Senator James Lankford, Okla Republican. On Sunday he refused to say that he had 100% confidence in Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., instead, said Kennedy has not “gone in a wrong direction” in vaccines.
The comments occur a few days after the Trump administration dismissed the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which caused an exodus of senior officials of the agency’s CDC.
When asked the first time if he has a 100% confidence in Kennedy, whom he voted to confirm, Lankford demured, telling “Meet The Press” of NBC News that Kennedy does not limit access to the Covid vaccine.
“It’s still widely accepted,” Lankford said.
“The challenge is, is it correct that children can have the Covid vaccine? That has been a conversation in which doctors do not agree on this,” he added, before encouraging Americans to make flu vaccines.
When asked for the second time if he has 100% confidence in Kennedy, Lankford told the “Meet the Press” Kristen Welker: “I think he is the one who has chosen.
NBC News reported last week that the expulsion of the former director of the CDC, Susan Monarez, occurred after she refused to sign a vaccine guide containing points of anti -vacuna conversation. Kennedy has been an anti -cacuna activist for a long time.
Shortly after Monaz was fired, several other senior CDC officials resigned, including Dr. Debra Houry, the medical director; Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, Director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases; Dr. Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; and Dr. Jen Layden, director of the Office of Public Health, Surveillance and Technology Data.
Since he took his position earlier this year, Kennedy has already drastically restructured the perspective of the vaccines of the Federal Health Agency.
In June, Kennedy dismissed the 17 members of the CDC vaccine advisory panel, the Immunization Practices Advisory Committee, and replaced them with their own named. Shortly after, the panel received a presentation from an anti -cacuna activist with statements that scientists have discredited widely.
On Sunday, Lankford said Kennedy’s actions were only “pushing the limits.”
“I think it is challenging some of the assumptions that many Americans have asked for,” said the senator. “What does our food have? What does autism have? What has all these things that are different in the United States than in different places? I think those are appropriate questions.”
“[Kennedy is] Pushing the limits, but it also seems to be following science. It is not bad to ask difficult questions. It is wrong to ignore science. I don’t see it ignoring science. I see it by asking difficult questions, ”said Oklahoma’s senator.
He later clarified that he does not believe in the widely discredited theory that vaccines cause autism, telling Welker: “I do not connect to those two at all, but there are reasonable questions to say, why do we have more cases of autism here? What is it? But I don’t think they are connected to vaccines.”
Lankford on Sunday also spoke about the decision of an appeals court on Friday night that President Donald Trump had misused his authority by imposing radical tariffs on foreign nations without the approval of the Congress.
The senator praised Trump’s work on rates in recent months, saying that the president is “achieving” his economic objectives with tariffs.
“For the court to intervene and say that it does not have the ability to regulate trade, that is within the statute,” said Lankford, recognizing that the Trump administration plans to appeal the decision before the Supreme Court.
It also blamed judicial decisions as it is for causing instability for retailers, since they plan their imports and establish prices.
“What I am listening to, Kristen, more than anything else, of all the companies I talked to, is that they just wanted to be established. They just want to know what the road rules are,” said Lankford. “Every time there is a new judicial hearing, every time there is a new change, it is destabilizing for each of our business. So we are going to solve all these things as quickly as possible.”
The senator also requested that the Federal Reserve remain independent of the whims of the executive branch, but emphasized that the Fed is part of a collaborative approach to the economy, together with the president and the congress.
“The president has a role, as he is doing with the tariffs in multiple different ways, to be able to negotiate more agreements. The Federal Reserve also has a role in this. Therefore, we all have a role. We simply have a different role,” Lankford said. “The Federal Reserve is at its best when it is independent, but they are not independent of the entire American people.”
Lankford also expressed his support for the president’s decision to send troops from the National Guard and the Federal Police to Washington, DC, earlier this month in what Trump has called an effort to stop the crime.
Lankford said that other cities and jurisdictions, even in his native state of Oklahoma, should invite the Federal Police to help reduce crime rates in their cities.
“If the governor of Oklahoma or the mayors of these different cities invited him,” Lankford said, “I would say they would cooperate with the president and say: ‘Hey, we could use the help to deal with any kind of crime problems.”
“I would say that the people of Oklahoma would appreciate any help that we can be able to deal with criminal problems,” Lankford added, saying that other cities, such as Chicago, “should ask for help instead of promoting help.”
