A heated confrontation erupted during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on Wednesday as Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) took aim at HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. over reports of a horrific incident involving the sexual abuse of a three-year-old girl in an Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) foster home.
The exchange quickly pivoted from the specific case to a broader, scathing debate over the government’s track record in protecting vulnerable children.
The tension peaked when Wyden pressed the Secretary on his knowledge of the case, which has recently circulated in national media. “You’re the Secretary of Health and Human Services, and it’s in a national publication, and you didn’t know that a three-year-old girl was being sexually abused on your watch?” Wyden asked.
Kennedy, clearly unmoved by the framing of the question, responded by highlighting what he described as a massive, systemic failure inherited from the previous administration.
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He pointed to the staggering numbers of children who went missing during the Biden-Harris years, an issue that has long been a focal point for right-of-center critics of border policy.
“I can tell you there were tens of thousands of girls and boys who were sexually abused,” Kennedy shot back. “The Biden administration lost 425,000 children and you never complained. Why weren’t you worried when he lost 425,000 children? Why are you suddenly worried?”
The Secretary did not hold back, accusing the Senator of “selective indignation” and “tribalism” [01:36
]. He argued that the current outrage over a single reported case—while unconscionable—ignores the broader crisis of child trafficking and the hundreds of thousands of minors released to unvetted sponsors or lost in the system under the prior administration’s watch. Kennedy noted that many of these children were handed over to “adults without identification.”
“This is selective indignation is very dishonest, Senator,” Kennedy stated, challenging Wyden to move past the rhetoric. “We have been working on this for years. Why don’t you help us find those children who are still lost?”
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The exchange, which also touched on drug pricing and vaccine policy, ended with a sharp rebuke from the Secretary, who claimed the political posturing was “just destroying our country.”
While Wyden maintained that the Secretary’s lack of specific knowledge on the recent foster home case was a failure of leadership, the exchange highlighted a deep partisan divide over who bears responsibility for the safety of children within the federal foster and refugee systems.
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