Posted on 02/13/25
| News Source: FOX News
The Senate on Thursday confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary in President Donald Trump's cabinet.
The Republican-controlled Senate voted nearly entirely along party lines to confirm Kennedy. The final showdown over his controversial nomination was set in motion hours earlier, after another party line vote on Wednesday afternoon which started the clock ticking toward the confirmation roll call.
Kennedy, the well-known vaccine skeptic and environmental crusader who ran for the White House in 2024 before ending his bid and endorsing Trump, needed a simple majority to be confirmed by the Senate.
Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky was the only Republican to vote against Kennedy's nomination. McConnell, the former longtime GOP Senate leader, suffered from polio as a child and is a major proponent of vaccines.
Kennedy survived back-to-back combustible Senate confirmation hearings late last month, when Trump's nominee to lead 18 powerful federal agencies that oversee the nation's food and health faced plenty of verbal fireworks over past controversial comments, including his repeated claims in recent years linking vaccines to autism, which have been debunked by scientific research.
During the hearings, Democrats also spotlighted Kennedy's service for years as chair or chief legal counsel for Children's Health Defense, the nonprofit organization he founded that has advocated against vaccines and sued the federal government numerous times, including a challenge over the authorization of the COVID-19 vaccine for children.