April 17, 2026
The congresswoman had some choice words for RFK, Jr.—and she came with receipts.
Alabama congresswoman Terri Sewell confronted Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. about remarks he made suggesting that Black children taking ADHD medication be “reparented.”
“In a 2024 podcast interview, you suggested that Black children on ADHD medication should be ‘reparented.’ You said every Black kid is now just standardly put on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence, and that those children are going to have to go somewhere to get ‘reparented,’” Sewell told Kennedy during the secretary’s April 16 testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee.
Kennedy denied making the remarks during his appearance on the Earn Your Leisure Podcast in 2024.
“I don’t even know what that phrase means,” Kennedy claimed. “I’m not gonna answer something that I didn’t say,” the politician said.
Sewell pushed right back. She insisted he did say it and pointed out that he has neither medical training nor any experience parenting a Black child.
“And yet you are suggesting that the federal government should take Black children away from their families and reparent them? And send them off to some wellness farm instead of providing them with evidence-based medical care,” Sewell, a Democrat from Birmingham, said.
Kennedy accused Sewell of fabricating the story, but the congresswoman and her office later provided footage of Kennedy’s appearance on the High Level Conversations podcast, Kennedy made those statements approximately 1 hour 25 minutes into the show.
“Every Black kid is now just standard put on Adderall, SSRIs, benzos, which are known to induce violence,” Kennedy said. “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.
In the same episode, Kennedy also discussed his plan to open “wellness farms” in rural areas where Americans could go receive free rehabilitation,” legal or illegal drugs,” in which he suggests Black children could work on a “farm” to wean themselves off medication for common mental health conditions.
Removing Black children from their families and placing them in farm labor programs carries an eerie resemblance to a much darker period in American history.
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