Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) went off on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during a Senate hearing on Wednesday about cuts to America’s public health and disease prevention infrastructure.

Warnock hammered Kennedy over cuts to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, specifically in areas dealing with rabies and other viral diseases passed to humans from animals.

“Staff at the CDC rabies division in Atlanta, Georgia, have historically been able to field emergency calls 24/7 from providers about complex rabies cases using CDC expertise to determine appropriate care, Secretary Kennedy, since you and President Trump took office, do you know how many people are left to staff this 24/7 line?” Warnock questioned.

Kennedy replied he was unaware of the number, to which Warnock shot back, only one.

“The incredible folks at the CDC in Atlanta, Georgia — they protect us every day from the threats that we don’t see. And they don’t get much credit for it, because of the stuff that does not happen. And it’s okay for the general public not to wake up thinking about that. But we expect you to keep Americans alive,” Warnock fumed as he wound down his questioning, adding:

And the cutting that we’re seeing — these draconian cuts — for an agency that you said you wanted to restore to be the leader in infectious disease, yet you’re cutting the coverage of infectious disease. Personally, sir, even as you seem distracted while I talk to you about deadly diseases, I think you’re dangerous to the American public, and you ought to be fired. And if you’re not fired, you ought to have the decency to resign. You’re way in over your head.

During his first term, Trump infamously ended the $200 million USAID program set up during the second Bush administration to monitor global virus outbreaks. The project, named Predict, was created following the 2005 “bird flu” outbreak and was set up as an early-detection system for a global pandemic – working with epidemiologists across the globe, including in China. The Trump administration ended the program in September 2019, just months before the Covid-19 epidemic began.

Watch the clip above.

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