President-elect Donald Trump’s choose to guide the Division of Well being and Human Companies faces an uphill battle for affirmation due to his embrace of conspiracy theories and his controversial views on vaccination. However some Democrats look like steeling themselves for the chance of getting to search out frequent floor with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. within the occasion that he’s confirmed.
Whereas it’s arduous to search out Democrats keen to supply even faint reward to lots of Trump’s Cupboard picks, some Senate Democrats are providing tentative help to Kennedy’s advocacy for higher vitamin and his pledge to Make America Wholesome Once more.
“I’ve heard him say a lot of things that are absolutely right. I have concerns, obviously, about people leading in our country who aren’t based in science and fact,” Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., informed reporters. “I have concerns about the nominee but I tell you, when he speaks about the issues I was just speaking about, we’re talking out of the same playbook.”
Kennedy, who’s scheduled to fulfill largely with GOP senators on Capitol Hill subsequent week, can solely lose three Republicans throughout his affirmation course of if all Democrats and independents vote in opposition to him.
A number of Republicans — together with Sens. Invoice Cassidy of Louisiana, Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Charles E. Grassley of Iowa — say they aren’t one hundred pc bought, although a spokesman for Grassley stated he makes it his coverage by no means to announce his vote on cabinet-level nominations till they’ve had a Senate listening to.
However whereas a number of Senate Democrats stated they plan to grill Kennedy on his endorsement of debunked theories that vaccines trigger autism and different power illnesses, some acknowledge the opportunity of frequent floor on different coverage points, like vitamin and tobacco regulation.
None, nevertheless, have gone as far as to say they’ll vote to verify him.
Frequent floor
A key space of frequent floor between Kennedy and Democrats could possibly be vitamin.
Democrats targeted on vitamin throughout a Senate Well being, Schooling, Labor and Pensions listening to final week, throughout which Chair Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., sounded strikingly much like Kennedy in his questioning of Meals and Drug Administration Commissioner Robert Califf over the company’s gradual progress to develop a front-of-package vitamin labeling rule.
Kennedy’s “Make America Healthy Again” motion focuses on bettering dietary entry and stamping out power illness — two points that Democrats are sympathetic to.
Jeff Hutt, spokesperson for the Make America Wholesome Once more PAC, stated in an interview that the group suggested each Republicans and Democrats as lawmakers ready for final week’s Senate HELP listening to, offering background data and suggesting questions.
Of the Democrats who spoke through the listening to, solely Sen. Edward J. Markey, D-Mass., used his time to denounce Kennedy.
Hutt underscored that Kennedy already has private relationships with Democrats from his previous within the Democratic Social gathering, and it could possibly be Republican senators that he’s assembly for the primary time when he goes to the Hill subsequent week.
Sen. John Hickenlooper, D-Colo., stated after final week’s listening to that he hadn’t spoken but with Kennedy however he can have “a lot of questions” after they meet.
“He’s pointed out a number of startling and challenging issues, but he’s also said some things that have been interpreted as anti-science, have been widely disproven,” Hickenlooper stated. “He’s going to have a huge amount of authority if he’s confirmed for that office, so we’re going to have to look at overall what his vision is.”
Kennedy has stated he’d prefer to shake up how the FDA handles vitamin, and that the company workers isn’t doing sufficient to guard youngsters from synthetic components in meals like Froot Loops.
Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, additionally stated he has reservations about Kennedy, however sees areas the place they may work collectively, like tobacco coverage. He stated he want to meet with Kennedy, however doesn’t have a sit-down scheduled but.
“There’s a lot of interest in a wide array of issues, you know,” Wyden stated “There are areas where he’s made some statements that I think are quite outlandish and he’s going to get questions about that.”
‘Entirely destructive’
Whereas some Democrats seek for coverage center floor with Kennedy, many Democrats and public well being specialists say their considerations about Kennedy’s insistence that vaccines trigger autism is sufficient to deter them from working with him.
“These are things that perhaps there’d be an opportunity to make progress on, but it would be an incredible price to pay if we make progress on chronic diseases at the cost of seeing outbreaks of measles, whooping cough and other diseases that shouldn’t be occurring in American communities,” stated Richard Besser, the previous interim CDC director and present CEO of the Robert Woods Johnson Basis.
Robert Weissman, co-president of the progressive advocacy group Public Citizen, stated that Kennedy’s views are such that he shouldn’t obtain any help.
“To focus on the areas of overlap is to miss the overall importance of who is in the space of public health, and I think he is entirely destructive,” he stated.
He stated a few of Kennedy’s points round meals and vitamin truly fall underneath the Division of Agriculture and it’s unclear how he’ll implement them in his position as HHS secretary.
Weissman stated Kennedy’s method to pharmaceutical regulation may inform his pondering in relation to meals and vitamin. In his view, Kennedy’s method to taking over “big pharma” by decreasing regulatory requirements misses the purpose. He stated that the FDA as an alternative must implement sturdy scientific judgment in relation to approvals of medical merchandise.
“That suggests that we should be skeptical, too, about what he’s saying in the food and agriculture space,” he stated.