January 30, 2025

RFK Creates Strange Bedfellows

A Democrat opposed by Democrats also elicits the RINO label for skeptical Republicans.

English is a curious language. Take the word “hearings,” for example. In the context of Senate confirmation hearings, the word doesn’t mean anything about using your ears. It means a platform for senators to lecture and yell at nominees they don’t like. It’s like the Internet comments section but for government.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. subjected himself to this charade yesterday and again today after being nominated by Donald Trump to serve as the next secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. I discussed the pros and cons of RFK’s nomination in November. Trump repaid RFK’s endorsement and campaign help with the nomination, and there’s something to be said for broadening the tent. I also grant that a president has wide latitude in choosing nominees, but I remain skeptical that a guy who called the NRA a “terrorist organization” is the right pick to lead a department that oversees 18 agencies and controls roughly one out of every four taxpayer dollars spent by the U.S. government.

That decision is, of course, up to our illustrious senators.

Right off the bat, let me say that what I find most perplexing about his nomination is that some MAGA (and MAHA — Make America Healthy Again) folks essentially insist that GOP opposition to RFK comes only from RINOs. Pardon me for pointing this out, but Kennedy was a Democrat until five minutes ago — and an anti-gun, radically pro-abortion, trial-lawyer-supporting, left-wing Democrat at that. Did I mention that he’s a Kennedy, which comes with the seemingly requisite womanizing?

Yes, RFK asks necessary questions and brings alternative thinking to American health, which is clearly out of whack, but a broken clock is also right twice a day. Unless the definition of “RINO” is as warped as the one for “hearings,” it hardly makes someone a RINO to be skeptical of such a Democrat.

If it does, Donald Trump should call the office. “He’s a Radical Left Lunatic,” Trump once said of RFK. “No Republican can vote for this guy.”

With that, let’s get to some of the highlights of the, er, “hearings,” in which Republicans largely defended the president’s nominee and Democrats launched vigorous attacks against him.

“Kennedy has embraced conspiracy theories, quacks, and charlatans,” noted Oregon Democrat Senator Ron Wyden. In other words, he’s a typical Democrat. Of course, that wasn’t what Wyden meant. His point was to hammer Kennedy’s skepticism of vaccines, though that too was far more typical among Democrats than it ever was among Republicans until Democrats tried to force the COVID vaccine on everyone, proclaiming that skepticism was kooky rebellion.

Kennedy is clearly aware of this perception, saying in his opening statement, “I believe vaccines play a critical role in healthcare. All of my kids are vaccinated. I’ve written books about vaccines. My first book in 2014, the first line of it is ‘I am not anti-vaccine,’ and the last line is ‘I am not anti-vaccine.’” Later, he added, “I support the measles vaccine. I support the polio vaccine. I will do nothing as HHS secretary that makes it difficult or discourages people from taking anything.”

Beyond that, Kennedy’s trial-lawyer connections could be a problem, as ironically noted by fellow trial-lawyer lover Elizabeth Warren. The Massachusetts Democrat grilled RFK over “another way to make money” from drug companies, and that’s through litigation. “I am not going to agree” not to sue drug companies, he replied, even though Warren correctly pointed out that “there’s a lot of ways that you can influence those future lawsuits, and pending lawsuits, while you are secretary of HHS.”

Perhaps the revelation that Big Government often colludes with Big Business will bring Democrats to their senses.

Just kidding. That’s the way they want it to work, at least so long as a Republican administration isn’t in charge.

As the Wall Street Journal editorial board notes, “Mr. Kennedy’s disclosures show that he has received more than $2.5 million from law firms that have sued drug and vaccine makers. He also has a financial stake in a pending lawsuit against human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine maker Merck. Mr. Kennedy’s trial-lawyer ties and financial interests in litigation against drug makers pose a clear conflict of interest.”

Senator Warren, by the way, received more donations from Big Pharma in 2020 than any other senator, save one — and that would be socialist Senator Bernie Sanders.

As you might imagine, Medicaid also came up. “I believe that Medicaid is a critical program but that it is not working as well as it ought to be and President Trump has asked me to make it work better,” Kennedy said. “The premiums are too high, the deductibles are too high, and everybody is getting sicker.” He’s not as wrong about the critique as some of his critics seem to think, but his discussion about Medicaid also generally revealed his left-wing thinking.

The laughter should be reserved for New Mexico Democrat Senator Ben Ray Lujan, who demanded to know, “yes or no,” if Kennedy would support cutting Medicaid. “It’s not up to me to cut Medicaid,” he replied. “It would be up to Congress.” The audience found that reply amusing, which offended Lujan so much that he paused his time to ask that chuckling be treated the same as heckling.

Taking a big step back, RFK shows that Trump intends for his administration to be ideologically diverse and to be filled with people willing to drop proverbial bombs on broken orthodoxies. That’s welcome, but it won’t come without collateral damage.

Exit question, courtesy of Bernie Sanders: “Are you supportive of these onesies?”

Follow Nate Jackson on X/Twitter.

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