Conservatives attacked Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., on social media on Wednesday for his controversial line of questioning directed at Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Whitehouse reportedly connected Kennedy’s doubts about certain vaccines to the first measles case in Rhode Island since 2013. “Frankly, you frighten people,” Whitehouse said to Kennedy.
“Americans are going to need to hear a clear and trustworthy recantation of what you have said on vaccinations, including a promise from you never to say vaccines aren’t medically safe when they, in fact, are, and making indisputably clear that you support mandatory vaccinations against diseases where that will keep people safe,” Whitehouse stated. “You’re in that hole pretty deep.”
Whitehouse, who was friends with Kennedy while attending law school, spent most of his time outlining his concerns about Kennedy, giving the HHS candidate a brief opportunity to respond to the line of questioning at the end.
Conservatives swiftly criticized Whitehouse’s remarks on social media.
“Sen. Whitehouse (D-RI) beginning his confirmation ‘questioning’ of RFK Jr. by saying ‘I’m very experienced, so you’re just going to have to listen,’ then talking for 7 minutes nonstop is such a perfect picture of why Democrats are failing around the nation right now,” Tony Kinnett, a columnist for the Daily Signal, wrote on
“You know what would be good?” John Podhortez, a columnist, wrote on X. “Sheldon Whitehouse will be permanently relocated to an island. And not the non-island state of Rhode Island. Like St. Helena, more.
Dan McLaughlin, a senior writer for the National Review, wrote on X, “Whitehouse gives RFK a long monologue and then tells him he’s out of time, can respond in writing.”
“What a jacka–,” Samantha Janney, editor of Twitchy.com, wrote on X. “RFK Jr. should ask Sheldon about his membership at multiple whites-only clubs.”
Whitehouse’s office was contacted by Fox News Digital for comment, but they did not immediately respond.
