Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cleared a key hurdle Tuesday after a Senate panel voted to advance his nomination to be health and human services secretary to the full chamber.
In a 14-13 vote along party lines, the Senate Finance Committee pushed through Kennedy’s nomination after he managed to allay concerns raised by Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La.
Cassidy, a doctor, was the one potential swing vote on the panel. Last week, he signaled that he held serious reservations over whether Kennedy was qualified to lead the vast agency, saying he was “struggling” with his decision after questioning him at two confirmation hearings. In addition to the Finance Committee, Cassidy serves as chair of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
In a statement posted on X just before Tuesday’s vote, Cassidy said he had “very intense conversations” with Kennedy and the White House over the weekend, specifically thanking Vice President JD Vance “for his honest counsel.”
Cassidy told the full Senate after the vote that he received a series of promises from Kennedy, a longtime anti-vaccine activist, including that he would maintain the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's advisory committee on immunization practices and that he would not remove statements on the CDC’s website noting that vaccines do not cause autism.
"Mr. Kennedy and the administration committed that he and I would have an unprecedentedly close collaborative working relationship if he is confirmed," Cassidy said. "We will meet or speak multiple times a month. This collaboration will allow us to work well together and therefore to be more effective."
Cassidy also vowed that he would use his position on the panel that oversees HHS "to rebuff any attempt to remove the public’s access to lifesaving vaccines without ironclad causational scientific evidence that can be accepted and defended before the mainstream scientific community and before Congress."
Last week, Cassidy had said he needed to hear an unequivocal statement from Kennedy that vaccines do not cause autism and indicated he would listen to well-established science on the matter. It was still unclear Tuesday whether Kennedy had made that assertion.
Even as Cassidy said he received various assurances from Kennedy about supporting the efficacy of vaccines, Kennedy’s firm ties to the anti-vaccine community were unmistakable: Prominent anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree, a Kennedy ally, was in the committee room to witness Cassidy voting yes earlier in the day.
A scion of the storied Democratic family, Kennedy ran for president in 2024, first as a Democrat and then as an independent, before dropping out to endorse Trump. While hitting the trail for Trump, Kennedy branded a "Make America Healthy Again" campaign, in which he railed against food manufacturers and unhealthy ingredients in the nation’s diet.
While some senators in both parties expressed support for making food products safer, two days of questioning last week revealed other significant objections to Kennedy.
Kennedy tripped up in answering basic questions about Medicaid, an area that constitutes a major part of the job of health secretary. Democratic senators objected to what they called significant conflicts of interest should he be confirmed, including that he could indirectly financially benefit from pending litigation against a vaccine maker that he would regulate as HHS secretary.
But among the most vociferous objections to Kennedy are related to his repeated denials of the efficacy of vaccines. In one committee hearing last week, Cassidy repeatedly took Kennedy to task for his refusal to embrace science that shows vaccines do not cause autism.
“I can say that I’ve approached it using the preponderance of evidence to reassure and you’ve approached using selected evidence to cast doubt,” Cassidy said last week.
Cassidy is up for re-election in 2026. He has already drawn a GOP primary challenger over his vote to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial.
Minutes before the committee's vote, Trump attempted to provide a boost to Kennedy on Truth Social.
"20 years ago, Autism in children was 1 in 10,000. NOW IT’S 1 in 34. WOW! Something’s really wrong. We need BOBBY!!! Thank You! DJT."
Autism diagnoses have risen from about 1 in 150 children in 2000 to 1 in 36 currently, though researchers have pointed to increased screening and changing definitions of the condition as at least some of the basis for that rise. Advocates have called for more research into whether other factors have contributed to the rise.
In hundreds of studies over decades and across the world, scientists have debunked the false link between vaccines and autism. Autism advocates expressed concern over Kennedy's confirmation, fearing his false assertions tying the complex neurological and developmental condition to vaccines would set back decades of progress. They say the repeated emphasis on false theories has diverted precious research needed to expand on true causation.
The autism-to-vaccines link had been at least part of Cassidy’s reservations over Kennedy's confirmation.
For weeks, Cassidy has been the focus of a pressure campaign from Kennedy supporters, specifically from the anti-vaccine movement he leads. But a secondary pressure campaign calling on Cassidy to vote against Kennedy also intensified over the weekend, according to a source with knowledge of the campaign. That included from Protect Our Care, a group attempting to stop Kennedy's appointment, which organized calls to Cassidy's office and running digital ads. It also included calls from doctors and outside groups.
Previously, groups including Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vaccine nonprofit Kennedy founded, and the National Vaccine Information Center had organized supporters to flood Cassidy's office with calls and emails urging his support for the nomination.
At the one of Kennedy's confirmation hearings last week, Cassidy acknowledged that his phone was being “blown up” by Kennedy’s “tremendous following,” many of whom the senator said “trust you more than they trust their own physician.”
“The question I need to have answered is what will you do with that trust?” Cassidy said.
After the hearing, the same anti-vaccine groups declared to it followers via newsletters, social media and online shows that Cassidy was the most likely impediment to Kennedy’s nomination. On Thursday’s episode of the anti-vaccine group Informed Consent Action Network’s online show, Bigtree, its founder, spoke directly about Cassidy for 25 minutes, urging him to vote yes.
