A Republican Senator Criticized RFK Jr.—but He Had to Go Full “Dear Leader” to Do It

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At the start of his eagerly anticipated testimony before the Senate Finance Committee, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. went around the hearing room to greet the committee members. Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy appeared enthused to see him.

“Hey, Bobby!” he said with a handshake. “How are you, man?”

Cassidy was the senator to watch in Thursday morning’s hearing, Congress’ first chance to question Kennedy since last week’s bloodbath^[2] at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention over pending vaccine recommendations.

Cassidy, a doctor and chair of the Senate’s health committee, was visibly torn during Kennedy’s confirmation process at the beginning of the year. He ultimately cast the pivotal committee vote to advance Kennedy’s nomination after receiving various “assurances^[3]” on vaccine policy that Kennedy has proceeded to ignore. A reasonable person might conclude that Kennedy has spent half a year making Cassidy look like a fool. A senator keen on preserving his dignity might want to push back on this, and a doctor might be keen to push back on the dismantling of a public health marvel.

But Cassidy’s desire to reclaim prestige conflicts with his reelection reality. The senator, up for reelection in 2026, has been on shaky ground with President Donald Trump and MAGA primary voters after voting to convict Trump in his 2021 impeachment trial. He has MAGA primary challengers already^[4], with more serious ones^[5] still considering entering. Coming out directly against Trump’s HHS secretary—himself the leader of a key movement within the MAGA coalition—might be what Cassidy wants to do. It might have been what he wanted to do at the beginning of the year. But it could make it insurmountably difficult to win another six years in the Senate.

To resolve the conflict, Cassidy has settled on a strategy of cutesiness.

He previewed this approach on Wednesday when he posted^[6] that “President Trump deserved a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed,” the streamlined process in 2020 to develop mRNA COVID vaccines. It was a direct appeal to the ego of a president who has been openly campaigning for a Nobel Prize—as well as a means of cloaking himself under the Trump flag before laying into Kennedy.

“Do you agree with me that President Trump deserves a Nobel Prize for Operation Warp Speed?” Cassidy asked Kennedy at the beginning of his questioning on Thursday.

“Absolutely, Senator,” Kennedy responded.

“But you just told Sen. Bennet that the COVID vaccine killed more people than COVID,” Cassidy, turning on a dime, said. (Kennedy denied this.)

“You were also, as lead attorney for the Children’s Health Defense, you engaged in multiple lawsuits attempting to restrict access to the COVID vaccine,” Cassidy continued. “Again, it surprises me that you think so highly of Operation Warp Speed when, as an attorney, you attempted to restrict access.”

Throughout his five minutes, Cassidy repeatedly put Kennedy on the defensive as someone who’s deconstructed Trump’s achievement in Operation Warp Speed, including through his cancellation^[7] of $500 million in mRNA vaccine development funding. And so, despite their warm greeting at the outset of the proceedings, the exchange did not end in a friendly manner.

“I would say, effectively, we’re denying people vaccine,” Cassidy concluded.

“You’re wrong,” Kennedy said.

This wasn’t the only thrill of the loud hearing. Just about every Democrat got into a shouting match with Kennedy, and Kennedy accused just about all of them of being bought-and-paid-for shills for Big Pharma. (We’d recommend viewing a red-in-the-face, arms-flying Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders sarcastically shouting^[9], “Eeeeeverybody is corrupt but you?” There’s something about this guy^[10] when he gets Bobby Kennedy Jr. in a room.)

And Cassidy wasn’t the only Republican to push Kennedy around. Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the No. 2 Senate Republican who has rarely if ever strayed an inch from the party line, said he’d “grown deeply concerned” with Kennedy’s moves on vaccines. North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, who’s retiring and thus has permission to speak plainly, spoke plainly^[11] about “diminishing the credibility of the CDC.” And Senate Majority Leader John Thune has made clear he doesn’t appreciate spending valuable floor time^[12] confirming CDC directors whom Kennedy is going to fire a month later.

All Senate Republicans, except for Kentucky’s Mitch McConnell, voted to confirm Kennedy to his position, and all are responsible for the consequences to public health. It’s a little unfair, then, that Cassidy publicly shoulders almost all of the blame for everything that Kennedy does, when most other Republican senators with misgivings wouldn’t even entertain the principled path.

Cassidy could have spared himself a lot of trouble if he’d just gone along for the ride, like everyone else, when Kennedy was nominated. Instead, he has tried to balance his conscience as a physician with his tenuous electoral situation. But the obviousness of what he’s doing—it’s actually Kennedy who disrespects Mr. Trump by questioning vaccines—isn’t going to fool MAGA voters who already don’t trust Cassidy. And the need for oversight won’t disappear anytime soon, as HHS prepares to make more vaccine recommendations and to release its findings on the relationship between vaccines and autism (and we know what Kennedy intends to find). Try as he may to thread the needle, Cassidy’s choice between his career and the truth is one he has faced since Kennedy’s nomination was announced, and one he’ll keep facing so long as Kennedy remains in his job—or Cassidy is removed from his.^[17]

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