Trump’s shock Guantanamo plan; RFK’s wild claims blasted
US President Donald Trump will send up to 30,000 illegal immigrants to the world’s most notorious military prison, as Robert F. Kennedy copped a grilling in a fiery hearing.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr was told he “frightens people” during more than three hours of hostile questioning as he faced his confirmation hearing to become US Donald President Trump’s health secretary.
Mr Kennedy faced more than three hours of hostile questioning before the Senate Finance Committee, where he displayed limited knowledge of health programs as he rejected claims he was “anti-vaccine”.
The son of assassinated Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was grilled about his new-found support for anti-abortion policies and conspiracy theories he has made, including claims that pesticides turned children transgender.
“You frighten people,” Rhode Island Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse said during a tense exchange about Mr Kennedy’s previous comments about vaccines.
His cousin Caroline Kennedy, a former US Ambassador to Australia and Japan and the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, earlier blasted RFK in a scathing letter as a “predator”, saying he was unqualified to oversee the US health bureau.
She was later backed by her cousin Maria Shriver, who praised Caroline Kennedy’s “courage” for speaking out.
Mr Kennedy will appear again before the committee on Friday (AEDT).
It came as Mr Trump said he plans to send up to 30,000 illegal immigrants to detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, as part of his campaign to mass-deport migrants who have committed crimes.
“Today, I’m also signing an executive order to instruct the Departments of Defence and Homeland Security to begin preparing the 30,000-person migrant facility at Guantanamo Bay,” Mr Trump said while signing the anti-illegal immigration Laken Riley Act.
“Most people don’t even know that we have 30,000 beds in Guantanamo to detain the worst criminal illegal aliens threatening the American people.”
KENNEDY’S LATE WIFE MADE SHOCK CLAIMS
It came amid a shock report which claimed that Mr Kennedy’s late wife, Mary Richardson Kennedy, accused him of being a “sexual deviant” and engaging in “gaslighting” behaviour.
In a draft affidavit during her bitter divorce from Mr Kennedy in 2012, Mary Richardson Kennedy claimed he abused prescription drugs and was a bad parent, according to website Mother Jones.
Mr Kennedy has previously admitted to being a heroin addict for 14 years.
The affidavit was never filed in court and two months after she wrote it, Mary, who had lost custody of her four children to Mr Kennedy, tragically took her own life.
After Mary’s death, Mr Kennedy went on to marry Curb Your Enthusiasm actress Cheryl Hines — who was by his side during the confirmation hearings — in 2014.
KENNEDY IN FIERY EXCHANGES OVER WILD CLAIMS
Mr Kennedy’s critics argue he is dangerously unqualified, citing his promotion of debunked claims linking childhood vaccines to autism, his suggestion that HIV does not cause AIDS, and accusations that he fuelled anti-measles vaccine sentiment in Samoa during a 2019 visit, months before a deadly outbreak.
Asked by Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren in the hearing whether he accepted responsibility for any deaths in Samoa due to measles vaccine hesitancy, he said: “Absolutely not.”
In his opening address, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden said Mr Kennedy “had made it his life’s work to sow doubt and discourage parents from getting their kids lifesaving vaccines”.
Mr Kennedy fired back: “News reports have claimed that I am anti-vaccine and anti-industry — I am neither. I am pro-safety.”
He also promoted his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda, emphasising the need to tackle the nation’s chronic disease crisis through healthier eating and environmental responsibility, drawing applause and cheers from supporters in attendance.
“I didn’t know anyone with a food allergy growing up. Why do five of my kids have allergies?” Mr Kennedy asked.
“Why are we seeing these explosions in diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, neurological diseases, depression, all these things that are related to toxins in the environment?”
During the hearing, he clarified his views on abortion, backflipping on his previous pro-choice stance.
“I agree with President Trump that every abortion is a tragedy,” Mr Kennedy said when asked about the subject.
“We cannot be a moral nation if we have 1.2 million abortions a year.”
Senator Michael Bennet pressed Mr Kennedy to confirm he wrote in one of his books that “it’s undeniable that African AIDS is an entirely different disease to western AIDS” to which Mr Kennedy gave a noncommittal answer.
RFK DEFENDS SCHOOL SHOOTERS COMMENT
During the hearing, Mr Kennedy defended his questioning of the link between antidepressants and school shooters, saying that any correlations should be studied.
“It should be studied, along with other potential culprits,” he said.
He also claimed he had family members who had a harder time stopping their use of antidepressants than heroin.
“I know people, members of my family, who have had a much harder time getting off of SSRIs than they did — when people get off heroin,” he said.
‘MILLIONS WILL DIE’: SENATOR BLASTS CONSPIRACY THEORIES
Hawaiian Senator Brian Schatz was among those to speak at a press conference staged on Capitol Hill.
“If he runs (Health and Human Services), millions will die,” Senator Schatz said.
