Stress is mounting on Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as critics squeeze senators from each side of the aisle to oppose President Trump’s choose to be the nation’s high well being official.
Kennedy’s bipartisan opponents, together with liberal advocates and a corporation based by former Vice President Pence, argue the nominee to steer the Division of Well being and Human Providers secretary is not match to serve.
Liberals level to Kennedy’s longtime advocacy in opposition to vaccines and his function because the founding father of the distinguished anti-vaccine group Kids’s Well being Protection.
Democratic-aligned group Shield Our Care is spending roughly $1 million on a marketing campaign to focus on how Kennedy may endanger the nation’s well being system, operating tv and digital adverts about his report, releasing stories utilizing Kennedy’s personal phrases, and holding occasions within the districts of key lawmakers.
In a possible preview of what Kennedy will face from Democrats within the Senate Finance Committee, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) final week pressed him in a letter to reply 175 questions on a spread of subjects together with vaccines, his shifting positions on reproductive rights, his pledge to intestine the Nationwide Institutes of Well being, drug pricing and the Inexpensive Care Act, amongst many others.
“Given your dangerous views on vaccine safety and public health, including your baseless opposition to vaccines, and your inconsistent statements in important policy areas like reproductive rights access, I have serious concerns regarding your ability to oversee the Department,” Warren wrote.
In lots of circumstances, Warren quoted Kennedy immediately and requested him to clarify his feedback, akin to when he wrote in his 2023 guide about vaccines that “[t]here is virtually no science assessing the overall health effects of the vaccination schedule or its component vaccines.”
On the Senate flooring Wednesday, Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii) mentioned Democrats could also be sympathetic to Kennedy’s arguments about wholesome consuming and reforming the meals system, however his previous advocacy in opposition to vaccines is disqualifying and places lives in danger.
“We don’t have to bring measles and mumps back in order to fix our food system. We don’t have to bring back the horrors of polio in the name of cleansing our diet,” Schatz mentioned.
On the conservative facet, the Pence-launched group Advancing American Freedom on Wednesday launched a six-figure advert marketing campaign opposing Kennedy’s nomination.
Whereas the adverts spotlight controversial feedback made by Kennedy throughout a wide range of points, AAF has been highlighting the previous Democratic presidential candidate’s previous help for abortion.
“It is not a no-brainer for a pro-life senator to just sign up on this. I think it really requires some real due diligence, and I just don’t think that’s been done yet,” Advancing American Freedom president Tim Chapman mentioned.
Chapman mentioned his group needs conservative senators to know they’re not alone in questioning Kennedy’s dedication to the anti-abortion trigger. Their opposition shall be a check of whether or not conventional conservative arguments nonetheless matter to a Republican Celebration that has been remade below Trump.
“It is odd to me that there are not more conservatives out there who are raising the issue,” Chapman mentioned, including that he has heard from lawmakers who privately categorical their considerations however are afraid to say so publicly out of concern of backlash from the administration and its allies.
He needs to provide them political cowl.
“It is a very difficult environment right now for those people to go on the record and say that. So, you know, for us, we feel like it’s an obligation on our part to raise a flag, to draw attention to it, and then let the chips fall where they may,” Chapman mentioned.
The bipartisan critiques present simply how slender Kennedy’s path to affirmation is. He can solely lose three Republican votes if each Democrat votes in opposition to him.
Senate Finance Committee chairman Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) introduced Wednesday that Kennedy’s affirmation listening to shall be Jan. 29.
The listening to had been held up on account of delays in Kennedy’s monetary disclosure and ethics stories, however as soon as they have been posted on-line, the listening to was shortly scheduled.
GOP senators who’ve met with Kennedy to this point have additionally largely dismissed any considerations about abortion.
Kennedy has tried to reassure Republicans by saying his private views don’t matter, and that he’ll implement all the anti-abortion insurance policies from the primary Trump administration.
Kennedy “recognizes that abortion is a tragedy and is surrounding himself with proven conservatives who will quickly reverse Biden’s radical and unpopular abortion policies,” Roger Severino, a longtime anti-abortion stalwart and director of HHS’ Workplace for Civil Rights through the first Trump administration, mentioned in an electronic mail.
