Robert F Kennedy Jr has been slammed in an explosive hearing after he claimed ‘nobody knows’ how many Americans died from Covid.
Appearing at a Senate hearing about his plans to enact his Make America Healthy Again vision, the Secretary of Health was asked by Democratic Senator Mark Warner about the death toll of Covid in the country.
Warner asked Kennedy if he “accepts the fact that 1 million Americans died from Covid.”
In response, Kennedy said he doesn’t know how many people died from the virus, before claiming: “I don’t think anybody knows that.”
He accused the Biden administration of “date chaos” at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).
In a furious exchange, Warner couldn’t hide his shock at Kennedy’s lack of knowledge about the Covid death toll, which the CDC states is 1,231,440 Americans between 11 January 2020 and 23 August 2025.
Raising his voice, Warner said: “Mr Chairman, [Kennedy] doesn’t know how many Americans died from Covid, he doesn’t know if the vaccine helped prevent any deaths, and you are sitting as Secretary as Health and Human Services – how can you be that ignorant?”
In a crowded field, Kennedy was one of Trump’s most controversial cabinet appointments when he was made Secretary of Health and Human Services.
Kennedy is a vaccine-sceptic and fired every member of a panel of independent vaccine experts that issues recommendations for the shots, replacing them with people who are more sceptical of vaccines.
Since taking control of the CDC, he has fired 600 employees and ended research on some life-saving vaccines.