Congress
Bill Cassidy offered RFK Jr. an out. He didn’t take it.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s bid to lead the Department of Health and Human Services could come down to one senator. That senator, Bill Cassidy (R-La.), said he was deeply torn about his vote during a hearing of the Senate committee in charge of health policy on Thursday.
Cassidy, the panel’s chair and a gastroenterologist before entering politics, spoke of his own experience with life-saving vaccines and repeatedly asked Kennedy to disavow his past anti-vaccine advocacy.
Kennedy said he’d review the evidence and “apologize for any statement that misled people” if proven wrong, but also indicated he didn’t think he was wrong when he spent years linking vaccines to rising autism and chaired an anti-vaccine advocacy group.
Appearing frustrated, Cassidy said, “I’ve got to figure that out for my vote” and said he might reach out to Kennedy over the weekend to talk about it more.
Cassidy’s vote is critical because he also sits on the Finance Committee, which heard Kennedy’s testimony yesterday and will cast the vote on whether to recommend Kennedy’s confirmation to the Senate. The Republicans have a one-seat edge there, so if all the members of the Democratic caucus oppose Kennedy, Cassidy could deny him the panel’s recommendation.
Cassidy could also allow Kennedy’s nomination to proceed to the Senate floor without the Finance panel’s recommendation, but Majority Leader John Thune told Semafor earlier this week that it wouldn’t be ideal to bring another one of President Donald Trump’s nominees — Tulsi Gabbard, who is also facing confirmation hearings to lead the nation’s intelligence agencies this week — to the floor without a favorable committee vote.
When Cassidy asked for a “yes” or “no” as to whether Kennedy would unequivocally say hepatitis B and measles vaccines do not cause autism, Kennedy qualified his answer: “If the data is there, I will absolutely do that.”
At the end of the hearing, Cassidy returned to the question, reading the title of a study that found no link between vaccines and autism.
Cassidy seemed to plead with Kennedy to renounce his past claims: “Convince me,” Cassidy said.
But Kennedy declined. “You and I can meet about it,” he said — adding that he would bring his own studies, some of which show “the opposite.”
Over the course of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee hearing, Kennedy said he would make declarations on vaccine safety “if the data is there” or if presented with further evidence.
Democrats on Cassidy’s health panel quoted Kennedy statements questioning vaccine safety, arguing that the vociferousness of his anti-vaccine views belied the assurances he was offering Cassidy about studying the data.
“There have been, as I understand, dozens of studies done all over the world that make it very clear that vaccines do not cause autism,” the panel’s ranking member, Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said. “I heard you just say, if the evidence is there. The evidence is there.”
Democrats also raised Kennedy’s shaky responses on Medicare and Medicaid, arguing that he didn’t understand the programs he would be in charge of managing. Cassidy had questioned Kennedy about the programs when the Finance Committee heard from Kennedy yesterday.
But Republicans on the committee made the case that Kennedy’s desire to disrupt the public health establishment and concentrate on finding and combating the root causes of disease — the focus of Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” — movement were refreshing.
Some also argued Kennedy’s skepticism about vaccines was healthy and that the nation’s top health official should be willing to question scientific dogma.
Kentucky Republican Rand Paul turned toward Cassidy and argued that in some cases government guidance on vaccination was debatable, citing the recommendation that all infants receive the hepatitis B vaccine and that children and healthy, young people get Covid shots. “You’re not going to let him have the debate because you’re just going to criticize and say, ‘It is this and admit to it or we’re not going to appoint you.’”
That prompted an exchange with Cassidy over the necessity of infant vaccination for hepatitis B, with Cassidy arguing it was.
Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.) later commended Kennedy for questioning the vaccine schedule. “An issue that I have as a father of six is that when my kids come out from getting their vaccines they look like a freakin’ pin cushion,” he said. “When you start looking at the rise of autism, why wouldn’t we be looking at everything?”
Kennedy at times tried to assuage concerns about his anti-vaccine history, saying he would “restore vaccine uptake.” He repeatedly suggested that government leaders aren’t trustworthy and argued that is the reason many people refuse vaccines.
Democrats looked united in their opposition to Kennedy, but it wasn’t clear whether they could hope for any Republican allies beyond Cassidy.
Sens. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), who have both shown a willingness to break from Trump, voting last week against his choice to lead the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, suggested concern about Kennedy’s anti-vaccine work.
Murkowski was one of few senators to attend the entire hearing, but didn’t ask Kennedy about vaccination, and ended by questioning Kennedy about health care in Alaska. After the hearing, she said she didn’t think there was anything “brand new” from the hearing and declined to elaborate on how she’d vote.
Asked whether she was convinced Kennedy is not a vaccine skeptic, Murkowski said she was ignoring the question. But she went on to say that some questions were “telling,” that he seemed skeptical of the safety of some vaccines but not others.
“When the science has been out there for a long time and been proven, do you need to continue being the skeptic?” she asked after the hearing.
Collins arrived late to the hearing and asked Kennedy whether he’d invest in finding a vaccine for Lyme disease and whether he backed polio vaccination. Kennedy said yes.
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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