Two of President Donald Trump’s most vulnerable administration picks will get back-to-back confirmation hearings in the Senate this week.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who Trump nominated to be Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, whom he selected to be Director of National Intelligence (DNI), will have committee confirmation hearings on Wednesday and Thursday.
On Wednesday, Kennedy will have his first hearing with the Senate Finance Committee, who will eventually vote on whether to advance his nomination to the full Senate. He will have an additional hearing on Thursday with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP), but that committee will not have a vote on the nomination.
Gabbard’s hearing with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence will take place Thursday morning.
The two Trump picks were some of the more controversial administration selections. Both Kennedy and Gabbard are former Democrats with histories of policy positions that clash with what many Republican senators believe.
At issue for lawmakers on both sides is Kennedy’s history of significant criticism of vaccines and vaccination programs. For some Republicans whose states have a large farming constituency, his positions on further regulating agriculture and food production have been cause for concern.
Gabbard’s past policy stances as they relate to national security have given bipartisan lawmakers some reason for pause, since the role she is nominated for is critical to the nation’s safety and defense.
Both of the nominees have taken steps to moderate themselves amid the confirmation process. Kennedy has pushed back on suggestions that he is ‘anti-vaccine’ and explained, ‘If vaccines are working for somebody, I’m not going to take them away.’
‘People ought to have choice, and that choice ought to be informed by the best information,’ he said in an interview with NBC News. ‘So I’m going to make sure scientific safety studies and efficacy are out there, and people can make individual assessments about whether that product is going to be good for them.’
Gabbard recently made a remarkable reversal on a controversial intelligence tool used by the government. And her choice to change her position on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act’s (FISA) section 702 managed to win her the backing of a Republican senator on the intel committee that she will need to advance out of.
Recently asked whether her change of heart on section 702 had earned his vote, Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said, ‘Yeah, I am, and that was a very important piece for me.’
While both nominees have gotten some necessary Republican backing in the relevant committees, not everyone has said whether they will vote to advance the selections. And even if they are voted out of the committees, they could still face an uphill battle to be confirmed by the full Senate.