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The man who hopes to be President Donald Trump’s health secretary repeatedly asked to see “data” or “science” showing vaccines are safe – but when an influential Republican senator showed him evidence, he dismissed it.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spent two days this week insisting to senators that he’s not anti-vaccine. He said that he instead supports vaccinations and will follow the science in overseeing the $1.7 trillion Department of Health and Human Services, which, among other duties, oversees vaccine research, approval and recommendations.

But Kennedy repeatedly refused to acknowledge scientific consensus that childhood vaccines don’t cause autism and that COVID-19 vaccines saved millions of lives, and he falsely asserted the government has no good vaccine safety monitoring. While appearing to ignore mainstream science, he cited flawed or tangential research to make his points, such as suggesting Black people may need different vaccines than whites.

His responses raised concern among health experts that Kennedy lacks basic skills needed for the job.

“He ignores science. He cherry-picks sometimes fraudulent studies. Sometimes he takes well-done studies and takes little pieces of them out of context,” said Dr. Sean O’Leary of the American Academy of Pediatrics.

He worries that Kennedy could further damage public confidence in vaccines and “we will see return of diseases that we really haven’t seen much of and unfortunately children will suffer.”

Kennedy “in many ways demonstrated his lack of capacity to really understand some details around science and evidence that I think he would really need to know,” said Dr. Georges Benjamin of the American Public Health Association.

The science on vaccines is clear to doctors and scientists — but not to Kennedy
Sen. Bill Cassidy, a Louisiana Republican and physician, said the science is clear that measles and other childhood vaccines are safe and not linked to autism.

Kennedy said if shown the data he would recommend those vaccines and “not only will I do that but I will apologize for any statements that misled people otherwise.”

So Cassidy pulled out and read aloud definitive scientific conclusions that vaccines don’t cause autism. Kennedy rebuffed him, instead mentioning a recent paper that outside experts have called fundamentally flawed — and Cassidy agreed “has some issues” – in an attempt to counter decades of rigorous studies.

The senator told Kennedy his history of “undermining confidence in vaccines with unfounded or misleading arguments concerns me” – and risks casting “a shadow over President Trump’s legacy” if people die of vaccine-preventable diseases should he become health secretary.

Sen. Maggie Hassan, a Democrat from New Hampshire, said there’s a real-world ramification for “re-litigating and churning settled science” – diverting money and time that could be spent finding the real cause of autism.

Kennedy ignored science showing COVID-19 vaccines saved millions of lives
Kennedy claimed there’s no good surveillance system to know that COVID-19 vaccines are safe and lifesaving.

The U.S. tracks vaccine safety through multiple monitoring systems including electronic medical records from a list of health systems. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also checks how vaccines fare internationally, such as during the pandemic when large databases from Israel and the U.K. helped reinforce that the new mRNA vaccines were safe and lowering deaths from the coronavirus.

“You’re applying for the job — clearly you should know this,” said Democratic Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont. “The scientific community has established that COVID vaccines saved millions of lives and you’re casting doubt.”

Kennedy declines to back a vaccine that prevents cancer in women
AAP’s O’Leary said there are about 35,000 cases of cancer related to the HPV virus that could be prevented by that vaccine, including 4,000 deaths per year. “We are already seeing decreases in the number of cases of HPV-related cancers as a result of HPV vaccination.”

Kennedy didn’t answer directly when asked if he stood by claims that the HPV vaccine could cause cancer or other disease. He instead brought up a pending lawsuit and suggested a jury — of non-scientists — would decide.

Kennedy’s unfounded comment about race and vaccine schedules
Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, a Maryland Democrat, asked Kennedy about prior comments that Black people might need a different vaccination schedule than whites. Alsobrooks, who is Black, asked how Kennedy thought she should have been vaccinated differently.

Kennedy referred to some earlier papers suggesting people of African-American ancestry had a stronger immune response to measles and rubella vaccines than white people.

Vaccination recommendations aren’t based on race but on biological factors such as someone’s age and risk of a specific disease. Some studies show Black Americans are more hesitant than whites to receive certain vaccines.

