WASHINGTON, D.C. (WCIV) — The Senate on Thursday confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as President Donald Trump’s health secretary.
The vaccine skeptic will be in charge of $1.7 trillion in federal spending, vaccine recommendations, food safety, and health insurance programs for a large portion of the country.
Nearly all Republicans supported Trump’s nominee despite their hesitancy about Kennedy’s views on vaccines, voting 52-48 to elevate the latest storied member of the Kennedy family to the halls of power in American politics. Following the vote, Sen. Lindsey Graham expressed intrigue in working with Kennedy despite previous uncertainty about the nomination.
“Every president deserves their team,” Graham said following the vote. “I look forward to working with RFK Jr. to improve our quality of life and health in America.”
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In early February, Graham announced he was a “yes” vote for Kennedy, despite the former independent candidate for president’s pro-life stances.
“I am now OK supporting RFK Jr. because I think during the course of the hearing, he’s committed to a Republican pro-life agenda, President Trump’s pro-life agenda,” Graham said on Fox News.
“So I will take him at his word. I’m comfortable with what he said on the pro-life issue. He has been radically pro-choice as a person, but I do believe that, as secretary, he will implement a pro-life agenda that will be pushed by President Trump. So I will be a yes.”
Kennedy’s groundswell of support is rooted in his family name and the COVID-19 pandemic, where he devoted much of his time to a nonprofit that sued vaccine makers and harnessed social media campaigns to erode trust in vaccines and the government agencies that promote them.
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During Senate hearings, Democrats tried to prod Kennedy to deny a long-discredited theory that vaccines cause autism. Some lawmakers also raised alarms about Kennedy financially benefiting from changing vaccine guidelines or weakening federal lawsuit protections against vaccine makers.
The Associated Press reported Kennedy made more than $850,000 last year from an arrangement referring clients to a law firm that has sued the makers of Gardasil, a human papillomavirus vaccine that protects against cervical cancer.
Kennedy has also called for a staffing overhaul at the NIH, FDA and CDC. Last year, he promised to fire 600 employees at the NIH, the nation’s largest funder of biomedical research.
Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell, who had polio as a child, was the only “no” vote among Republicans, mirroring his stands against Trump’s picks for the Pentagon chief and director of national intelligence.
“I’m a survivor of childhood polio. In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world,” McConnell said in a statement afterward. “I will not condone the re-litigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles.”
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EDITORS NOTE: The Associated Press contributed to this report.
