RFK Jr. meets with senators as questions swirl about Trump's pick to lead health agency

[December 17, 2024]  By LISA MASCARO and MARY CLARE JALONICK

WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. swept onto Capitol Hill late Monday as the anti-vaccine health guru from the famous political family reintroduced himself to senators, this time as President-elect Donald Trump's pick to lead the nation's Health and Human Services Department.

It was a soft-opening debut for Kennedy, whose wide-ranging views — yes to raw milk, no to fluoride, Ozempic and America's favorite processed foods — are raising alarms in the scientific community and beyond. In the Senate he's facing a mix of support, curiosity, skepticism and downright rejection among the senators who will be asked to confirm him to Trump's Cabinet.

Kennedy's first stop Monday was on potentially friendly terrain, to the offices of a few GOP senators allied with Trump, the start of a robust, weeks-long process.

One Republican, Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, said Kennedy told him, “I 100% support the polio vaccination.” But Mullin added that their conversation also turned to other childhood vaccinations. He predicts Kennedy will be confirmed.

“The more you talk to him, the more he explains it, the more you like him,” Mullin said.

The man known simply as RFK, Jr., 70, is the latest in the Trump rival-turned-partner orbit, a former Democratic presidential hopeful now in line to run the world's largest public health agency, with its whopping $1.7 trillion budget, and some of the U.S. most important public services.

HHS has a broad reach across the lives of Americans — inspecting the nation's food, regulating medicines and overseeing research of diseases and cures. It provides health insurance for nearly half of the country — poor, disabled and older Americans, including via Medicare.

Richard Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called Kennedy “a truly dangerous” choice.

Besser, in an op-ed in U.S. News and World Report, said Kennedy stands out as a “single potential Cabinet member who could do the most damage to the American people’s lives.”

Ahead of Kennedy's arrival he was given a word of advice from one important voice: outgoing Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, a childhood polio survivor, who cautioned the nominee against views opposing the vaccine.

“Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming Administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts,” McConnell said recently.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump's nominee to be Secretary of Health and Human Services, arrives at the Hart Building to meet with senators at the Capitol in Washington, Monday, Dec. 16, 2024. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

Trump said Monday during his own press conference he’s a “big believer” in polio vaccines and sought to tamp down fears about Kennedy, saying he will be “much less radical” than people think.

The incoming GOP leader, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, said Kennedy will have to address questions about his views on the polio vaccine and other issues.

“Well, I think he’ll have to address that,” Thune said. “We’ll find out.”

But hardline Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, a House member who has no vote in the confirmation process, has been influential in supporting and amplifying Kennedy’s views on vaccines.

In the Capitol on Monday, Republican senators said they want to hear more about Kennedy’s views.

“I’m open," said GOP Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina. But “if you come in and say I won’t consider myself successful unless I eliminate these vaccines, that could be problematic.”

Kennedy’s nomination will test the nation’s emerging political realignment, as Trump expands his base of supporters to include former Democratic voters shifting elsewhere. Kennedy’s views find favor but also opposition from both sides of the political aisle.

In particular, Kennedy's ideas about ridding the nation’s food of additives has drawn interest if not support from some Democrats, but his criticism of major farm interests have also raised concerns from the agricultural industry.

Iowa GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley says he’s interested in what Kennedy says about pigs “because Iowa is the number one pig producer.”

Other Trump nominees are also expected back on Capitol Hill this week. The president-elect's choice of Pete Hegseth for Defense Secretary, Tulsi Gabbard for Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Kash Patel for FBI director and others are all running into turbulence from wary senators.

With Republicans taking control of the Senate in the new year, Trump's nominees have a pathway to confirmation. But with just a 53-47 majority, any nominee can only lose a handful of GOP supporters, in the face of Democratic opposition.
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Associated Press writers Amanda Seitz and Stephen Groves contributed to this report

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