Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is “not familiar” with the billions of dollars worth of cuts he proposed to make on essential health programs and departments.
CBS News chief medical correspondent Dr. Jon LaPook asked the secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) on Wednesday if he had personally approved the more than $11 billion proposed cuts to programs addressing mental health, infectious diseases, addiction, and childhood vaccination. Kennedy, however, alleged that he had no knowledge of them.
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When pressed by LaPook, who stated that there were “more than 50 pages” detailing the cuts, Kennedy backtracked and said that they were “mainly DEI cuts, which the president ordered.”
The secretary of health was also surprised to learn that the University of Michigan’s $750,000 grant towards researching adolescent diabetes was slashed, telling LaPook how he “didn’t know that, and that’s something that we’ll look at.”
He added, “I just, I’m not familiar with that particular study ... But there’s a number of studies that were cut that came to our attention and that did not deserve to be cut, and we reinstated them.”
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RFK Jr. said, “Our purpose is not to reduce any level of scientific research that’s important.”
The health secretary’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda included a “dramatic restructuring” of health services, bringing down the total number of full-time employees from 82,000 to 62,000, the HHS wrote in a March 27 press release.
By March 31, the 10,000 federal job cuts plan had already begun, Kennedy posted on X a day that “our hearts go out to those who have lost their jobs.” He added, ”But the reality is clear: what we’ve been doing isn’t working.”
This is a difficult moment for all of us at HHS. Our hearts go out to those who have lost their jobs. But the reality is clear: what we've been doing isn't working. Despite spending $1.9 trillion in annual costs, Americans are getting sicker every year. In the past four years…
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) April 1, 2025
Yet on Thursday, Kennedy suddenly announced that he would be reinstating around 20% of the jobs and programs that were cut from departments such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the HHS.
Though he said this “was always the plan,” he notably pointed out that he would also have to go back and fix the Department of Government Efficiency’s (DOGE) mistakes, such as slashing too many human resources jobs and programs.
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When LaPook inquired if these cuts, including the University of Michigan’s grant, should be considered DOGE cuts, Kennedy replied that he “couldn’t speak to that” matter.
According to The Minnesota Star Tribune, an HHS spokesperson told them in an email last week that these recent cuts were about “realigning HHS with its core mission: To stop the chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.”
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the HHS spokesperson added, “Despite spending $1.9 trillion in annual costs, Americans are getting sicker every year, and we must shift course.”
But following these billions of dollars worth of cuts, LaPook asked Kennedy what he viewed as the basic level of care Americans should receive and who should pay for it, to which he claimed that people “have a choice” in how sick they are going to be.
“If you don’t have any choice then we should give you all the resources that you want,” Kennedy added. “If you’re smoking three packs of cigarettes a day, should you expect society to pay when you get sick?”
