WASHINGTON — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was pressed about whether he ever “re-parented” a black child during a wild exchange in a congressional hearing Thursday.
Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) dredged up Kennedy’s past remarks in a podcast interview back in 2024 in which he lamented how Adderall had become so prevalent in the black community.
“Mr. Secretary, you’ve already admitted that you are not a board-certified physician, and you’ve already admitted you did not go to medical school. Have you ever reparented or parented a black child?” Sewell asked him during a House Ways and Means Committee hearing.
Kennedy shot back, “I don’t even know what that phrase means, and I doubt that I said it.”
“You’re just making stuff up,” he later said, growing indignant, venting at one point that “I don’t even know what it means.”
After the exchange went viral, Democrat-linked social media accounts posted audio of Kennedy suggesting that children who were put on Adderall, SSRIs, and benzos need to be “re-parented.”
The Kennedy scion made those remarks on the “Earn Your Leisure” podcast while decrying the effects of pharmaceuticals, screen time, and processed foods on children.
“Every black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, SSRIs, Benzos, which are known to induce violence,” Kennedy said at the time.
“And those kids are going to have a chance to go somewhere and get re-parented — to live in a community where there’ll be no cellphones, no screens.
“You’ll actually have to talk to people.”
Throughout the hearing, a multitude of Democrats repeatedly needled Kennedy over the fact that he lacks a medical degree, something he pointed out many of his predecessors didn’t have either.
Sewell’s questioning about whether Kennedy ever raised a black child before drew mockery from Rep. Beth Van Duyne (R-Texas), who noted that none of the HHS secretary’s predecessors had black children either.
In another fiery exchange during the hearing, Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) scolded Kennedy for his approach to public health messaging that has deprioritized vaccines.
“One thing that I find incredible is that you suspended this pro-vaccine messaging campaign, but somehow you’re spending taxpayer dollars to drink milk shirtless in a hot tub with Kid Rock, and somehow you think that’s a better public health message,” she jabbed at him.
During that exchange, Kennedy admitted that an unvaccinated 6-year-old who died in Texas from a measles outbreak — the first death of its kind in a decade — might have survived if he had gotten the vaccine.
“We’ve done better at preventing measles in any country in the world,” Kennedy contended.
Kennedy’s testimony before the powerful tax-writing committee is the first of several appearances he has before congressional panels over the next couple of days.
Democrats spent most of the Thursday hearing peppering him on vaccines, personnel decisions, and healthcare spending cuts.
