'Everybody Is Corrupt But You?!': Bernie Sanders And RFK Jr. Have Unthinkable Clash During Hearing
What this video covers
This four-minute Forbes clip captures one of the sharpest exchanges from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s September 4, 2025 appearance before the Senate Finance Committee — his first major testimony as Secretary of Health and Human Services. The clip contains a single extended back-and-forth, not the Warren clash or the CDC-director material from elsewhere in the hearing.
It opens on COVID vaccines: a senator quotes President Trump’s praise of them as “one of the greatest miracles in the history of modern-day medicine” that “saved tens of millions of lives worldwide,” cites a Lancet study finding nearly 20 million deaths prevented in the first year, and asks whether Trump and the medical community are right — or whether Kennedy still believes the COVID vaccine was “the deadliest vaccine ever made.” Kennedy backs away from the remark: “I didn’t say that… I said that in terms of [adverse-event] reports a while ago. I said today I think that President Trump should get the Nobel Prize.” He adds that the vaccine was “perfectly matched to the virus that was circulating then” and that it “saved quite a few” lives.
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) then zeroes in on Kennedy’s habit of dismissing mainstream medical institutions as compromised. Sanders lists the AMA, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the American Public Health Association as all saying vaccines are safe and effective, and asks who Kennedy’s scientific backers are. Kennedy names a handful of allies — Marty Makary, Jay Bhattacharya, Dr. Oz, Vinay Prasad — and draws a distinction between “established science” and “the scientific establishment which has been co-opted by” the pharmaceutical industry. Sanders fires back: “Everybody is corrupt but you? Is that what we’re looking at? I don’t think so.” Kennedy responds that he doesn’t know what Sanders is talking about, prompting Sanders to insist, “Well, I think you do.”
Key points
- Pressed on whether Trump and the medical community are right about COVID vaccines saving tens of millions of lives, Kennedy distances himself from his past “deadliest vaccine” remark and says Trump “should get the Nobel Prize.”
- Kennedy concedes the original COVID vaccine was “perfectly matched to the virus that was circulating then” and saved “quite a few” lives — a notable on-the-record concession.
- Sanders contrasts Kennedy’s handful of named allies with organizations representing hundreds of thousands of doctors and scientists, asking who actually agrees with Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism.
- Kennedy argues there is a difference between “established science” and a “scientific establishment” he says has been co-opted by the pharmaceutical industry.
- Sanders counters that every Republican and Democrat in the room has taken pharmaceutical PAC money, pressing Kennedy on whether they’re all corrupt too — the “everybody is corrupt but you” moment that gave the clip its title.