“That is so dangerous,” Alsobrooks told Kennedy.

RFK may be a bad pick but Kash Patel as the director of the FBI should scare people.

Does any normal person who voluntarily voted for trump in 2024 actually think about the consequences of their decisions?

The MAGA crowd simply reacts, nothing more. It's Pavlovian responses to Trump who knows exactly how to trigger them.

So many (pick a number?) MAGAs are reactionary - defined as strong traditionalist conservative political perspective of a person opposed to social, political, and economic change. Reactionary ideologies can be radical in the sense of political extremism in service to re-establishing past conditions. Example of reactionary - someone who strongly opposes reform or change e.g. carrying reactionary attitudes toward women's rights.

So...cult.

But surely there's millions of trump voters who are capable of higher order thinking right?

What goes through their minds exactly, "oh well, I personally find what Mr trump says as offensive and his decisions are poor, he's a criminal and he lies all the time, and he associates himself with people who are dangerous to the USA, but hey! I'm a republican for life like my father before me....mental programming kicks in....

I mean, the whole shyteshow starts with accepting him as a successful businessman, the consummate deal maker, where it's clear he's neither.

Orwell got it right: "The Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command."
More simply: "The emperor has no clothes."

There is growing concern in political circles that Tulsi Gabbard’s nomination for director of national intelligence could be in serious trouble after a confirmation hearing this past week that left even Republican senators openly questioning whether she should be put in such a critical role, multiple people familiar with the matter told NBC News.

Of particular concern is her refusal to answer directly when asked whether Edward Snowden, a former government contractor who leaked highly classified documents and then sought asylum in Russia, was a traitor.

“It’s 50-50 she gets through,” one person familiar with the confirmation process said of Gabbard.

Democratic senators are expected to unanimously oppose Gabbard’s confirmation in a full floor vote, which would mean she can afford to lose the support of only three GOP senators in order to get confirmed.

Many officials inside the White House were “rattled” by Gabbard’s response to the Snowden question, a person familiar with the White House’s thinking said, adding that she seemed unprepared.

The Snowden moment caught President Donald Trump’s attention, according to another person familiar with the White House’s thinking. As he watched a clip of it, Trump wondered aloud how her lack of a direct answer would play out, this person said.

“He was curious about how it would affect her chances at nomination or if it wouldn’t matter at all,” this person said.

Gabbard was grilled by senators from both sides of the aisle during her Senate Intelligence Committee hearing about her past comments praising Snowden and suggesting he should be pardoned.

In one exchange with Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., Gabbard refused to definitively say that Snowden is a traitor.

Asked directly whether Snowden is a traitor, Gabbard told Lankford, “My heart is with my commitment to our Constitution and our nation’s security."

"I have shown throughout my almost 22 years of service in the military, as well as my time in Congress, how seriously I take the privilege of having access to classified information and our nation’s secrets, and that’s why I’m committed, if confirmed as director of national intelligence, to joining you in making sure that there is no future Snowden-type leak,” she added.

When Lankford followed up with the same question, Gabbard simply said, “Senator, I’m focused on the future and how we can prevent something like this from happening again.”

The fresh doubts about Gabbard’s ability to be confirmed come after the White House, in advance of her hearing, privately made the case that she needed to do the work to win over skeptical senators.

“She’s the one who has the most work to be done in convincing Senators to vote for her,” one of the people familiar with the confirmation process said.

Gabbard prepared for her confirmation hearing extensively, including holding mock sessions, according to a person familiar with the process.

White House officials insist Trump is standing by Gabbard, and he posted an article on Truth Social on Friday that praised her confirmation hearing performance.

“President Trump nominated Tulsi Gabbard because he believes she will do an excellent job as the Director of National Intelligence, and we expect the Senate to confirm her,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in a statement to NBC News when asked about any concerns about Gabbard’s nomination.

And when asked whether the White House is planning to defend Gabbard just as aggressively as it did for Pete Hegseth, who faced a rocky path to his confirmation as defense secretary, one of the sources familiar with the White House’s thinking said, “Yes, absolutely.”

