WASHINGTON, D.C. (LifeSiteNews) — The U.S. Senate voted 52-48 on Thursday to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as America’s next secretary of the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), cementing an unconventional partnership between Republican President Donald Trump and an ex-Democrat and longtime critic of the medical establishment.
Kennedy, nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy and son of the late Attorney General Robert Kennedy, is a longtime environmental and medical activist, who initially attempted to challenge President Joe Biden for the Democrat nomination, switched to an independent bid against both Biden and Trump after months of accusing party leadership of having “rigged” the primary process against him, and ultimately dropped out and endorsed Trump in August 2024.
Cheers and applause heard throughout America as RFK Jr. is confirmed as Health Secretary! 🔥 pic.twitter.com/AlM9dPalkQ
— LifeSiteNews (@LifeSite) February 13, 2025
Senators voted 53-47 to invoke cloture on Wednesday, limiting debate over the nomination to a final 30-hour window before a simple-majority confirmation vote. As of press time, Kennedy secured at least 50 votes, meaning that even if the remaining 50 vote against him, Vice President JD Vance will be able to break the tie. Former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was the only Republican to vote no.
Instrumental to Republican support was Kennedy’s assurance that he would implement pro-life policies at HHS despite his ardently pro-abortion history, and convincing senators like Bill Cassidy (R-LA) that he was less opposed to conventional vaccines than his history suggests. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), another expected holdout, announced the day before she would support him.
Kennedy now rises to the top of the very national health bureaucracy he has so sharply criticized for so long, opening an unprecedented opportunity for reform. Whether it will be taken, however, remains to be seen.
As one of the country’s most vocal critics of the COVID establishment and vaccines more generally, Kennedy joining forces with Trump was crucial to reassuring voters that the second Trump administration would take a critical reassessment of the COVID shots that the returning president has previously embraced, although most of Kennedy’s comments since joining Trump have focused on other issues, such as conventional vaccines and harmful food additives.
During the confirmation hearings, Kennedy called the first Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed initiative, which birthed the COVID vaccines in record time, “an extraordinary accomplishment and demonstration of leadership by President Trump.” Trump himself has also recently met with Microsoft chief Bill Gates and artificial intelligence executives about potential future OWS-like initiatives for mRNA-based vaccines targeting cancer and HIV.