Senate panel promotes RFK Jr.’s nomination to be health secretary

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Cleared a Key Linification Tuesday after a Senate Panel voted to promote its nomination to be health and human service secretary for the full chamber.

In a vote along party lines, the Senate Finance Committee pushed through Kennedy’s nomination after he managed to reduce concerns, such as Senator Bill Cassidy, R-LA., Over his former anti-vaccine attitudes.

Cassidy, a doctor, signaled that he had serious reservations about whether Kennedy was qualified to lead the huge agency and said he “fought” with his decision after asking him at two confirmation hearings last week. In addition to the Finance Committee, Cassidy serves as chair of the Committee for Health, Education, Workers and Pensions.

In a statement Sent to x Before Tuesday’s vote, Cassidy said he had “very intense conversations” with Kennedy and the White House this weekend, specifically thanks to Vice President JD Vance “for his honest advice.”

“With the serious obligations I have received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress with the questions we agree on as healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes,” Cassidy said.

Kennedy, a scion of the stored democratic family, ran for president 2024, first as a Democrat and then as independent before dropping out to approve Trump. While hit the path to Trump, Kennedy felt a “Make America Healthy Again” campaign where he shone against food producers and unhealthy ingredients in the country’s diet.

While some senators in both parties expressed support to make food safer, two days of questioning revealed other significant objections to Kennedy last week.

Kennedy stumbled upon answering basic questions about Medicaid, an area that makes up a large part of the health secretary’s job. Democratic senators opposed what they called significant conflicts of interest if he were to be confirmed, including that he could indirectly benefit from having taken a pending lawsuit against a vaccine producer which he would regulate as HHS secretary.

But among the most high objections to Kennedy came his repeated denial of the effectiveness of vaccines. In a committee’s consultation last week, Cassidy repeatedly took Kennedy the task of his rejection of embracing sciences showing vaccines does not cause autism.

“I can say that I approached it by means of the evidence to reassure, and you have approached you to use chosen evidence to have doubts,” Cassidy said last week.

Cassidy is ready for re -election in 2026. He has already drawn a GOP primmer challenging over his vote to judge Trump in his trial of 2021.