Robert Kennedy Jr. overcame tremendous opposition from the health and science community Thursday, winning Senate confirmation to serve as the nation’s top health official.
The Senate voted 52-48 to make Kennedy President Donald Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services. Sen. Mitch McConnell, 82, the Senate’s sold polio survivor, was the only Republican to vote against Kennedy, as he did with two other Trump nominees whose qualifications he questioned—Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Tulsi Gabbardlongest-serving, who was confirmed Wednesday as director of national intelligence.
“I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world,” McConnell said in a statement. “I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles.”
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McConnell, who was the longest-serving Senate Republican leader until he stepped down from the top role in January, has emerged as the leading—and sometimes, only—GOP voice of opposition to Trump and his nominees. But in his statement explaining his vote against Kennedy’s nomination, McConnell credited Trump with saving lives during the Covid pandemic.
“This Administration – led by the same President who delivered a medical miracle with Project Warp Speed – deserves a leader who is willing to acknowledge without qualification the efficacy of life-saving vaccines and who can demonstrate an understanding of basic elements of the U.S. healthcare system. Mr. Kennedy failed to prove he is the best possible person to lead America’s largest health agency," McConnell said. “As he takes office, I sincerely hope Mr. Kennedy will choose not to sow further doubt and division but to restore trust in our public health institutions.”
Kennedy was seen as one of the president’s most controversial Cabinet nominees, because of his personal scandals, AIDS denialism, his work spreading misinformation about vaccinations, and bizarre actions and claims—including that chemicals in water have caused “gender confusion” in children, Chinese and Ashkenazi Jewish people were “most immune” from COVID-19, and his “cognitive problems” were caused by a “worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.”
“My colleagues on the Republican side, you know how dangerous this is. My colleagues on the other side, you know you are not putting your constituents, their health, their families first, when you vote yes,” Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said ahead of the vote.
A coalition of scientists and public health professionals circulated a letter last month warning that Kennedy’s “unfounded, fringe beliefs could significantly undermine public health practices across the country and around the world.”
The Kennedy scion faced turbulent confirmation hearings, with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle grilling him over his vaccine skepticism and embrace of conspiracy theories.
Despite reservations, resistance to backing the nominee dwindled among GOP senators, with Sen. Bill Cassidy, a physician, announcing he would back RFK Jr. after receiving assurances they would have an “unprecedentedly close collaborative working relationship if he is confirmed” as Health and Human Services secretary.
Schumer on Thursday quoted Cassidy as saying two years ago, “Previous HHS secretaries have had a pharmaceutical industry background, have been a state health commissioner, have run health systems, have been governors, somebody who has had a background in actually administering the programs that HHS administers.” The New York Democrat then said, “I ask my colleagues, which of these qualifications does RFK [Jr.] possess? You know the answer, none of them.”
Kennedy held dozens of individual meetings with lawmakers throughout the process, and Vice President JD Vance made calls to ramp up pressure on Republican senators to support him on the floor.
Democrats have slammed Kennedy as unqualified for the job, and members of his own family, including his first cousin, Caroline Kennedy, heavily lobbied against his nomination. She sent a letter to senators accusing him of being a “predator” while urging them to vote no.
“It’s almost as if Mr Kennedy’s beliefs, history, and background were tailor-made to be the exact opposite of what the job demands. A few weeks ago, it seemed like maybe Senate Republicans would have drawn the line on nominees like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard,” Schumer said Wednesday.
Kennedy’s backers praised him for advocating for a healthier diet for Americans and called Democrats hypocrites.
“It’s kind of amazing to me—if Bobby had been nominated by Joe Biden, it would have been called a brilliant move, but since it’s Donald Trump that nominated him, all of a sudden, he’s a vulcan or something. So I’m looking forward to working with Bobby. We are going to make America healthy again,” Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) said during an appearance on Fox News ahead of the vote.
“Sixty percent of Americans have a chronic disease today. We need to figure out why. How come? What can we do from a nutrition standpoint, what can we do to decrease the environmental toxins and the food additives that are toxins to face those types of challenges as well.”
