Transcript of RFK Jr. Testifies Before Senate, Fed Confirmation Hearing, Harvard's Legal Victory

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Testifies before the Senate today. The hearing is meant to be about the President's health agenda, but it comes on the heels of upheaval at the CDC.

So what are lawmakers expected to ask about?

Hami Martinez, that is Michelle Martin, and this is up first from NPR News. President Trump wants to install more of his own people at the Federal Reserve.

We'll have a majority very shortly, so that'll be great. Once we have a majority, housing is going going to swing and it's going to be great.

A Senate committee hearing to fill a vacant seat on the Fed's governing board could get the President one step closer to reaching that majority.

And a federal judge in Boston has handed Harvard University a legal victory, ruling the Trump administration's freeze on funding to the university unlawful. Stay with us. We'll give you news you need to start your day.

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Health and Human Services Secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Will be testifying in the Senate today after a week of upheaval at the centers for disease control prevention.

Last week, Kennedy pressured the brand new CDC director, Susan Monares, to resign. When she refused, the White House fired her. Then, three top CDC officials resigned in protest.

Npr, Selena Simmons-Duffin is here to tell us what to expect at the hearing today. So, Selena, technically this hearing is not about the turnover of leadership of the CDC.

Right. This is a Senate Finance Committee hearing announced last week to go over the President's 2026 healthcare agenda.

Okay, so that's the stated topic. But what do you think senators might ask Secretary Kennedy about?

Yeah, I'm expecting it's going to be like a lot of hearings in recent years where there's a split screen depending on the party of the senator doing the questioning. When Democrats are asking the questions, I think they're going to hammer Kennedy about what happened last week at CDC and about vaccine policy. Kennedy has replaced a key vaccine advisory panel with his own handpicked roster of people who have a history of anti-vaccine activism. They are set to shake up recommendations on a variety of vaccines later this month. Several Democratic lawmakers, a variety of public health groups, and more than a thousand current and former HHS employees have all called on Kennedy to resolve nine in the last few days. Some Democratic states are now making moves to try and run public health without relying on CDC, given all of the chaos there. Yesterday, California, Washington, and Oregon launched the West Coast Health Alliance to coordinate their own health guidance and vaccine recommendations.

Okay, so that's what you expect to hear from Democrats. What about Republicans?

Republicans are moving in the opposite direction. Florida announced plans to end all vaccine mandates for children and adults yesterday. I think Republican senators will talk a lot about Kennedy's Make America Healthy Again agenda. He's been traveling all around the country with governors who are signing state laws related to some of his food-related priorities, like limiting food dyes and for processed foods. There may be Republicans asking about the drastic cuts in biomechanical research funding. I think a lot of people are really going to be wondering what Republican Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana is going to say in this hearing in particular.

Bill Cassidy, why him? Why is that?

Well, Cassidy is a physician. He chairs the Health Committee, which oversees HHS, and he believes strongly in vaccines. Kennedy won Cassidy's vote by promising he wouldn't change that CDC Vaccine Advisory Panel. Obviously, Kennedy broke that promise. He fired everyone on that committee and replaced them. I'll be watching to see whether Cassidy is going to call Kennedy out for all of the aggressive changes he's been making when it comes to vaccine policy.

What do you expect to hear from Kennedy?

Well, in interviews over the last week, he seemed unbothered by the upheaval at CDC. He wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal over the weekend, Defending His Actions. In the piece, he places the blame for the high COVID-19 deaths in those early years of the pandemic squarely on CDC, even though I think you could argue that politics and incomplete information about an emerging virus deserve a fair share of the blame. I know what he wants to talk about are his Maha efforts and what he calls the chronic disease epidemic. I think he's going to try to keep that the focus as much as possible.

All right, that's NPR Selena Simmons-Stuff, and thanks a lot. Thank you.

President Trump is trying to exert more control over the Federal Reserve.

One test of that effort will come this morning when a Senate committee holds a hearing on Trump's nominee to fill a vacant seat on the Fed's governing board. Trump is also hoping to fill a second seat by getting rid of Fed Governor Lisa Cook. That move is being challenged in court. The potential shakeup at the Fed is seen as a serious threat to the central bank's independence.

Npr chief economics correspondent, Scott Horsey, is with us now to tell us more about this. Good morning, Scott.

Good morning.

Scott, What are the stakes here? Is this mainly about Trump wanting lower interest rates?

Interest rates are certainly part of the story, but more broadly, this is about power and who gets to control decision making at the Federal Reserve. Trump has made no secret of the fact he wants lower borrowing cost, and he's likely to get that wish when policymakers meet in a couple of weeks. That's because the job market is showing signs of softening, and lower interest rates might help to cushion that a little bit. But Trump wants more. He wants to install more of his own people at the Central Bank. He's nominated a White House economic adviser, Stephen Myron, to fill one vacancy on the Fed's board. If he's successful in pushing Fed Governor Lisa Cook aside, he'll get a chance to put another ally on the board. That would mean four Out of seven Fed governors would be Trump appointees. The President told reporters last week he's looking forward to that. We'll have a majority very shortly, so that'll be great. Once we have a majority, housing is going to swing and it's going to be great. People are paying too high an interest rate. Now, two caveats. One, the Fed does not directly control mortgage rates.

