Last week, the Senate Finance Committee and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee held confirmation hearings for Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump’s nominee to be Secretary of Health and Human Services.
As the hearings began on Wednesday, January 29th, small groups of protesters gathered on the streets of the capital to voice opposition to RFK Jr.’s confirmation, holding signs and handing out stickers and canes—a reference to polio. One of them talked with me about his concerns:
But inside the Senate’s Dirksen Office Building, where the two days of confirmation hearings were about to begin, supporters of RFK Jr. who had come into town from around the country filled halls and overflow rooms where the hearings were broadcast.
Many of the supporters at the Senate building were New Yorkers who lost jobs under New York City and state COVID-19 vaccine mandates. They found an early and prominent supporter for their own cause in RFK Jr. and supported his run for president. When he joined forces with Donald Trump, they continued to support him.
I talked with some of the New Yorkers who were in Washington D.C. about why they made the trip:
Many of the workers from New York City traveled to D.C. on buses with the organization Teachers for Choice, and some of them distributed a letter to Senators asking for their support. (You can find Teachers for Choice’s own coverage of the trip on their Substack.)
One of the authors of the letter, Diane Pagen, talked with me about it after the Wednesday hearing, before getting on the bus back to NYC:
Other New Yorkers came down to D.C. to show their support for RFK Jr. on their own. I sat down with one of them at Union Station to talk about why she made the trip while she was waiting for the train home:
Day 2
On Thursday, there were fewer RFK Jr. supporters in the halls of the Senate building, since many had made a one-day round trip for the first day of hearings. But the overflow room was still full during RFK Jr.’s hearing before the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
As exchanges between senators and the nominee unfolded, it was clear that the seats were filled with RFK Jr. supporters:
At the end of the Thursday hearing, attorney Jo Saint-George spoke to the overflow room crowd about the ongoing lawsuits she has brought on behalf of New Yorkers who lost jobs under New York vaccine mandates:
Saint-George is one of several attorneys who have been representing New Yorkers in hundreds of lawsuits challenging New York City and New York State COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Many of those cases continue today, as the Adams and Hochul administrations continue to appeal and fight their former employees in court.
New York firefighter Matt Connor was also at the Senate building for the second day of hearings, representing the organizations Bravest for Choice and the National Coalition of Frontline Workers.
Connor talked with me about some of the practical measures he and his organizations are hoping RFK Jr. and the Trump administration will support:
Now back in New York, some of the workers who took the bus to Washington will mark three years since New York City fired them for refusing to comply with its COVID-19 vaccine mandates: February 2022 saw the most mandate firings in a single month, with the Eric Adams administration terminating 1,430 City employees.
As that three-year mark approaches and the lawsuits workers filed to fight their terminations drag on, many have their eyes on Washington in the hope that a resolution to their fight for reinstatement and restitution will come from the top.
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