Republican senators are speaking out about Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmentalist, anti-vaccine activist and abortion rights advocate — and expressing optimism about him leading the government’s health agencies.
Kennedy’s confirmation is not assured, but Republicans who spoke to POLITICO this week downplayed their policy differences with him to focus on areas of agreement: around the need to overhaul the public health bureaucracy, to challenge experts they think that they have put the country on the wrong foot during the Covid pandemic and to give newly elected President Donald Trump the honeymoon he did not get during his first term.
“Bobby will get confirmation,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.). “The more you talk to him, the more he explains it, the more you like him.”
The welcome reception the scion of America’s most famous Democratic family is receiving this week from hardline, anti-abortion, small-government, pro-industry Republicans shows just how much loyalty Trump commands after winning 77 million votes and a second term last month.
Trump’s alliance with Kennedy — secured by Kennedy’s decision to drop his independent bid for the White House and endorse Trump in August — would have been unthinkable to conservatives just a year ago.
But within the Senate Republican caucus, Republicans are putting aside their policy differences with the man Trump once described as a “radical left liberal” and emphasizing where they agree.
That illustrates the power of populist ideals — and of Trump himself — to push aside traditional conservative values that have anchored the Republican Party for decades.
“He’s a Democrat,” said a Republican Senate staffer, who was granted anonymity to share internal discussions about the nominee. “We really didn’t miss it.”
Mullin may be the most unlikely ally, given Kennedy’s longstanding opposition to the fossil fuel industry. Mullin’s biggest financial boosters are in the oil and gas industry, and he uses his seat on the Environment and Public Works Committee to oppose their regulation.
Kennedy sees the pollution caused by fossil fuels as a threat to public health and promised during his own presidential campaign to ban offshore oil drilling and natural gas fracking. After Kennedy endorsed him, Trump said RFK Jr. ‘wouldn’t touch our liquid gold’.
Mullin’s willingness to compromise on this issue echoes the compromises other Republicans are considering when it comes to Kennedy.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a Southern Baptist minister before coming to Congress and who describes himself as “the most pro-life member of the Senate,” told POLITICO that after meeting with Kennedy he was convinced was that he would fall in line with the Trump administration’s abortion position.
During his presidential campaign, Kennedy said he opposed all government restrictions on abortion, before returning to opposing abortion after fetal viability.
“I have been perhaps one of the leading people in this country on medical freedom and bodily autonomy,” Kennedy said. “I don’t trust the government to have jurisdiction over people’s bodies.”
During their meeting, however, Kennedy was “very clear and unequivocal,” Lankford said. ‘The president gives him clear instructions [abortion]. He’s going to pass on those instructions.”
Kennedy also won over Alabama Republican Tommy Tuberville, who spent 10 months in 2023 drawing the ire of Democrats and many in his own party for holding up hundreds of military nominations and promotions over a Pentagon policy that allowed military personnel to travel for government airport abortions. dime.
After meeting with Kennedy, Tuberville said he felt comfortable with Kennedy’s abortion position.
“We sat down and talked about it and we both came to an agreement,” Tuberville said. “Roo has disappeared; it goes back to the United States. Let the people vote on it. … I am pro-life, but I am glad that our American citizens have the opportunity to vote in their state – and he is the same way.”
Republican Chuck Grassley, who has advocated for Iowa farmers in the Senate since 1981 and previously said he was concerned about Kennedy’s desire to regulate food production and production, said he sees a lot of sympathy in Kennedy’s anti-establishment views. Grassley suggested he might be willing to overlook disagreements on agricultural issues.
‘Maybe he doesn’t have the right answers for that. But I know he’s going to go in and shake up a department that needs shaking up,” Grassley said. “We have a mandate from the last elections.”
Some Republicans have raised concerns about Kennedy’s work as an anti-vaccine activist, during which time he said the measles, mumps and rubella shot causes autism and that the Covid vaccine was the deadliest in the history of the world.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Friday called out vaccine skepticism in a sharp rebuttal aimed at Kennedy, after the New York Times reported that a Kennedy adviser had called on the FDA to revoke approval of the polio vaccine. McConnell was partially paralyzed by the disease as a child.
Kennedy’s vaccine views appear to be his biggest stumbling block to confirmation. He can afford to lose just three Republican votes if every Democratic senator opposes him.
Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who touted the measles vaccine, said she wanted to “make sure we have that ability and access [to vaccines] and continue the positive developments.”
But other Republican senators are following Trump’s example, who says Kennedy wants to review vaccine safety and increase transparency about their benefits and harms.
“What he wants with vaccines, and that’s what I believe in, is transparency,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.). “I fully support what he wants to achieve and I wish him the best of luck.”
