Some Republicans are treating Sen. Bill Cassidy’s engagement with Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s proposals as a litmus test for how closely the Louisiana senator aligns himself with the MAGA movement.
Cassidy, a doctor and chair of the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, was one of several Republicans to express skepticism over Kennedy’s appointment, and said he only agreed to confirm him after several “intense conversations.” But he is also facing what is likely to be a difficult reelection campaign next year, and pressure continues to build to his right.
“He’s trying to split the baby on this. Naturally, he wants to be a little bit more aggressive against RFK Jr. and some of the things that he’s talking about,” a Republican strategist told NOTUS. “I wouldn’t say Republican voters are saying, like, ‘We love RFK Jr.’ But he is seen as an emissary of the president — that the president chose to run HHS for a reason. So there’s some residual support there.”
“I’d say [he’s] probably a little bit more supportive of RFK. Jr. because of those reasons,” the strategist continued.
NOTUS made multiple attempts to ask Cassidy questions about how he’s navigating the political landscape as it pertains to his perch on HELP, and his office and campaign did not comment for this story. But as Kennedy takes an aggressive approach to transforming public health policy in the U.S., there is no shortage of expectation for Cassidy to weigh in.
Just last week, Kennedy fired all the members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Advisory Committee on Immunization and Practices and replaced half of them with vaccine skeptics.
After the firings, Cassidy acknowledged that there would be some “fear” that the committee would be filled with unqualified vaccine skeptics. But he added that he’d “continue to talk with” Kennedy “to ensure” that wouldn’t happen.
Pressure hasn’t exactly let up from Cassidy’s right — or his left. Sen. Bernie Sanders, the ranking member on the HELP Committee, called on Cassidy to investigate the firings.
Cassidy has not been able to resist occasionally pointing out the benefits of public health interventions like vaccines and the pitfalls of demonizing evidence-based science. During Kennedy’s confirmation hearings, he said that he found Kennedy’s history of “undermining confidence in vaccines with unfounded or misleading arguments” concerning.
“Can I trust that that is now in the past?” Cassidy asked.
Cassidy ultimately voted for Kennedy’s nomination to proceed.
Since then, he has been tight-lipped about his views on the health secretary’s actions, including the report last month released by Kennedy’s Make America Healthy Again Commission that included dubious claims about vaccines and fabricated citations.
Sources with knowledge of the senator’s thinking told Politico that Cassidy believes taking a nonconfrontational, behind-the-scenes approach to dealing with Kennedy’s anti-vaccine views is more effective than public rebuttals — and would minimize the political blowback that comes with disagreeing with a member of Trump’s cabinet.
Asked about Kennedy’s relationship with the senator, a spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services said they get along well.
“Kennedy maintains a strong working relationship with Congress, including Sen. Cassidy, to support collaboration on their shared goals for healthcare policy,” the spokesperson said in an email to NOTUS.
Questions about Cassidy’s MAGA bona fides go back to the first Trump administration. He was one of seven Republican senators to vote to convict President Donald Trump following the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection, and one of only three remaining in the chamber. The Republican Party of Louisiana censured Cassidy a month after he cast the vote to convict him.
Among Louisiana Republicans, Cassidy’s reluctance to support Kennedy’s nomination may have made some conservatives even more wary of him.
“Because Cassidy’s vote on Kennedy’s confirmation was critical, I think that Cassidy extracted a lot of concessions from Kennedy in order to support his confirmation,” Chris Alexander, a conservative activist who leads the Louisiana Citizen Advocacy Group, told NOTUS. “Bill Cassidy is exercising significant influence, and influence that I wish he didn’t have the power to exercise. I think he’s turned his back on our state. And I think a lot of Louisiana citizens agree.”
Cassidy’s relationship with Kennedy hasn’t just earned him critics: It’s part of what’s earned him at least two Republican opponents in his next race, too. John Fleming, Louisiana’s treasurer, who is challenging him for his seat, said that Cassidy’s adherence to the scientific status quo could hold up the Trump administration’s efforts to overhaul federal health policies.
“Cassidy appears to be resistant to the reforms that RFK Jr. wants to bring,” Fleming told NOTUS. “There are many people who believe that there hasn’t been enough study of vaccines to make sure that they’re fully safe and effective, and it’s controversial. … There’s a lot of people who question [their safety], and so they feel like Cassidy is not really on board with bringing new ideas, new people, sort of disrupting Health and Human Services and approaching things in a little different way.”
Vaccines have been extensively studied and proven to be overwhelmingly safe and effective. Public health officials have denounced the actions Kennedy has taken so far on vaccines, like requiring placebo studies for new immunizations and dropping the COVID-19 vaccine from the list of recommended shots for healthy pregnant women and children.
In Louisiana, the race is still shaping up. Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry has reportedly discussed with Trump the possibility of Rep. Julia Letlow running for the seat. Republican state Sen. Blake Miguez on Tuesday announced his campaign for the seat, suggesting in his campaign video that Cassidy is one of several “weak Republicans.”
Cassidy remains a well funded incumbent: The most recent Federal Election Commission filings show that he has nearly $7.5 million on hand.
But there’s another twist in the race: In January 2024, Landry signed a law changing the state’s voting system from a “jungle” primary — in which all candidates regardless of their party competed against one another for the top two slots to decide who moves on to the general election — to a closed primary. That change splits Democrats and Republicans into their own primaries starting next year.
That means Cassidy would need to emerge as the top choice from a traditional Republican primary, harder given the candidates jumping into the race.
Rep. Clay Higgins, who considered entering the race but decided against it, has said that he would like to see a “MAGA America First Republican” win the seat. He told NOTUS that while he’s personally more aligned with Kennedy’s “philosophy” on health overhauls, he understands Cassidy’s “responsibility to be thorough.”
“Senator Cassidy is not exactly aligned with RFK’s philosophy,” Higgins said. “I think they have fundamental differences of opinion, and that type of thing is to be expected when two men from the same field sit down and discuss issues like that. In whatever setting, you can respect each man having a different position.”
While some Republicans say that Cassidy’s handling of his relationship with Kennedy could hurt him in his primary, his Senate GOP colleagues had no complaints about how he’s led the HELP Committee as he works through his differences with the health secretary.
“He’s obviously got good reason for raising questions, because some of the things that Kennedy talks about are very unconventional,” Sen. Chuck Grassley, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, told NOTUS. “You can have honest difference of opinion between committee chairmen and people even in a Republican administration, between Republicans, and he’s held it right.”
Sen. Jon Husted, a member of the HELP Committee, agreed that the recent tension between Kennedy and Cassidy is nothing to be concerned about.
“He’s been great. It’s okay to have different opinions, like, that’s a good thing, and we should all share those things, but then get together and figure out where we wanna go,” Husted said. “But it’s OK for people to think differently about things. It’s good, healthy.”
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Torrence Banks, Emily Kennard and Margaret Manto are NOTUS reporters and Allbritton Journalism Institute fellows.
This story was produced as part of a partnership between NOTUS and Verite News.