On Tuesday, the Senate Finance Committee voted to refer Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation to become secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.
Right as the committee came to order, Kennedy and Donald Trump received a lucky break when Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, the Republican physician who repeatedly grilled Kennedy about promoting the debunked link between vaccines and autism, said he would vote for him.
A few hours later, the Senate Intelligence Committee voted behind closed doors to refer Tulsi Gabbard to be Trump’s director of National Intelligence.
That came after Trump’s contentious confirmation hearing where Republicans questioned her about her past criticism of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which allows the U.S. government to gather intelligence on non-U.S. persons outside the United States, as well as her call for Trump to pardon Edward Snowden.
But Sen. Susan Collins, who had numerous reservations about Gabbard, said on Monday evening that she would vote to confirm Gabbard. Shortly thereafter Sen. Todd Young threw his support behind Gabbard as well, despite the fact he repeatedly asked her about Snowden.
The votes in committee all but guarantee that Kennedy and Gabbard will be confirmed on the Senate floor with either minimal or zero Republican opposition, signifying Trump’s conquest of one of the final bulwarks of opposition toward him: the Senate.
When Trump first came to Washington, he faced heavy opposition to his nominations from Republican senators. Mike Pence’s first tie-breaking vote came when he had to vote to confirm Betsy DeVos to be education secretary. Republicans blanched at making Andrew Puzder to be secretary of labor after reports of spousal abuse.
For someone who moved aggressively and threw bombs like Trump, the Senate proved to be a frustration. The Senate had Republican senators who told him “no,” such as Jeff Flake, Bob Corker and later Mitt Romney. John McCain delivered the infamous thumbs down that killed his attempt to repeal Obamacare. That failure notwithstanding, Mitch McConnell resisted Trump’s calls to remove the filibuster.
When Trump tried to strong-arm McConnell to overturn the 2020 presidential election results, McConnell and a majority of Republicans resisted the temptation and only eight Republican Senators objected to the results.
Now, Republicans offer only tacit opposition to him. Last month, only three Republicans--including McConnell, Collins and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska--opposed Pete Hegseth’s nomination, knowing he would become secretary of Defense thanks to Vice President JD Vance.
So far, Republicans have only sunk one nomination: former Matt Gaetz’s push to be attorney general. And that came not because of the Ethics Committee investigation into whether he had sex with underage girls; it came because Gaetz had consistently antagonized Republican senators.
After the vote in committee, Cassidy, who had wrestled with whether to confirm Kennedy, gave a speech to the Senate floor that sounded more like an apology than a vote of confidence. He said how he had received messages from pediatricians saying they had to fight back on misinformation about vaccines spread by people like Kennedy.
“Regarding vaccines, Mr. Kennedy has been insistent that he just wants good science and to ensure safety,” he said. “But on this topic, the science is good, the science is credible. Vaccines save lives. They are safe. They do not cause autism.”
But he said that he aligned with Kennedy on reforming the National Institutes of Health and focusing on chronic diseases and said they would work together.
“We will meet or speak multiple times a month,” he said. “This collaboration will allow us to work well together and therefore to be more effective.”
Cassidy’s speech read similar to how Collins said that Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh assured her that they would protect Roe v Wade before the 2022 Dobbs v Jackson decision. But the evidence that Kennedy would continue promoting lies about vaccines came with the fact that Del Bigtree, another anti-vaccine activist was on hand to watch Kennedy’s confirmation vote on Tuesday.
Cassidy’s words came after Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Joni Ernst of Iowa both voted to confirm Hegseth after pressure from their right flank.
But doing so could come at a cost. Cassidy, who voted to convict Trump for his actions on January 6, already faced a primary challenger in Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming. This will do little to sate the appetite of conservatives who want to take him out.
The same goes for Tillis, who faces a difficult re-election campaign in the Tar Heel State. Mark Robinson, the disgraced former lieutenant governor, may have passed on running against Tillis. But now he has to answer for his votes against a Democrat like Roy Cooper.
And Collins, who is also up for re-election in a state that Kamala Harris by about seven points, will have to answer for her votes on Gabbard and Kennedy.
And as for Puzder? The disgraced former Labor secretary nominee? Trump nominated him to be U.S. ambassador to the European Union.
