RFK Jr.'s Confirmation Hearings Were A Disaster—And That Still Might Matter

After two devastating confirmation hearings, can Democrats swing enough Republicans to scuttle Kennedy's nomination?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., U.S. President Donald Trump's nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services, testifies during his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing. Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images.

This week saw Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. go to the Hill for his confirmation hearings in his quest to be Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services. On Wednesday, he went before the Senate Finance Committee, and then, earlier today, before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

And let’s just say it went about as well as you might expect.

Even Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who has distinguished himself as the Democrat “least likely to vote against Trump” in these early days of Trump 2.0, put it rather bluntly:

“I don’t think it went well for him today. I don’t think that was a good one.”

“I think we can all agree that was really a difficult performance,” he said. “I’m not sure he’ll even make it out of the committee.”

Kennedy’s horrible no good very bad week actually began even before he stepped foot in the first hearing room on Wednesday. On Tuesday, his cousin Caroline Kennedy broke her silence with an extraordinarily damning letter calling out Kennedy as a “predator” and urging opposition to his nomination.

You can watch Kennedy read her letter aloud below:

But that’s not the only bombshell that dropped. On Tuesday, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) issued a letter pausing all federal grants and assistance. That created mass confusion among federal, state, and local agencies, and the ensuing public outcry led the Trump administration to rescind the memo.

And that changed the politics of D.C. almost instantly. As NBC News put it,

Democrats find their voice fighting Trump's federal funding freeze

In short, Kennedy walked into a newly fired-up Democratic Party that seemed to go from wandering in the wilderness to raring for a fight. During the three-hour confirmation hearing on Wednesday and another three on Thursday, Kennedy was confronted with his own past statements by a unified opposition, with Democrats pulling few punches.

But is the vibe shift enough? Is Fetterman right that Kennedy won’t even make it out of committee, which Republicans only control by one vote? And even if he does, are there four Republican votes against Kennedy to quash his nomination?

In today’s piece, I’ll take a look at the highlights (and low points) from Kennedy’s hearings, look at how we got here, and game out which Republicans might side with Democrats against confirming Kennedy.

Trump’s Dwindling Political Capital

On paper, Kennedy’s past statements should have disqualified him from this position long ago. As I documented back in 2023, Kennedy’s views are well outside the mainstream and are littered with dangerous conspiracies related to health. To name just a few:

• Kennedy famously claimed autism is linked to vaccines, a claim widely debunked. He repeatedly invokes Nazi Germany and the Holocaust to describe vaccine mandates…and keeps apologizing for making such offensive and outlandish references.

• Kennedy told Joe Rogan that cellphones and WiFi radiation cause cancer, leading Rogan to hilariously declare with a straight face “we gotta get rid of WiFi!”

• Kennedy told right-wing podcaster Jordan Peterson chemicals in water turn boys trans—like frogs!

• He said AIDS was caused by gay men’s inhalation of poppers, not HIV—which he likens to a conspiracy by Dr. Fauci.

• Kennedy claimed antidepressants such as Prozac are a cause of mass shootings, and he reiterated this claim on his Twitter Spaces conversation with Elon Musk.

But for Trump, all of this was secondary to the political necessity of an alliance with Kennedy.

After praising Kennedy when he was challenging Joe Biden as a Democrat in the 2024 campaign, Trump quickly changed his tune after Kennedy launched an independent bid that could potentially play spoiler to Trump’s own candidacy. So he made promises to Kennedy in exchange for his dropping out and endorsing Trump. And it worked.

It could have ended there, of course, but Trump quickly became enamored with the idea of elevating Kennedy, and similarly Tulsi Gabbard, as former Democrats now firmly within the MAGA fold. And so after pledging to let Kennedy “go wild on health,” once Trump won the election he followed through by absurdly nominating him to run Health and Human Services, the ultimate “own the libs” move.

In the wake of the election, Trump was high on his own supply, nominating a slew of unqualified radical nominees to his cabinet under the assumption that he and his Republican enablers had a “mandate” and would face weak opposition. To borrow a phrase from George W. Bush, Trump thought he had political capital and he was going to spend it.

That political capital is much diminished today. First, Trump barely got Pete Hegseth, his monumentally unqualified nominee for Secretary of Defense through the Senate, with a 50-50 tie vote that JD Vance had to break. Reporting suggests that the Trump team moved North Carolina Senator Thom Tillis to a Yes at the last minute, narrowly avoiding an embarrassing defeat.

Democrats, on the other hand, saw a rise in their fortunes. First, there was a special election in Iowa this week in which the Democratic candidate flipped a Republican state senate seat in a district Trump carried in 2024 with 60% of the vote, a reminder that the strength Trump and Republicans have projected since the election was not necessarily here to stay.

And then, as Trump’s OMB order caused utter chaos and the administration hung Republicans out to dry as they tried to defend the indefensible, Democrats saw an opening and began to push back. For example, 22 Democrats switched their votes on Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s confirmation to “No” on Tuesday in protest of the OMB letter. Once it was rescinded, many saw that as vindication of a newly aggressive and on-message minority.

According to NBC News:

“Yesterday was the first day I actually felt good about Dem messaging in, like, six months,” a Democratic strategist told NBC News. “Because it was an economic message and we were so unified.”

And according to Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut, it was the wake-up call Democrats needed.

