Tulsi Gabbard and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Tuesday cleared crucial hurdles towards winning Senate confirmation, handing President Trump key win as he looks for an early display of loyalty from GOP lawmakers.
Gabbard and Kennedy overcame high-stakes committee votes that went down to the wire in their bids to lead the U.S. Intelligence apparatus and the Department of Health and Human Services, respectively.
Skeptical Republicans on each committee made the decision to back them in the final days before the votes after Trump officials, including Vice President Vance, and other GOP leaders cajoled them into maintaining an unblemished slate for nominees who have gone through the committee process.
How the process played out underscores how wary Republicans are of incurring Trump’s wrath only weeks into his administration.
“They’re not going to go against him. If they go against him, they go against 77 million people,” Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said, referring to Trump’s popular vote total in November. “I don’t think they want that if they want [to get] reelected.”
Both nominees now appear likely to be confirmed on the Senate floor in the coming week, though the final votes could be close. Democrats remain vehemently opposed to both nominees and there are a handful of Republicans who haven’t said how they intend to vote.
Each can only afford to lose three votes on the Senate floor. Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is considered a potential “no” vote on both, though it’s unclear how many others will join him.
Gabbard’s nomination was considered to be in peril late last week after her tumultuous confirmation hearing seemed to make the path to confirmation rockier.
Sen. Todd Young (R-Ind.), an ex-Marine intelligence officer, appeared irked while the former Hawaii congresswoman refused to say whether NSA leaker Edward Snowden is a traitor. And Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) had last week indicated she was concerned about Gabbard’s views on government surveillance.
But by Monday top Republicans were optimistic Gabbard would advance out of committee. Young had a series of phone calls with Vance over the weekend, and he told reporters he spoke with Trump, whose campaign he never formally endorsed in 2024. Young told reporters that the president and others didn’t threaten any retaliation if he opposed Gabbard.
“I said, ‘How important is this to you, Mr. President?’ He said, ‘It’s important, but … we’re going to work together on all kinds of other things to make America great again.’ I told him I need reassurances and those were delivered.”
“Never. Never an intimation,” Young told reporters on talk about retaliation. “There was never an intimation that there would be a problem.”
In a lengthy statement on Tuesday, the Indiana Republican said he secured a number of commitments from Gabbard regarding deterring Snowden-like whistleblowers, not pardoning Snowden and working to reauthorize Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
Like Young, Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), the final swing vote on Kennedy, also said he received last-minute assurances before casting the deciding vote in the Finance Committee.
“My expectation that we can have a great working relationship to make America healthy again is the basis of my support,” Cassidy said on the Senate floor following the vote.
Among other commitments, Cassidy said Kennedy and the Trump administration pledged they would not dismantle the federal vaccine safety system and maintain a close relationship with Congress to conduct oversight.
As a result, the longtime anti-vaccine activist is now on a glidepath to running the nation’s health agencies. Nominees can lose three Republicans on the floor if every Democrat votes no.
The pressure campaign to convince Cassidy came after the Louisiana senator was openly wrestling with whether to support Kennedy. During hearings last week Cassidy grilled Kennedy about his repeated assertions falsely linking vaccines to autism, urging him to renounce those claims.
Kennedy wouldn’t, which led Cassidy to speak with him multiple times over the weekend and as recently as Tuesday.
Cassidy on Tuesday said he was flooded with calls from Kennedy supporters. Cassidy was also lobbied by Vance throughout the weekend, including on Tuesday morning just ahead of the vote.
The Louisiana Republican’s handling of the Kennedy situation was seemingly driven by politics as well as his commitment to medicine. Cassidy was a practicing physician for three decades before becoming a politician. He is also up for reelection in 2026 and facing a primary challenge from the right over his vote to convict Trump for his role in the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Cassidy won his 2020 election in a landslide, but after his vote against Trump, state Republicans changed the rules to create a closed primary, where only Republicans and people who aren’t registered in any other party can vote.
Young, on the other hand, is not up for reelection until 2028 — when Trump will be at the end of his White House tenure.
“It’s different for different people,” Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) said when asked what a member would be risking by crossing Trump at this point.
“But obviously, this is a very important issue to the president,” Cornyn added.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) is expected to tee up both nominations for votes that could take place next week.
Until then, the chamber will be busy working through the confirmations of Pam Bondi to lead the Department of Justice, Russell Vought to become director of the Office of Management and Budget, and Eric Turner to head the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
Republicans are also giving the nascent leadership team high marks for keeping the conference together.
“We’re all individuals, and sometimes it’s kind of like herding cats,” said Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), an Intelligence Committee member. “That’s what we do here is you build your team and then you keep the team together and you let people express their concerns and then you work through them and try to come to a common agreement. When you need a unanimous vote, that becomes a challenge.”
“So far, leadership has done a great job of bringing people in, letting them express their concerns, working through the issues, getting people to follow up with questions and answers and clarifications and commitments,” he added.
