By Amanda Seitz and Eric Tucker, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was sworn in Thursday as President Donald Trump’s health secretary after a close Senate vote, putting the prominent vaccine skeptic in control of $1.7 trillion in federal spending, vaccine recommendations and food safety as well as health insurance programs for roughly half the country.
Nearly all Republicans fell in line behind Trump despite hesitancy over Kennedy’s views on vaccines, voting 52-48 to elevate the scion of one of America’s most storied political — and Democratic — families to secretary of the Health and Human Services Department. Democrats unanimously opposed Kennedy.
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.”
The rest of the GOP, however, has embraced Kennedy’s vision with a directive for the nation’s public health agencies to focus on chronic diseases such as obesity.
“We’ve got to get into the business of making America healthy again,” said Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, adding that Kennedy will bring a “fresh perspective” to the office.
Kennedy — joined by his wife, other family members and several members of Congress — was sworn in Thursday afternoon in the Oval Office by Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch, hours after confirmation. He said he’d first been there in 1961, and told stories of seeing his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, there as a child.
Trump announced that Kennedy will lead a new commission on making America healthy again, and Kennedy said Trump has been a blessing in his life and will be for the country, calling him a “pivotal historical figure.”
Kennedy, 71, whose name and family tragedies have put him in the national spotlight since he was a child, has earned a formidable following with his populist and sometimes extreme views on food, chemicals and vaccines.
“We’ve got to get into the business of making America healthy again”
With Trump’s backing, Kennedy insisted he was “uniquely positioned” to revive trust in those public health agencies, which include the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Institutes for Health.
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.
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. If confirmed as health secretary, he promised to reroute fees collected from the arrangement to his son.
Kennedy will take over the agency in the midst of a massive federal government shakeup, led by billionaire Elon Musk, that has shut off — even if temporarily — billions of taxpayer dollars in public health funding and left thousands of federal workers unsure about their jobs.
On Friday, the NIH announced it would cap billions of dollars in medical research given to universities and cancer being used to develop treatments for diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer’s.
Kennedy, too, has 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.
Senate panel advances Kash Patel nomination to lead FBI
Kash Patel, Trump’s nominee for FBI Director, moved one step closer to confirmation as the Senate Judiciary Committee advanced his nomination with a 12-10 party-line vote.
“[Patel] might not have served in the upper echelons of the FBI, but aren’t we asking this agency to set a new course? Don’t we want a nontraditional candidate at this moment in time, with extensive federal experience?”
Patel, a former Trump administration official, has raised alarm for his lack of management experience compared to other FBI directors and because of a vast catalog of incendiary past statements, which include calling investigators who scrutinized Trump “government gangsters” and describing at least some defendants charged in the Jan. 6, 2021 riot at the U.S Capitol as “political prisoners.”
During his confirmation hearing, Patel said Democrats were taking some of his comments out of context or misunderstanding the broader point that he was trying to make, such as when he proposed shutting down the FBI headquarters in Washington and turning it into a museum for the so-called “deep state.” Patel also denied the idea that a list in his book of government officials, who he said were part of a “deep state,” amounted to an “enemies list,” calling that a “total mischaracterization.”
Democrats portrayed Patel as a dangerous and inexperienced loyalist who would abuse the FBI’s law enforcement powers at a time when the country is facing an escalated threat including from China and international terrorism.
“This is a guy whose judgment is beyond questionable. It’s appallingly bad,” said Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island. He added: “Mark my words: this Patel guy will come back to haunt you.”
Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin told his colleagues “We are inviting a political disaster if we put Kash Patel into this job.”
GOP Sen. Ashley Moody of Florida said that Patel “might not have served in the upper echelons of the FBI, but aren’t we asking this agency to set a new course? Don’t we want a nontraditional candidate at this moment in time, with extensive federal experience?”
A former Justice Department prosecutor, Patel attracted Trump’s attention during his first term when, as a staffer on the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, he helped author a memo with pointed criticism of the FBI’s investigation into ties between Russia and Trump’s 2016 campaign.
Patel later joined Trump’s administration, both as a counterterrorism official at the National Security Council and as chief of staff to the Defense Department.