The Senate confirmed vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services secretary over the opposition of both senators from Arizona.
The vote Thursday was a victory for President Donald Trump, who nominated Kennedy to the nation’s top health job with the promise to “Make America Healthy Again.” But Democratic Sens. Mark Kelly and Ruben Gallego of Arizona painted Kennedy as a conspiracy theorist and a danger to public health.
“I’m thinking about this as a father and grandparent. I know how much Arizona families care about their kids’ health. All they want to do is what is right for their families and for their kids,” Kelly said this week in a Senate floor speech opposing Kennedy. “The last thing parents need is one more loud voice, especially one in a position of authority, pushing conspiracy theories that make it harder to know what’s true.”
Kennedy was confirmed on a 52-48 vote that fell mostly along party lines in the narrowly divided Senate. Kelly and Gallego both voted against Kennedy’s confirmation.
Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., a polio survivor, joined Democrats to vote against Kennedy.
The Department of Health and Human Services is a massive agency that oversees Medicare, Medicaid, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Indian Health Service, among others.
Kennedy was viewed as a controversial choice to lead the nation’s health agencies, particularly because of his past comments on vaccines. Kennedy has said recently that he is not against vaccines, but in the past said, “I do believe that autism does come from vaccines.”
Now, Kennedy will oversee the two federal agencies that influence vaccine policy: the FDA and CDC.
In his remarks on the Senate floor, Kelly also slammed Kennedy for his claim that antidepressants cause school shootings, not guns. Kelly pointed to the Jan. 8, 2011, mass shooting near Tucson that nearly took the life of his wife, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.
“Six people died. Twelve were injured. You won’t find anyone at that grocery store who believes that an excess of mental health treatment was responsible for that tragedy,” Kelly said.
After the vote, Gallego turned to poetry to express his opposition to Kennedy.
“Roses are red, Public Health is toast,” Gallego wrote on X, sharing a headline that read “RFK Jr. confirmed, elevating anti-vaccine activist to nation’s top health post.”
Kennedy is no stranger to Arizona: he campaigned here as an independent candidate for president and even filed signatures to get on the ballot in the state. Kennedy ended his campaign and endorsed Trump at an Arizona campaign event, too.
After he endorsed Trump, Kennedy returned to Arizona to stump for the Republican presidential nominee and revealed on stage that he was under investigation by the National Marine Fisheries Institute for collecting a “whale specimen.”
Kennedy cut the head off of a beached whale and strapped it to the roof of his minivan to drive for five hours from Massachusetts to New York, his daughter said in a magazine interview in 2012 that garnered new attention during the 2024 campaign.
On the other side of the aisle, Republicans in Arizona’s congressional delegation applauded the confirmation on Thursday morning.
“It’s a bad day for Big Pharma, and it’s a great day to make America healthy again,” said Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who is running for governor.
