The Senate Finance Committee voted 14-13 on Tuesday morning to recommend the nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for secretary of health.
The key vote belonged to Sen. Bill Cassidy, a doctor who has held serious concerns about Kennedy’s record on vaccines and is also up for reelection next year. Cassidy voted to advance the nomination, after what he called “intense” conversations over the last several days with Kennedy and Vice President JD Vance.
“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,” he posted on X just before the vote.
In remarks on the Senate floor after the committee vote, Cassidy said that he’d received a number of assurances from Kennedy and the Trump administration that Kennedy would not do anything to disrupt vaccine recommendations and access. These assurances included maintaining the current vaccine safety system and not establishing a parallel system, maintaining the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which generates vaccine schedule recommendations, and not removing those recommendations from the CDC website.
Trending
Cassidy also said that he and Kennedy would have an “unprecedentedly close” working relationship and that they would meet multiple times a month. He said Kennedy would allow him to give input into hiring in HHS beyond the Senate confirmed positions, which Cassidy said he would use to bring representation from “all sides” of the vaccine debate into the department.
Cassidy, who is chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, which oversees HHS, said that Kennedy committed to appearing before the committee on a quarterly basis, to allow the HELP chair to choose a member on any vaccine safety review board and to give the HELP committee the option to call a hearing to review any vaccine recommendation changes before they are finalized.
“I will watch carefully for any effort to sow public fear in vaccines,” Cassidy said, but added, “my support is built on assurances that this will not have to be a concern.”
Kennedy’s nomination now moves to the full Senate for a vote. He can only afford to lose three Republican votes if all Democratic senators vote against him — a prospect that seemed more likely after his hearings last week, when Democrats railed against Kennedy for his history of dubious claims and sexual assault allegations.
Sen. Ron Wyden, who lacerated Kennedy during the committee’s meeting as “a grave threat to the health of the American people,” told reporters before the vote that he had spent the past few days talking to other senators about Kennedy.
But Kennedy’s supporters — who have spent weeks applying public pressure on the Senate — shrugged off the concerns.
President Donald Trump, just before the vote, posted on Truth Social that “We need BOBBY!!!” because of the rising rate of reported autism over the last several decades — something Kennedy has in the past linked to vaccination.
Tony Lyons, who published Kennedy’s books and co-founded his campaign’s super PAC, told reporters after Kennedy’s Senate HELP Committee hearing that he can’t take the Senate committee seriously when he believes its members haven’t upheld their promise of keeping America healthy.
“Why would you be defending people who have failed the American public, trying to use scare tactics, trying to say, ‘Well, what if children die?’ Children are dying now,” said Lyons.
Lyons added that the only thing Kennedy wants is “a big group of people — a powerful group of people, a well-funded group of people — helping him to get to the truth.”
“Every one of the senators here today has conflicts of interest,” Lyons said.
Mary Holland, CEO of Kennedy’s nonprofit group, Children’s Health Defense, said that the senators focused only on “contentious” issues on vaccines.
“I don’t think, sadly, most of the Democratic senators were really looking for answers. They were grandstanding,” Holland said.
She added that she hopes Kennedy and Cassidy will speak again, saying, “I think that Sen. Cassidy asked important questions. I felt his heart of being a physician.”
Cassidy confirmed on Monday that he had met with Kennedy over the weekend and they had a “cordial” conversation. The senator didn’t say how he was planning to vote but posted a Bible verse on social media on Sunday:
“Joshua said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged. Be strong and courageous. This is what the Lord will do to all the enemies you are going to fight.’”
—
Margaret Manto is a NOTUS reporter and an Allbritton Journalism Institute fellow.
Author
