Kennedy gets Sanders to explode over pharma claim during hearing

Robert F. Kennedy’s confirmation hearing was quite entertaining, to say the least.

I knew the attacks would come, but when Kennedy tried to flip the script on Sanders, the Vermont Senator looked like his head was about to explode. However, there is something we need to clear up about his statement.

Kennedy Goes on the Attack

When Sanders was questioning Kennedy, the HHS nominee decided to flip the script on Sanders.

Sanders always likes to talk about big pharma owning Republicans, so Kennedy went after Sanders regarding donations that were made to his campaign.

Kennedy accused Sanders of being the largest recipient of pharma donations during the 2020 campaign.

Just watch Sanders when Kennedy lands his shot…

Bernie Sanders EXPLODES on RFK Jr. after Kennedy reveals Sanders has accepted donations from pharma.

"In 2020 you were the single largest accepter of pharmaceutical dollars. $1.5 million," Kennedy quipped.

"Yeah, out of $200 million," Sanders replied. @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/qns5hBd7EL

— Rob (@RobMcGravytrain) January 30, 2025

Was Kennedy Right?

Kennedy twisted this quite a bit, so I wanted to make sure everyone had their facts straight before they unleashed on their liberal friends about Sanders.

Sanders did receive money from pharma, but not from the actual companies, as Kennedy made it sound.

As Sanders stated, his money came from workers in the industry, with Open Secrets noting that during the 2020 campaign, when it came to workers in the pharmaceutical industry, Sanders led the way with $1.4 million in donations. He received an additional $400,000 (approximate) from people employed in the manufacturing side of the industry.

Claiming this came from the industry itself would be like Trump claiming that the money he got from workers in the auto industry came from the auto unions, which is not the case.

Just Not the Same

Open Secrets went on to explain why this information is tracked, stating, “It is impossible to know either the economic interest that made each individual contribution possible or the motivation for each individual giver. However, the patterns of contributions provide critical information for voters, researchers and others. That is why Congress and many states have mandated that candidates, political parties and political committees request employer information from contributors and publicly report it when the contributor provides it.

“In some cases, a cluster of contributions from people associated with the same organization may indicate a concerted effort by that organization to ‘bundle’ contributions to the candidate. In other cases, the reason for the contributions may be completely unrelated to the organization.”

We have seen allegations made against some companies where officials were “recommending” to workers where they should donate, but I have never seen a whisper of that regarding big pharma. I think this really hurts Kennedy’s credibility, especially since he is known for citing fringe studies to back up many of his arguments.

As I had stated before, I am not really a fan of Kennedy being handed the keys to the HHS, but I do support some of his initiatives. I don’t trust people that twist information to suit their narrative, and that is something that Kennedy is famous for. That and the fact he is a former Democrat… well, I just don’t trust him.