on the Senate Health Committee wrote in a December letter.

Since the start of the new year, Cassidy’s fellow Senate presidents have held oversight hearings with Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem is expected to appear before the Judiciary Committee in March.