Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is under fire after resurfaced comments from a podcast interview suggested he believed Black children on ADHD medication should be removed from their homes and sent somewhere to be “reparented.” Kennedy flatly denied ever saying it during a congressional hearing last Thursday, even as video evidence of the remarks circulated widely online.
The confrontation happened at a House Ways and Means Committee session where Kennedy was testifying about the Trump administration’s proposed 2027 budget, according to Fox News. Rep. Terri Sewell (D-Ala.) directly challenged the Health and Human Services secretary over statements he made on the Earn Your Leisure podcast two years ago, when he was still running for president.
During that interview, Kennedy had laid out plans for rural “wellness farms” modeled on Peace Corps rehabilitation facilities. He said: “Psychiatric drugs — which every Black kid is now just standardly put on Adderall, SSRIs, Benzos, which are known to induce violence. And those kids are going to have a chance to go somewhere and get re-parented — to live in a community where there’ll be no cellphones, no screens. You’ll actually have to talk to people.”
Kennedy denied comments caught on video
The exchange on the House floor quickly turned into a shouting match. Sewell asked Kennedy point-blank whether he had ever “reparented or parented, I should say, a Black child.” Kennedy refused to answer, said he had no idea what the phrase “reparenting” meant, and accused the congresswoman of fabricating the claim entirely.
“You’re just making stuff up,” Kennedy said. Sewell fired back: “I am absolutely not making this up.” Behind her, an aide held a poster board displaying Kennedy’s own words from the podcast, as reported by Health Policy Watch.
Sewell also reminded Kennedy of the long and painful history of Black children being separated from their parents, a practice dating back to slavery. The remark landed hard in the context of the current debate.
An HHS spokesperson later told Fox News that Kennedy’s podcast comments had been “taken out of context,” arguing he was describing a psychotherapy concept called reparenting, which involves building emotional regulation and self-worth through supportive relationships.
Newsom calls out Kennedy, data contradicts the claims
California Governor Gavin Newsom weighed in the following day, demanding immediate answers from Kennedy. In a statement published on the California Governor’s official website, Newsom called the comments part of a broader “racist mentality that is absolutely unacceptable for a leader charged with protecting the health of 341 million Americans.”
The science does not back Kennedy’s core premise either. According to the National Library of Medicine, Black children are statistically less likely to receive an ADHD diagnosis or medication than their white counterparts, and more likely to stop taking it when they do. The claim that every Black child is routinely prescribed Adderall, SSRIs, and benzodiazepines has no basis in research.
The hearing covered far more than just the reparenting controversy. Rep. Linda Sanchez confronted Kennedy over a 675% spike in measles cases since he took office, pointing to the death of a six-year-old unvaccinated girl as the first measles fatality among US children in a decade. Congressional Black Caucus member Rep. Danny Davis also pressed Kennedy on proposed cuts to maternal health funding, noting that Black women are nearly three times more likely to die from pregnancy-related causes than white women, per Health Policy Watch.
Advocacy group Protect Our Care was pointed in its response. Kayla Hancock, the group’s Director of Public Health, said Kennedy “can run from his despicable views,” but the video tells a different story. It was not the first time Kennedy has faced accusations of controversial behavior online, but few episodes have drawn this level of bipartisan attention from state leaders and Congress simultaneously. What makes this case particularly striking is the gap between the denial and the documented record, a dynamic that has drawn viral attention in other public controversies in recent weeks.
