BREAKING: RFK Confirmed As HHS Secretary

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., the black sheep of a storied Democratic family who became a full-throated supporter of President Donald Trump, is now one of the most powerful figures in Washington, D.C.

Kennedy was confirmed by the U.S. Senate in a 52-48 vote, underscoring the president’s ability to persuade Republican senators to support his most controversial cabinet nominees. The Democrat-turned-independent will soon be sworn in as head of the U.S. Health and Human Services, an agency that accounts for approximately one-fourth of the federal budget.

Mitch McConnell represented the lone Republican “no” vote.

The road to confirmation for RFK was far from easy and, indeed, perhaps the most difficult among all of Trump’s nominees. Before he could be voted on, Kennedy made appearances before two Senate committees where Democrats like Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Ron Wyden (D-OR) angrily denounced his past statements on vaccines and other modern medicines.

The unflappable RFK kept his cool and promised that he would not “take away” vaccines from Americans, a unilateral power that the HHS secretary does not possess. His testimony drew words of encouragement from holdout Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), a moderate Republican who said that RFK “answered my questions well” following the hearing. She ultimately voted to confirm him on Thursday.

Some of Kennedy’s rise in standing among senators was caused by Democrats inflicting wounds on themselves, said some observers. Brad Todd, a Republican strategist, said following Warren’s contentious questioning of Kennedy that the Massachusetts Democrat should have instead emphasized her common interests with him, like being pro-choice, to make Republicans uncomfortable. Instead, her theatrical diatribe made him a sympathetic figure.

“I think RFK Jr.’s hearing, to me, was the most entertaining, but it was a big mistake by Democrats. Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders made him more confirmable. There’s nobody who Republicans dislike more than Elizabeth Warren, and it’s for all the right reasons,” Todd told a “CNN This Morning” panel last week. “But she should have gone with RFK and said, ‘You know, look, I agree with you on abortion. I agree with you on affirmative action. I agree with you on guns. In fact, I like you more than any nominee [President] Donald Trump ever had.'”

“If she wanted to sink him, she should have hugged him. But she doesn’t get that. She wants to make sound bites for the left,” he continued, the Daily Caller reported. “And I know that … this is all theater for her. I thought that made that hearing a circus.”

Apart from the withdrawal of Matt Gaetz, President Trump has maintained an unblemished record with his cabinet nominees. Kennedy’s confirmation comes one day after Tulsi Gabbard was confirmed with nearly unanimous Republican support to be the president’s director of national intelligence.

Both nominees are part of a successful but controversial club that also includes Pete Hegseth, President Trump’s defense secretary, whose nomination was nearly derailed by a steady drip of allegations about drinking and sexual harassment. He lost support from three Republican senators, the most he could afford, but prevailed in a 51-50 vote where Vice President J.D. Vance cast the tie-breaker.