The Senate voted mostly along party lines 52-48, with Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.) being the sole GOP vote against Kennedy’s nod to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
Kennedy managed to overcome a handful of GOP senators whose doubts threatened his confirmation. Republican Sens. Bill Cassidy (La.), Susan Collins (Maine) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska) had all expressed reservations about Kennedy leading up to the confirmation, but both Kennedy and Vice President Vance were able to clinch the senators’ support with closed-door assurances.
McConnell, who survived polio as a child, said his health history influenced his decision to cast the sole Republican vote against Kennedy’s nomination.
“In my lifetime, I’ve watched vaccines save millions of lives from devastating diseases across America and around the world,” McConnell said in a statement after the vote. “I will not condone the relitigation of proven cures, and neither will millions of Americans who credit their survival and quality of life to scientific miracles.”
The now-confirmed HHS secretary’s Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) agenda aims to refocus U.S. health priorities on chronic illness instead of infectious diseases. He’s talked about getting rid of ultra-processed foods. But so far, Kennedy has offered few specifics about how he would accomplish it all.
After being sworn in a few hours after the vote, Kennedy vowed to implement an aggressive agenda at HHS focused on “radical transparency” and “ending the corruption” of health agencies. He promised to root out conflicts of interest in the agencies as well as the expert panels that advise them.
Once that happens, “we can do unadorned and unimpeded science rather than the kind of product that is coming out of those agencies,” Kennedy said.
In the Oval Office during Kennedy’s swearing-in ceremony, President Trump said he would sign an executive order establishing a new commission to “Make America Healthy Again” with Kennedy as the chair. The commission will investigate the cause of the decades-long increase in childhood chronic illness, Trump said.
“He’s absolutely committed to getting dangerous chemicals out of our environment and out of our food supply, and getting the American people the facts and the answers that we deserve after years in which our public health system has squandered the trust of our citizens,” Trump said.
Trump also criticized McConnell’s “no” vote, calling him a “very bitter guy.”