In the past, Gabbard has called Snowden “a brave whistleblower” and even said that she would pardon him when she ran in the Democratic presidential primary in 2019.

“Yes,” Gabbard said at the time in response to podcast host Joe Rogan’s question about whether she’d pardon Snowden if elected.

At Thursday’s hearing, Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, asked Gabbard whether she would advocate for clemency or a pardon for Snowden if she were confirmed as DNI.

“My responsibility would be to ensure the security of our nation’s secrets, and [I] would not take actions to advocate for any actions related to Snowden,” Gabbard told the senator.

In her answer to a question from Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., Gabbard acknowledged that Snowden should not have leaked all of the documents that he did but still seemed to defend his actions.

“What message would it send to the intelligence workforce to have a DNI who would celebrate staff and contractors deciding to leak our nation’s most sensitive secrets as they see fit?” Warner asked.

“The fact is, he also, even as he broke the law, released information that exposed egregious, illegal and unconstitutional programs that are happening within our government that led to serious reforms,” Gabbard told Warner.

With her confirmation hearing behind her, the Senate panel that questioned her on Thursday will now decide whether to vote her nomination out of committee. If a simple majority — which could be made up of just Republicans — backs Gabbard, her nomination will head to a vote of the full Senate.

But with Republicans holding just a one-seat majority on the committee, that looming vote remains precarious for Gabbard, and the fallout from her testimony this past week was immediate.

Lankford, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, had previously told NBC News' "Meet the Press" he was a “yes.” But after Gabbard’s hearing, Lankford told reporters: “I think there are a lot of questions after.”

Republican Sen. Josh Hawley from Missouri said, “I am worried that her nomination may be in jeopardy.”

The first person familiar with the confirmation process also said there have been mixed reviews coming out of her one-on-one meetings with senators.

But after her hearing, Gabbard met with the chairman of the intelligence committee, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., to review their strategy, according to a source close to Gabbard. The source added that the White House, Cotton and Gabbard have been in lockstep since the hearing.

“We felt really good about the reaction from Senators Collins and Cornyn,” the person added.

The source said, however, that Gabbard’s team was unsure whether she has support from Lankford and Sen. Todd Young, R-Ind.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, had pushed Gabbard during her hearing about her perspective on warrants related to Americans appearing in surveillance data. After the hearing ended, Cornyn told reporters, “I thought she did okay.”

But on Friday, he announced that he plans to support Gabbard’s confirmation.

The Trump administration has ignited criticism by giving a high-level State Department portfolio to a man whom Donald Trump’s White House fired in 2018 for speaking to a conference of white nationalists.

Darren Beattie is Secretary of State Marco Rubio’s pick for acting undersecretary for public diplomacy and public affairs, a position that would require Senate confirmation to be made permanent.

Beattie, who identifies on the social network X as a “proud Jew,” was fired as a speechwriter during Trump’s first term Beattie for appearing at a 2016 conference of the H.L. Mencken Club, which the Southern Poverty Law Center designates a “white nationalist hate group.” Trump later appointed him to a commission monitoring Holocaust memorial sites, from which he was removed during the Biden administration.

Now, Beattie is returning in a much more influential role. The undersecretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs shapes communications coming from the State Department, including about extremism and terrorism.

“In plain terms, Darren will be shaping America’s messaging to counter terrorism and combat violent extremism, something he’s been doing at Revolver for years now,” the right-wing news site Revolver, which Beattie founded, said in a post announcing that he would be taking a leave of absence to serve in the State Department.

News of Beattie’s appointment drew rapid criticism from those alarmed by his track record of consorting with white supremacists, derogatory comments about women and minorities and promotion of conspiracy theories — including about the assassination attempt on Trump last year and about the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot by Trump’s supporters.

Beattie, whose doctoral dissertation at Duke University focused on the Nazi philosopher Martin Heiddeger, relished the criticism, according to a report in Jewish Insider, which also uncovered criticism by Beattie of Israel in the wake of the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack. Beattie fits into the isolationist flank of the Republican Party that is now playing an influential role US foreign policy.