Those are set in the bond market. So this move could actually backfire if investors come to think a Trump dominated Fed might let inflation get out of control. And two, Congress set up the Fed to be insulated from exactly this political pressure from the White House.

So Scott, what's your sense of how this is going to play out?

Right now, the fight is being waged on two fronts. One's in the courts where Lisa Cooke has filed a lawsuit to prevent the from firing her from the Fed board. Trump and his allies have accused Cooke of mortgage fraud, but Cooke denies that and says that's just a pretext to muscle her off the board. While that's being sorted out in the courts, the Senate has a chance to weigh in. We will hear in particular if any Senate Republicans stand up for Fed independence. They have done so in the past. We will see if they're willing to challenge the President this time.

Is Fed independence likely to come up at today's confirmation hearing?

Yeah, I'm sure we'll hear a lot of questions, at least from Democrats on the committee, That Trump's nominee, Stephen Myer, and co-authored a paper last year in which he argued the President should have more control over the Fed's Board of Governors. Now, he also suggested a ban on people moving from the White House to the Fed, although obviously that is not in effect right now. Most other advanced economies have decided it's a good idea to insulate their central banks from meddling by politicians. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell says it just makes for better long-term decision-making. If you were not to have that, it It would be a great temptation, of course, to use interest rates to affect elections, for example. That's something that we don't want to do. Powell's own term as Fed chairman runs out next May. At that time, Trump will have the opportunity to name a new chairman. Powell could remain on the board as a Fed governor, however, through 2028. So far, the Fed chairman has not said whether he plans to stick around that long.

That is NPR Scott Horsley. Scott, thank you.

You're welcome.

A federal judge in Boston handed Harvard University a big win on Wednesday.

The judge says the Trump administration unlawfully froze more than $2 billion in research funding to the school. The administration put the freeze in place in what it says was a response to allegations of anti-Semitism on campus, which prompted Harvard to sue.

Npr Education Correspondent, Cori Turner, has been looking over the judge's 84 a four-page ruling, and it's with us now to tell us more about it. Cori, good morning.

Good morning, Michelle.

What can you tell us about how the funding for yours, according to the judge, ran afoul of the law?

Judge Allison Burrows offered really not one argument, but several. For starters, she pointed out that the research being defunded at Harvard included studies of Alzheimer's, cancer, Lou Gehrig's disease, heart disease, autism. There was even a study to help emergency room doctors better serve suicidal veterans, none of which, the judge said, had any clear connection to anti-Semitism on campus. Burrows also said the freeze violated Harvard's First Amendment rights, and that's because at the same time, the Trump administration claimed it was doing this to fight anti-Semitism, President Trump was excoriating Harvard more broadly on truth social for being a liberal mess and for fighting back against the administration. The judge said she found it difficult to conclude anything other than that the administration used anti-Semitism as a smokes for a targeted, ideologically motivated assault.

It's interesting. Harvard has said that anti-Semitism had become a problem on campus. Does the judge speak to that?

Yeah. In a ruling, Judge Burrows was hard on Harvard saying, It had been plagued by anti-Semitism in recent years and could and should have done a better job of dealing with the issue. But she said Harvard was already taking steps to do just that when the Trump administration froze its funding. In fact, this was actually another way the administration, she said, had run a foul of federal law. It had accused Harvard of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the landmark law that protects Americans from discrimination based on race, color, and national origin. But Title VI requires a very clear step-by-step process for the government to follow to bring a school into compliance. And The judge said jumping straight to this huge funding freeze essentially skipped most of those steps.

So what happens now?

Well, White House spokesperson Liz Houston said, We will immediately move to appeal this egregious decision, and we're confident we will ultimately prevail. Meanwhile, Harvard President Alan Garber's statement was notably subdued, pledging to, quote, continue to assess the implications of the opinion, monitor further legal developments, and be mindful of the changing landscape. I think, Michelle, that's a nod to the fact that Harvard and the White House have been battling on multiple fronts here while also talking behind the scenes about a potential settlement agreement like the ones already signed by Columbia and Brown University. It's hard to know what effect this ruling is ultimately going to have, but I think it's pretty clear it strengthens Harvard's bargaining position.

That is NPR Education Correspondent, Cori Turner. Cori, thank you.

You're welcome, Michelle.

That's Up First for Thursday, September fourth. I'm Michelle Martin.

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On the Ted Radio Hour podcast, tech CEO, Victor Riparbelly, says that in the future, AI avatars will be teaching our kids.

They will equalize the world of education. Everyone will get their own private tutor, no matter if you're rich or poor.

Hey there, learners.

I'm Professor Cadence Hartman.

I promise I got some interesting stuff.

How AI is shaping education. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. On the Ted Radio Hour podcast, tech CEO, Victor Riparbelly, says that in the future, AI avatars will be teaching our kids.

Your kids' kids may not read and write.

They'll be watching and listening instead.

Hey there, learners.

I'm Professor Cadence Hartman.

I promise I got some it's going to take less than two minutes for you.

How AI is shaping education. Listen on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts.