HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. denied accusations before House lawmakers of withholding funds for life-saving government research as part of a massive overhaul of the nation’s top health department.
“We are not withholding any funding for life-saving research,” Kennedy told the House Appropriations Committee Wednesday in a hearing over the Trump administration’s budget request for the US Department of Health and Human Services.
Kennedy’s comment came in a heated back-and-forth with top Appropriations Committee Democrat Rep.Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.).
DeLauro launched the exchange by pressing Kennedy on whether he was “freezing or withholding funding that Congress appropriated in 2025" for National Institutes of Health research that she described as life-saving, later asking whether the HHS chief was “planning to break the law by impounding congressionally appropriated funds.”
Kennedy shot back that if HHS were appropriated the funds, he would spend them.
“We have,” DeLauro said, noting that Kennedy was proposing to cut NIH by $20 billion. “The Congress appropriated those funds. It passed into law,” DeLauro said.
The exchanges comes amid over ongoing lawsuits against the Trump administration over NIH funding cuts.
Funding cuts have likewise put Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Cole (R-Okla.) in a tough position. Though a budget hawk, Cole has previously voiced support of biomedical research.
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