Republican senators are talking up Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the environmentalist, anti-vaccine activist and proponent of abortion rights — and expressing optimism about him leading the government’s health agencies.
Kennedy’s confirmation is not assured, but Republicans who spoke to POLITICO this week downplayed their policy differences with him to focus on areas of agreement: around the need to overhaul the public health bureaucracy, to challenge experts they think steered the country wrong during the Covid pandemic and to give President-elect Donald Trump the honeymoon he didn’t get in his first term.
“Bobby’s going to get confirmed,” said Sen. Markwayne Mullin (R-Okla.). “The more you talk to him, the more he explains it, the more you like him.”
The welcome reception the scion of America’s most famous Democratic family is getting this week from the hardline, anti-abortion, small-government, pro-industry Republicans shows just how much fealty Trump commands after winning 77 million votes and a second term last month.
Trump’s alliance with Kennedy — secured with Kennedy’s decision to drop his independent bid for the White House and endorse Trump in August — would have been unthinkable to conservatives just a year ago.
But across the GOP’s Senate caucus, Republicans are putting aside their policy differences with the man Trump once described as a “Radical Left Liberal” and stressing where they see eye to eye.
That illustrates the power of populist ideals — and Trump himself — to push aside traditional conservative values that have anchored the Republican Party for decades.
“He is a Democrat,” one Senate Republican staffer said, granted anonymity to share internal discussions about the nominee. “It’s not lost on us, truly.”
Mullin is perhaps the unlikeliest of allies, considering Kennedy’s long opposition to the fossil fuel industry. Mullin’s biggest financial boosters are in the oil and gas industry and he uses his seat on the Environment and Public Works Committee to oppose their regulation.
Kennedy sees the pollution caused by fossil fuels as a threat to public health and pledged to ban offshore oil drilling and natural gas fracking during his own presidential campaign. After Kennedy endorsed him, Trump said RFK Jr. wouldn’t “touch our liquid gold.”
Mullin’s willingness to compromise on the issue is of a piece with the compromises other Republicans are considering when it comes to Kennedy.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.), a Southern Baptist minister before coming to Congress who describes himself as “the Senate’s most pro-life member,” told POLITICO he was convinced after meeting with Kennedy that he would fall in line with the Trump administration’s abortion stance.
During his presidential campaign, Kennedy said he opposed any government limits on abortion before walking that back to opposing abortion after fetal viability.
“I’ve been arguably one of the leading people in this country for medical freedom and bodily autonomy,” Kennedy said. “I don’t trust government to have jurisdiction over people’s bodies.”
In their meeting, though, Kennedy “was very clear and unequivocal,” Lankford said. “The president’s giving him clear instructions on [abortion]. He’s going to carry those instructions down.”
Kennedy has also won over Alabama Republican Tommy Tuberville, who for 10 months in 2023 earned the ire of Democrats and many in his own party for holding up hundreds of military nominations and promotions over a Pentagon policy permitting service members to travel for abortions on the government’s dime.
After meeting with Kennedy, Tuberville said he was comfortable with Kennedy’s abortion position.
“We sat down and talked about it and both of us came to an agreement,” Tuberville said. “Roe is gone; it’s going back to the states. Let the people vote on it. … I am pro-life, but I am glad our American citizens have a chance to vote in their state — and he’s the same way.”
Republican Chuck Grassley, who has advocated for Iowa’s farmers in the Senate since 1981 and previously said he was worried about Kennedy’s desire to regulate food production and manufacturing, said he sees a lot to like in Kennedy’s anti-establishment views. Grassley suggested he may be willing to overlook disagreements on agricultural issues.
“Maybe he doesn’t have the right answers for me on that. But I know he’s going in and shaking up a department that needs to be shaken up,” Grassley said. “We have a mandate from the last election.”
Some Republicans have expressed concerns about Kennedy’s work as an anti-vaccine activist, during which time he said the measles, mumps and rubella shot causes autism and that the Covid vaccine was the deadliest in the history of the world.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell called out vaccine skepticism in a pointed barb aimed at Kennedy on Friday after the New York Times reported that a Kennedy adviser had called on the FDA to rescind approval of the polio vaccine. McConnell was partly paralyzed by the disease as a child.
Kennedy’s vaccine views look to be his biggest stumbling block to confirmation. He can afford to lose only three Republican votes if every Democratic senator opposes him.
Alaska GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who touted the measles vaccine, said she wanted “to make sure that we have that ability and have access [to vaccines] and continue positive developments.”
But other GOP senators are taking a cue from Trump, who’s said Kennedy wants to review vaccine safety and boost transparency about their pros and cons.
“What he wants with vaccines, which is what I believe in, is transparency,” said Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.). “I’m completely supportive of what he wants to accomplish and I wish him the best of luck.”
