Congress
Republicans go easy on RFK Jr. at confirmation hearing
Republicans on the Senate Finance Committee offered Kennedy a chance to defend himself against Democrats’ attacks in his confirmation hearing Wednesday and suggested they would support him to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
“I think I’ve come to know what’s in your heart,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told Kennedy. “I think I know the personal and political price you’ve paid for this decision [to serve President Donald Trump]. I just want to say publicly, I thank you for that.”
The panel’s chair, Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), endorsed Kennedy as the hearing ended. “I think you have come through well and deserve to be confirmed,” he said.
Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn predicted he would. “I look forward to seeing you help make us healthy again,” she said, referencing Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” slogan.
Democrats took aim at Kennedy’s past work as an anti-vaccine activist, saying it disqualified him to lead federal health agencies.
“He has made it his life’s work to sow doubt and discourage parents from getting their kids life-saving vaccines,” ranking member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said, echoing fellow Democrats who called his nomination “disturbing.”
Kennedy denied being anti-vaccine, despite his history of saying the shots are dangerous.
Democrats also highlighted his past support for abortion rights and accused him of hypocrisy for allying with Trump, who appointed the justices who overturned Roe v. Wade two years ago. They raised questions about conflicts of interest posed by his legal work against vaccine makers.
But the questioning from Republicans suggested Kennedy would gain the Finance panel’s approval — Republicans have a one-seat edge — and that Kennedy would get a vote on the Senate floor. There, he can lose three Republican votes and still win confirmation, if every senator in the Democratic caucus opposes him.
If Kennedy were to pursue even a fraction of the policy agenda he espoused as an activist, it would upend HHS and the public health system.
If he’s confirmed, Kennedy would helm one of the largest agencies in the federal government, responsible for, in part, the health coverage of more than 1 in 3 Americans, creating rules and enforcing laws that govern nearly all health care providers, the preparation for and response to infectious diseases, and the approval of vaccines, drugs and medical devices.
Republicans on the panel focused on areas where they see common ground with Kennedy.
Kennedy answered questions from Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) about sustaining rural health care by explaining that Trump had tasked him with ensuring access to care nationwide — and suggesting artificial intelligence and remote care could be a key solution to improving rural care.
To Blackburn’s question about overmedication of children, Kennedy suggested Americans need more non-pharmaceutical therapies for illness.
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who told Blue Light News earlier this month he’d sought reassurance about Kennedy’s views on vaccines, used his time to ask what Kennedy would do to improve care for people who are covered by both Medicare and Medicaid. Cassidy, who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, will get another chance to question Kennedy about the programs in a hearing Thursday morning.
Kennedy said he wanted to make sure “we take good care of people” without getting into policy details.
Kennedy demonstrated some command of the policy issues facing HHS, saying he believed reform of the pharmaceutical market was needed, a hot topic on Capitol Hill, and suggested he wanted to train doctors to boost treatment of substance use disorder. He said Medicaid, the federal-state insurer for low-income people, needed reform because it had not prevented a rise in chronic disease.
But Kennedy’s command of the intricacies of policy was often shaky. He seemed at one point to confuse Medicaid with the federal insurer for older Americans, Medicare.
Kennedy claimed that most people dislike the Affordable Care Act, despite polling updated on Jan. 17 by the health policy research group KFF found that 64 percent of American adults favorably viewed the 2010 health care law.
He also said many people would prefer to be on Medicare Advantage but can’t afford it. A September 2024 report from the Better Medicare Alliance, a group of insurers and business groups that support the privately run alternative to traditional Medicare, found that 52 percent of Medicare Advantage enrollees make less than $24,500 a year.
Asked whether Kennedy was up to the task of overseeing Medicare and Medicaid, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said: “I think he can learn.”
Chelsea Cirruzzo and Robert King contributed to this report.
Senate Judiciary Chair Chuck Grassley rescheduled a planned vote on Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general late Friday in a preemptive move as negotiations between the Trump administration and GOP holdouts continue.
The vote, now set for Tuesday after a scheduled Thursday vote was postponed, isn’t an indication that a deal allowing for Blanche’s confirmation is near, so much as it is a nod to Judiciary Committee rules that require three days of notice for a panel meeting.
There is no sign that President Donald Trump is about to acquiesce to the unflinching demands of Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), who wants a controversial settlement agreement between Trump and the IRS substantially pared back.
Cornyn, who lost his primary to a Trump-endorsed candidate, wants the Justice Department to nullify a $1.8 billion “Anti-Weaponization Fund” and limit the scope of a tax audit immunity component of the pact.
Trump told reporters earlier Friday the fund is “dead” but added “I wish it weren’t.”
“I’d like to see them compensated,” he added, referring to people he considers victims of government abuse, including participants in the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
To advance Tuesday, Blanche needs to pick up Cornyn and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), another senator on the panel with similar concerns. He can’t lose any GOP votes if he wants to be reported favorably out of the Judiciary Committee.
“Chairman Grassley wants Todd Blanche’s nomination to be successful,” said a Judiciary Committee spokesperson, who declined to be named. “Noticing the markup gives more time for the White House to secure the votes for the President’s nominee. Grassley would like to see Blanche confirmed before the August recess as he has an excellent record restoring law and order and keeping Americans safe.”
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is zeroing in on one of House Republicans’ biggest contests — a purple district in Nebraska — when he starts his recess campaign sprint.
Scalise will travel to Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District in the Omaha area for an event with Republican Brinker Harding in the coming days, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter granted anonymity to share plans not yet made public. Republicans are digging in to defend the seat, which Kamala Harris won in the 2024 presidential race and is among Democrats’ best pick up opportunities this fall as they seek to flip the House.
Harding is running against Democratic consultant Denise Powell to replace retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon. Bacon, a moderate-leaning Republican, flipped the Omaha district red in 2016.
After Nebraska, Scalise is planning to travel across the country throughout August, including to defend GOP incumbents Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ and Zach Nunn’s key battleground seats in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts and Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District.
He’ll boost candidates working to flip blue districts like Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, Derek Merrin in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District and Mike LiPetri in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.
Scalise also plans to travel to Michigan, Colorado, South Carolina and Texas for campaign events over the August recess.
President Donald Trump goaded John Cornyn on social media Friday morning, accusing the Texas senator of withholding his vote on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination in retaliation for Trump’s central role in his political demise.
Cornyn, who lost his May primary to Texas’ scandal-ridden attorney general, the Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton, has threatened to block Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee until the White House promises to permanently shelve its $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” in writing — something Trump appears unwilling to do.
“John Cornyn never had a problem with the so called “Fund,” which will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, until after I decided to Endorse and Support his Republican Primary opponent in Texas, who easily won the Nomination for the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.
Several Republicans bristled at the fund, which could have been deployed to compensate Americans who faced charges after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and which gives the president and his family audit immunity over taxes. At his July confirmation hearing, Blanche said that the fund, part of a settlement the president reached with the IRS, was defunct. But the administration has been “reluctant to change” the text of the settlement, Cornyn told reporters Thursday.
Trump signaled his continued support for the Jan 6 rioters on Friday.
“I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined!” he wrote. “Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide Presidential win, where this was a major subject of debate, and so did John Cornyn, until he lost his Election to an opponent that I Endorsed.”
On Thursday, the president suggested that he could punt a Senate vote on Blanche until after Cornyn — and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — leaves the chamber at the end of the year. Cornyn, however, suggested on social media that there are other Republican senators with concerns about the fund.
“After the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” Cornyn told reporters.
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