{"id":4821,"date":"2025-01-13T22:18:39","date_gmt":"2025-01-13T22:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/million-dollar-campaign-targets-robert-f-kennedy-jr\/"},"modified":"2025-01-13T22:18:39","modified_gmt":"2025-01-13T22:18:39","slug":"million-dollar-campaign-targets-robert-f-kennedy-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/million-dollar-campaign-targets-robert-f-kennedy-jr\/","title":{"rendered":"Million dollar campaign targets Robert F. Kennedy Jr."},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

More than $1 million is going into the campaign to convince senators to block the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services, according to a spokesperson for the operation.<\/p>\n

The efforts of the Stop RFK War Room \u2014 helmed by the group Protect Our Care \u2014 have included lobbying, grassroots advocacy urging Americans to contact their senators, paid advertising in Washington and in the states of key senators and a report on Kennedy\u2019s anti-vaccine rhetoric that was hand delivered to Senate offices.<\/p>\n

Protect Our Care is \u201cfiscally sponsored\u201d by<\/a> dark money group Sixteen Thirty Fund, a progressive organization that doesn\u2019t disclose its donors. It had more than $180 million<\/a> in revenue in 2023, according to its tax filings, and has reportedly received contributions from labor unions, environmental groups and Democratic superdonors including George Soros.<\/p>\n

Other progressive groups are joining the campaign to stop Kennedy. 314 Action, a group that supports Democratic scientists<\/a> running for office, convened Democrats<\/a> in Congress who are doctors or nurses last week to urge senators to block Kennedy \u2014 and has spent six figures on advertising with the same message, according to a spokesperson.<\/p>\n

Why it matters: <\/b>The campaigns come as Kennedy has held meetings with Republicans and Democratic senators to try to secure votes for his confirmation.<\/p>\n

Though several Republicans have come out of the meetings and said they\u2019d back Kennedy, or suggested as much, some weren\u2019t as enthusiastic<\/a>. No Democrats have committed to voting for Kennedy and if none vote for him he can only lose three Republican votes and still go on to lead HHS.<\/p>\n

Behind the effort: <\/b>Leslie Dach, Protect Our Care\u2019s founder, worked at the Department of Health and Human Services during Barack Obama\u2019s presidency, and the group has fought to preserve Obamacare. Brad Woodhouse, a longtime Democratic strategist, is the group\u2019s executive director<\/a>. Its advisory board includes other top Obama administration officials, including former HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Acting Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Director Andy Slavitt.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next: <\/b>The Senate Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committees are expected to hold hearings on Kennedy\u2019s confirmation in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n

Chelsea Cirruzzo contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More than $1 million is going into the campaign to convince senators to block the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services, according to a spokesperson for the operation. The efforts of the Stop RFK War Room \u2014 helmed by the group Protect Our Care \u2014 have included lobbying, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4821\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}