“I think there were some people that were afraid to cry wolf who now realize the wolf has been in our living room all along,” Murphy said. “We have to make some decisions about how we’re going to conduct ourselves. Nobody’s going to believe us on the outside that this is a five-alarm fire if we’re helping them pass legislation and confirm nominees on the inside.”

RFK Jr. Versus RFK Jr.

As the above discussion shows, in political terms, Kennedy was already swimming upstream going into this week’s hearings. And judging by his back-and-forth exchanges with Senators, he began to drown in his own record.

One particularly notable exchange during Wednesday’s Finance Committee hearing occurred between Kennedy and Senator Michael Bennet (D-CO), who directly confronted Kennedy with many of his past conspiratorial statements.

For example, Bennet asked Kennedy if he ever said that chemicals in our water are turning boys and men trans. Kennedy denied it.

Then there was this statement about Lyme Disease that Kennedy actually conceded he “probably” did say.

I mean…

In another brutal exchange, Senator Ron Wyden called Kennedy out for his flip-flopping on vaccines, which Kennedy now claims to support despite past opposition, particularly regarding the Covid vaccine:

And the lifesaving measles vaccine.

Senator Bernie Sanders was ready for Kennedy’s vaccine revisionism, calling him out for allowing an organization he founded to sell onesies promoting radical anti-vaxx messages.

During Thursday’s Senate HELP Committee hearing, things didn’t go much better for him.

This exchange with Senator Alsobrooks (D-MD) over statements he made about the differences in vaccine protocols for Black and white patients was disastrous.

And this incredibly powerful moment from Senator Maggie Hassan (D-NH) put the very real consequences of Kennedy’s vaccine skepticism into perspective.

But in the end, Kennedy’s biggest obstacle out of these hearings may prove not to be a Democrat at all.

Senator Bill Cassidy, a Republican Senator from Louisiana who is a member of the Senate Finance Committee and Chair of the HELP Committee—and notably, also a physician—repeatedly made clear he was skeptical of Kennedy’s nomination.

Because for Cassidy, it’s personal.

But it was a stark moment from Wednesday that really seemed to sum up the Kennedy hearings, as Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island told Kennedy to his face:

“You frighten people.”

Can Kennedy Actually Be Defeated?

Despite appearances in front of these committees that should be disqualifying on their face, some Republicans have communicated that they feel he did what he needed to do. But that doesn’t mean his confirmation is assured.

Kennedy likely will face unanimous Democratic opposition to his nomination should it reach the full Senate. So the key question is, unlike the Pete Hegseth nomination, will there be enough Republican votes—namely 4—to scuttle RFK Jr.’s nomination?

Among the usual suspects are Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. They have a long history of bucking the Republican Party on Trump and were among the three Senators to oppose Hegseth last week.

So far though, neither of them has signaled outright opposition to Kennedy nor support. During today’s Senate HELP Committee hearing, Murkowski urged Kennedy to use his platform to boost confidence in vaccines and said she was “particularly attracted by the focus on chronic diseases” but was noncommittal on his nomination following the hearing.

Collins, also a member of the Senate HELP Committee, reportedly said that she felt he “answered her questions well” but that she will need to look at his other responses since she was dividing her time between confirmation hearings today.

Another possible get would be Mitch McConnell (R-KY) who seems to have charted his own path since stepping down from his Senate leadership role. His “no” vote on Hegseth, despite being nondeterminative, sent a signal that he would not be in lockstep with Trump’s nominees.

As The New York Times puts it:

Mr. McConnell, a polio survivor, has said that anyone who would “undermine public confidence in proven cures” would have trouble winning Senate confirmation. Out of leadership and liberated to vote the way he wants to, Mr. McConnell opposed Mr. Hegseth’s confirmation. He also did not meet with Mr. Kennedy when he visited with senators on Capitol Hill ahead of his hearings.

As for who might bring a decisive fourth No vote to defeat Kennedy’s nomination, experts are eyeing Senator Cassidy, who expressed clear skepticism regarding RFK’s troubling anti-vaxx views.

According to CBS News:

Cassidy, the top Republican on the committee, made it clear his vote was not a lock, and told Kennedy to expect to hear from him this weekend.

While there may in fact be four Republican votes to defeat Kennedy in the full Senate, as Senator John Fetterman suggested, Kennedy’s nomination need not get that far. To defeat his nomination at the committee level, Democrats would need to flip just one of the committee Republicans to their side, assuming Democrats remain united to kill the nomination in committee.

This feels very doable considering Bill Cassidy is a member of the Finance Committee and is Chair of the HELP Committee and Senators Collins and Murkowski sit on the HELP Committee.

A “no” vote in committee, however, does not necessarily mean a confirmation vote would not advance to the full Senate body.

Per Politico:

Cassidy’s vote is critical because he also sits on the Finance Committee, which heard Kennedy’s testimony yesterday and will decide 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.

Your move, Senator Cassidy.

The reality is, we need to keep the pressure on these swing Senators by calling their offices and urging a “no” vote on Kennedy. Based on his performance at the hearings, his confirmation remains far from assured.

Lisa Murkowski (202) 224-6665

Susan Collins (202) 224-2523

Bill Cassidy (202) 224-5824

Mitch McConnell (202) 224-2541

As one of Cassidy’s constituents puts it well: