The GOP-controlled Senate voted Thursday to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a longtime anti-vaccine activist, to lead the country’s most powerful health care agency.
Kennedy was confirmed as health and human services secretary on a mostly party-line vote of 52-48. Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., broke ranks on yet another of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet nominees, joining all Democrats in opposition.
Still, it’s another win for Trump, all of whose Cabinet-level nominees who have come before the Senate have been approved.
Kennedy will now be in charge of an expansive, $1.7 trillion agency that steers pandemic preparedness, manages government-funded health care for millions of people and oversees vaccine and pharmaceutical drug development.
Kennedy, a scion of the famous Democratic family, managed to overcome concerns among some Republicans over his past stances on vaccines and abortion.
The Republican senator who most vocally questioned Kennedy’s qualifications, Bill Cassidy, of Louisiana, ultimately voted to confirm him. Cassidy, a longtime physician who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, had said he was “struggling” with his decision after he quizzed Kennedy at two confirmation hearings.
But Cassidy, who is already politically vulnerable should he run for re-election, said in a floor speech last week that Kennedy gave him a series of reassurances that he would maintain the Center for Disease Control and Prevention’s advisory committee on immunization practices and that he would not remove statements on the CDC’s website noting that vaccines do not cause autism.
Kennedy also secured the backing of two other key Republicans, Lisa Murkowski, of Alaska, and Susan Collins, of Maine, before the vote.
Murkowski announced her support after, she said, Kennedy reassured her about his stance on vaccines.
Senate votes to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary
