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

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cleared a key hurdle Tuesday after a Senate panel voted to advance his nomination to be health and human services secretary to the full chamber.

In a vote along party lines, the Senate Finance Committee pushed through Kennedy’s nomination after he managed to allay concerns raised by Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., over his past anti-vaccine stances.

Cassidy, a doctor, signaled he held serious reservations over whether Kennedy was qualified to lead the vast agency, saying he was “struggling” with his decision after questioning him at two confirmation hearings last week. In addition to the Finance Committee, Cassidy serves as chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

In a statement posted to X before Tuesday’s vote, Cassidy said he had “very intense conversations” with Kennedy and the White House over the weekend, specifically thanking Vice President JD Vance “for his honest counsel.”

“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.

A scion of the storied Democratic family, Kennedy ran for president 2024, first as a Democrat and then as an independent, before dropping out to endorse Trump. While hitting the trail for Trump, Kennedy branded a “Make America Healthy Again” campaign, where he railed against food manufacturers and unhealthy ingredients in the nation’s diet.

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

Kennedy tripped up in answering basic questions about Medicaid, an area that constitutes a major part of the job of health secretary. Democratic senators objected to what they called significant conflicts of interest should he be confirmed, including that he could indirectly financially benefit from pending litigation against a vaccine maker that he would regulate as HHS secretary. 

But among the most vociferous objections to Kennedy came around his repeated denials of the efficacy of vaccines. In one committee hearing last week, Cassidy repeatedly took Kennedy to task for his refusal to embrace science showing vaccines do not cause autism. 

“I can say that I’ve approached it using the preponderance of evidence to reassure and you’ve approached using selected evidence to cast doubt,” Cassidy said last week. 

Cassidy is up for reelection in 2026. He has already drawn a GOP primary challenger over his vote to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial.