(Bloomberg) -- Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. defended cutting thousands of staff while attacking the agency’s past work in one of his first appearances before Congress since taking office.

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In exchanges with lawmakers that at times became tense, Kennedy told the House Appropriations Committee Wednesday that the cuts made progress toward President Donald Trump’s goal to shrink federal spending.

He also said the focus of the agency had turned to disease prevention rather than treatment, framing past efforts on addressing existing diseases instead of stopping them as evidence of corruption. In particular, he said there has been research on treatments for colorectal cancer at the National Institutes of Health, but not research on why rates are rising in children.

“No research was done on it. The etiology of all these chronic diseases were just buried because they didn’t want to offend the large industries who are putting poisons in our food and putting them in our pharmaceutical products,” Kennedy said.

Kennedy was pressed on the workforce reductions, which amounted to about 20% of staff with the inclusion of workers who voluntarily left and took buyouts or early retirement packages. In one instance, he doubled down on cuts to employees who ran a heating assistance program for low-income people and said he has the power to reverse firings.

While Kennedy characterizes the cuts as a bid to streamline redundancies, the agency has also laid off employees conducting research in food safety labs, running firefighter health programs, working to make infant formula safer and studying childhood lead exposure.

In response to questions from House Democrats about whether he is spending money that Congress allocated for specific causes, Kennedy said he will follow the law and spend money if lawmakers designate it for a certain program.

The Trump administration is asking for $94 billion for HHS and its sub-agencies — $33 billion less than last year — according to budget documents released earlier this month. The biggest cuts are focused on the NIH and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Trump Objectives

Kennedy, who will also testify on his agency’s 2026 budget request in front of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee on Wednesday, is planning to use the budget as a tool to pursue his so-called Make America Healthy Again agenda.

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That means including funding for chronic disease prevention, protection from environmental toxins, nutrition, food and drug safety, and services for American Indians and Alaska Natives. Also included are programs that push what he calls healthy lifestyles, over-reliance on medication and treatments and the effects of new technological habits, according to prepared remarks seen by Bloomberg.

Kennedy told the Appropriations Committee new dietary guidelines will be released potentially “before August” that will focus more on unprocessed foods.

In addition to aligning the budget with Trump’s goals, Kennedy touted work he’d done to boost US drug manufacturing — one of the president’s longtime objectives.

Kennedy spoke positively about his relationships with companies that make food and pharmaceuticals, and mentioned he’s met repeatedly with Eli Lilly & Co. and other drugmakers about domestic drug manufacturing.

He’s also gone after topics that frequently draw Trump’s ire, like diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“Americans do not want their tax dollars going to initiatives that espouse radical ideologies,” Kennedy said in his prepared remarks. “We are committed to restoring a tradition of gold-standard, evidence-based science — not one driven by politicized DEI, gender ideology, nor sexual identity.”

The topic was the subject of a particularly charged back-and-forth between Kennedy and Democratic Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman. The Congresswoman grilled Kennedy about why the agency was targeting grants with language like “Black,” “race,” “bias” and “oppression.”

Kennedy said Trump is “deeply concerned” about disproportionately bad outcomes in maternal health for Black mothers and wants a “color blind” administration.

“I don’t need this rhetoric about Donald Trump and the lie that he cares about me or Black people,” she replied.

(Updates details throughout.)

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