As confirmation hearings begin for President-elect Donald Trump's Cabinet, his nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services is facing pushback from members of both parties.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. began his foray into politics as a Democrat — launching his own bid for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination before leaving the party and, later, throwing his support behind Trump.
Hawaii Gov. Josh Green, a Democrat, calls Kennedy "dangerous."
Green, a physician, was part of a medical mission to the Pacific island nation of Samoa in response to a measles outbreak in 2019. He says Kennedy bears significant responsibility for spreading misinformation and fear about vaccines during his own visit to Samoa that year.
"And 83 people died in Samoa," Green said in an interview with NPR. "We watched it firsthand, and that will happen in America if he becomes the director."
The Trump team hasn't responded to requests for comment on the controversy or Kennedy's nomination.
Kennedy denies spreading misinformation, though his criticism of vaccines is well known.
That's why some Republicans are also raising concerns, including Sen. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana.
"I'm old enough to remember when children couldn't go to school for quite some time because of measles," Cassidy told NewsNation in November, when Kennedy was being floated as a potential pick for the Department of Health and Human Services.
Cassidy, who is also a doctor, says he agrees with Kennedy on some goals, like reducing ultraprocessed food in American diets, but disagrees with his vaccine skepticism.
"The older doctors told me that when the measles vaccine came out, they just closed whole hospital wards, because no longer were people going blind or going deaf because of mumps or measles," Cassidy said in the NewsNation interview.
As the chairman of the Senate's Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, Cassidy is expected to play a key role in Kennedy's confirmation process.
Kennedy has described himself as an advocate for "medical freedom" and "bodily autonomy."
His application of those views to the issue of abortion has also raised concerns from some conservatives, including former Vice President Mike Pence, who spoke out against Kennedy's nomination in a statement, calling it "deeply concerning."
On The Sage Steele Show in May 2024, before he dropped out of the presidential race, Kennedy said he viewed every abortion as a "tragedy" but that those decisions should be left up to women, "even if it's full-term." Kennedy tried to clarify his position on abortion in June of last year, posting on Facebook that he believes there's an "emerging consensus": "abortion should be legal up until a certain number of weeks and restricted thereafter."
Regardless, Kennedy's expressions of support for abortion rights are at odds with long-standing Republican opposition to abortion. Trump has repeatedly called for allowing the issue to be decided by states.
But after recent meetings on Capitol Hill, several Republican senators have said Kennedy assured them that he would support Trump's position if he's confirmed as secretary of health and human services.
Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina asked Kennedy about his position on abortion when they met recently.
"He has been moderate on that in the past, and now he's gonna align himself, by choice, with President Trump on pro-life policies," Budd told NPR during a recent interview on Capitol Hill.
But that's not convincing for some anti-abortion activists, like Brent Leatherwood, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention.
"You'll have to forgive me for remaining a tad skeptical," he said.
With conservatives in control of all major branches of government, Leatherwood wants the second Trump administration to go further on abortion than it did last time: for example, using regulations to limit access to abortion pills.
"But to do that, you have to know the administrative state and be willing to tackle it," Leatherwood says. "And I think you can only do that successfully on this issue if you have a deep commitment to the sanctity of life. And he just hasn't shown that."
If confirmed, Kennedy will lead one of the largest federal departments — responsible not only for medications and vaccines but also for agencies that fund medical research, provide public health insurance to millions of Americans and oversee the nation's response to public health emergencies like pandemics.
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