Wisconsin Senator Tammy Baldwin agreed stating Mr Kennedy’s “dangerous theories do not stop at vaccines.”
Senator Baldwin cited other mantras of Mr Kennedy’s that “Wi-Fi causes cancer” and school shootings are caused by the “overprescription of antidepressants.”
Connecticut Senator Chris Murphy agreed that Mr Kennedy would “get people killed’.
“(He is) wildly open to believing any medical conspiracy theory that is put in front of him,” Senator Murphy said.
“He believes there are chemicals in our water that turn kids gay,” he added referring to Mr Kennedy’s theory the herbicide atrazine causes gender dysphoria and same sex attraction.
KENNEDY FIRES BACK OVER VACCINES
Mr Kennedy came out swinging on the stand declaring one of the most common accusations levelled at him was untrue.
“I’ve written many books on vaccines,” Mr Kennedy said.
“My first book in 2014, the first line of it is, ‘I am not anti-vaccine,’ and the last line is ‘I am not anti-vaccine.”
Mr Kennedy was referring to his book titled “The Evidence Supporting the Immediate Removal of Mercury – a Known Neurotoxin – from Vaccines.”
Oregon Senator Ron Wyden further pressed him on his vaccine stance, drawing attention to past comments made by Mr Kennedy on his podcast that no vaccines are “safe and effective” and that he would “do anything” to “go back in time and not vaccinate your kids.”
“Are you lying to Congress today, when you say you are pro-vaccine, or did you lie on all those podcasts?” Senator Wyden said.
“Every medicine has people who are sensitive to them, including vaccines,” Mr Kennedy said.
Mr Kennedy took the opportunity to clarify a petition he began in May 2021 to block access to the Covid vaccine was in response to it being prescribed for young children.
“Vaccines are inappropriate for six-year-old children who basically have zero risk from Covid,” Mr Kennedy said.
“That’s why I brought that lawsuit.”
WHITE HOUSE REVERSES SPENDING FREEZE
Donald Trump’s administration has withdrawn a memorandum that caused widespread disruptions by freezing all federal loan and grant spending.
However, a White House spokesperson insisted they were not backing down from their fight to curb what they regard as government waste.
Mr Trump accused the media of “purposely” misrepresenting the freeze, which he said never impacted entitlements such as Medicare and Social Security.
“There was a short-term pause, or funding freeze, on certain discretionary spending, payments such as government grants – only for us to quickly look at the scams, dishonesty, waste and abuse that’s taken place in our government for too long,” he said at the White House signing ceremony for the Laken Riley Act.
“We are merely looking at parts of the big bureaucracy where there has been tremendous waste and fraud and abuse,” Mr Trump said.
“In that process, we identified and stopped $50 million being sent to Gaza to buy condoms for Hamas — 50 million. And you know what’s happening to them? They’ve used them as a method of making bombs. How about that?”
‘TYRANT’: TRUMP GOES AFTER GENERAL
The US President may not be able to go after the head of retired US General Mark Milley but he has signalled he’s going after the rank of his once favoured former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
On his first day in office, Mr Trump signed an executive order reinstating the death penalty for treason.
Late Tuesday, the Pentagon announced Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth told General Milley his security detail will be removed, his security clearance revoked and an inspector general inquiry into his record had been ordered.
In 2023 The Atlantic published a profile on General Milley upon his retirement which detailed how the top military officer had sought to protect the interests of the United States in the aftermath of the Capitol riot of January 6, 2021.
Following the riot, which ensued after Mr Trump lost the election, General Milley called his contact in China to assure them America remained stable.
The article came after General Milley took a not-so-subtle swipe at Mr Trump during his retirement speech stating he had taken an oath to the Constitution not “a king, or a queen, or to a tyrant or dictator, and we don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.”
Mr Trump took to his Truth Social account at the time the article was published, labelling the call to China, which the former Trump administration had authorised, a “treasonous act” that was “so egregious that, in times gone by, the punishment would have been DEATH!”
General Milley also angered the President in 2020 after he apologised for appearing alongside Mr Trump walking in a park where protests had unfolded following the death of George Floyd which sparked the Black Lives Matter movement.
“I should not have been there,” General Milley said at the time.
“My presence in that moment and in that environment created a perception of the military involved in domestic politics.”
General Milley can’t be prosecuted as former President Joe Biden gave him a pre-emptive pardon, fearing Mr Trump may seek retribution.
Defence Secretary spokesman John Ullyot told the New York Times the investigation ordered into General Milley would determine if it is appropriate to demote him during his retirement.
“Undermining the chain of command is corrosive to our national security, and restoring accountability is a priority for the Defence Department under President Trump’s leadership,” Joe Kasper, Mr Hegseth’s chief of staff, added in a separate statement to the New York Times.
Originally published as Trump’s shock Guantanamo plan; RFK’s wild claims blasted