The Senate Finance Committee voted 14-13 along party lines on Tuesday to advance President Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of Health and Human Services to the full Senate floor for a final vote.
WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) -- The Senate Finance Committee voted 14-13 on Tuesday to advance President Donald Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) to the Senate floor, clearing the first major hurdle to a longtime critic of the medical establishment ascending to the top of it.
Kennedy, nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy and son of the late Attorney General Robert Kennedy, is a longtime environmental and medical activist who initially attempted to challenge President Joe Biden for the Democrat nomination, switched to an independent bid against both Biden and Trump after months of accusing party leadership of having “rigged” the primary process against him, and ultimately dropped out and endorsed Trump in August 2024.
NewsNation reported that the vote was along party lines, with Republican committee chairman Mike Crapo of Indiana hailing Kennedy at the outset of the hearings for having “spent his career fighting to end America’s chronic illness epidemic and (as) a leading advocate for healthcare transparency both for patients and for taxpayers.”
Instrumental to Republican support was Kennedy’s assurance that he would implement pro-life policies at HHS despite his ardently pro-abortion history and convincing senators like Republican Bill Cassidy of Louisiana that he was less opposed to conventional vaccines than his history suggests.
“With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes,” Cassidy said after what he called “very intense” conversations with Kennedy about vaccines.
Kennedy’s nomination now moves for a final confirmation vote to the full Senate floor, where the Republican majority faces significant pressure from MAGA activists and influencers to approve all of Trump’s nominees.
As one of the country’s most vocal critics of the COVID establishment and vaccines more generally, Kennedy joining forces with Trump was critical to reassuring voters that the second Trump administration would take a critical reassessment of the COVID shots that the returning president has previously embraced, although most of Kennedy’s comments since joining Trump have focused on other issues, such as conventional vaccines and harmful food additives. During the confirmation hearings, Kennedy called the first Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative, which birthed the COVID shots in record time, “an extraordinary accomplishment and demonstration of leadership by President Trump.”
