'Significant unease': 4 GOP senators losing confidence in top Trump Cabinet official

04 September

Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-South Dakota) on February 11, 2025 (Joshua Sukoff/Shutterstock.com)

On Thursday, September 4, health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was questioned by GOP and Democratic senators on Capitol Hill. Democrats, overall, were much more aggressive in their questioning, expressing major concerns about his vaccination policies. Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Washington State) was downright scathing in her attacks, telling RFK Jr., "You are a charlatan."

Never Trump conservative and ex-GOP strategist Tim Miller, discussing the hearing during an MSNBC appearance, told host Katy Tur that RFK Jr. was an "absurd choice" for the position but lamented that he was confirmed anyway because most GOP senators are terrified of President Donald Trump. Meanwhile, on CNN, congressional correspondent Manu Raju reported that some Senate Republicans are expressing "significant unease" with Kennedy.

When CNN's Kasie Hunt asked Raju what GOP senators were feeling about "how well RFK performed today," he responded that there was "a lot of unease."

Raju noted that when he asked retiring Sen. Thom Tillis (R-North Carolina) if he regretted voting to confirm RFK Jr., he responded, "Not yet."

Raju told Hunt, "He said he wants some key information from RFK Jr. about how he's ... making some of his decisions. And he also said the information that's coming out, the rhetoric that's coming out of HHS, is, quote, 'dangerous' to voters, to Americans who may not have access to quality information about vaccines. But he's hardly the only one who is raising some concerns or showing some significant unease."

Raju continued, "The top Republican in the Senate, the Senate majority leader, John Thune — I asked him directly: Do you have confidence in RFK Jr. as HHS secretary? And he just simply would not say. He said, 'it's not exactly what I think; it's what the president ultimately thinks.'"

The CNN reporter went on to note that Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-Louisiana) told him he will let his "exchange" with Kennedy during the hearing "speak for itself."

"That exchange today was quite fiery between Cassidy and RFK, Jr. about Kennedy's rolling back of vaccines for COVID-19," adding that Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) "would not answer questions about Kennedy."

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