Conspiracies, espionage, an enemies list: Takeaways from a wild day of confirmation hearings

[January 31, 2025]  By LISA MASCARO

WASHINGTON (AP) — Conspiracy theories about vaccines. Secret meetings with dictators. An enemies list.

President Donald Trump’ s most controversial Cabinet nominees — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel — flooded the zone Thursday in back-to-back-to-back confirmation hearings that were like nothing the Senate has seen in modern memory.

The onslaught of claims, promises and testy exchanges did not occur in a political vacuum. The whirlwind day — Day 10 of the new White House — all unfolded as Trump himself was ranting about how diversity hiring caused the tragic airplane-and-helicopter crash outside Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport.

And it capped a tumultuous week after the White House abruptly halted federal funding for programs Americans rely on nationwide, under guidance from Trump’s budget pick Russ Vought, only to reverse course amid a public revolt.

“The American people did not vote for this kind of senseless chaos,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., earlier.

It was all challenging even the most loyal Republicans who are being asked to confirm Trump’s Cabinet or face recriminations from an army of online foot-soldiers aggressively promoting the White House agenda. A majority vote in the Senate, which is led by Republicans 53-47, is needed for confirmation, leaving little room for dissent.

Here are some takeaways from the day:

Tulsi Gabbard defends her loyalty — and makes some inroads

Gabbard is seen as the most endangered of Trump's picks, potentially lacking the votes even from Trump’s party for confirmation for Director of National Intelligence. But her hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee offered a roadmap toward confirmation.

It opened with the chairman, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., swatting back claims that Gabbard is a foreign “asset,” undercover for some other nation, presumably Russia. He said he reviewed some 300 pages of multiple FBI background checks and she’s “clean as a whistle.”

But Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the panel, questioned whether she could build the trust needed, at home and abroad, to do the job.

Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, defended her loyalty to the U.S. She dismissed Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, when he asked whether Russia would “get a pass” from her.

“Senator, I’m offended by the question,” Gabbard responded.

Pressed on her secret 2017 trip to meet with then-Syrian President Bashar Assad, who has since been toppled by rebels and fled to Russia, she defended her work as diplomacy.

Gabbard may have made some inroads with one potentially skeptical Republican. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine asked whether Gabbard would recommend a pardon for Edward Snowden. The former government contractor was charged with espionage after leaking a trove of sensitive intelligence material, and fled to residency in Russia.

Gabbard, who has called Snowden a brave whistleblower, said it would not be her responsibility to “advocate for any actions related to Snowden.”

Picking up one notable endorsement, Gabbard was introduced by an influential voice on intelligence matters — former Sen. Richard Burr, a Republican who was chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pressed again on vaccine safety

Kennedy faced a second day of grilling to become Health and Human Services secretary, this time at the Senate Health committee, as senators probed his past views against vaccines and whether he would ban the abortion drug mifepristone.

But what skeptical Democratic senators have been driving at is whether Kennedy is trustworthy — if he holds fast to his past views or has shifted to new ones — echoing concerns raised by his cousin Caroline Kennedy that he is a charismatic “predator” hungry for power.

"You’ve spent your entire career undermining America’s vaccine program,” said Sen. Chris Murphy, D-Conn. “It just isn’t believable that when you become secretary you are going to become consistent with science.”

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., took the conversation in a different direction reading Kennedy’s comments about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in which he said in a social media post, “It's hard to tell what is conspiracy and what isn’t.”

Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump's choice to be the Director of National Intelligence, arrives to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee for her confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/John McDonnell)

"Wow," Kaine said.

Kennedy responded that his father, the late Robert F. Kennedy, told him that people in positions of power do lie.

But Kennedy's longtime advocacy in the anti-vaccine community continued to dominate his hearings.

Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., choked back tears when she told Kennedy that his work caused grave harm by relitigating what is already "settled science” — rather than helping the country advance toward new treatments and answers in healthcare.

But Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., immediately shifted the mood saying his own sons are fans of the nominee and he thanked Kennedy for “bringing the light” particularly to a younger generation interested in his alternative views.

Pressed on whether he would ban the abortion drug mifepristone, Kennedy said it’s up to Trump.

“I will implement his policy.”

A combative Kash Patel spars with senators over his past

Kash Patel emerged as perhaps the most combative nominee in a testy hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee as the nominee to lead the FBI.

Confronted with his own past words, writings and public comments, Patel, a former Capitol Hill staffer turned Trump enthusiast, protested repeatedly that his views were being taken out of context as “unfair” smears.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., read aloud Patel's false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election and another about his published “enemies list” that includes former Trump officials who have been critical of the president.

“’We’re going to come after you,’” she read him saying.

Patel dismissed her citations as a “partial statement” and “false.”

Klobuchar, exasperated, told senators, “It’s his own words.”

Patel has stood by Trump in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol and produced a version of the national anthem featuring Trump and the so-called J6 choir of defendants as a fundraiser. The president played the song opening his campaign rallies.

During one jarring moment, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., asked Patel to turn around and look at the U.S. Capitol Police officers protecting the hearing room.

“Tell them you’re proud of what you did. Tell them you’re proud that you raised money off of people that assaulted their colleagues, that pepper sprayed them, that beat them with poles,” Schiff said.

Patel fired back: “That’s an abject lie, you know it. I never, never, ever accepted violence against law enforcement.”

Patel said he did not endorse Trump’s sweeping pardon of supporters, including violent rioters, charged in the Jan. 6 attack.

“I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement,” Patel said.

In another Cabinet development, Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee advanced Trump's budget nominee Russ Vought toward confirmation after Democrats boycotted the meeting in protest.

Vought was an architect of Project 2025 and was influential in the White House memo to freeze federal funding this week, which sparked panic in communities across the country. Advocacy organizations challenged the freeze in court, and the White House quickly rescinded it, for now.

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Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri, Matt Brown and Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

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