Only One Republican Was Brave Enough to Vote Against RFK Jr.

The Senate confirmed Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Wednesday to run the Department of Health and Human Services, primarily along party lines. Fifty-two Republican senators voted in favor of Kennedy, a known conspiracy theorist, to front America’s health policy, while 45 Democrats, one Republican, and two independent senators remained opposed.

Senator Mitch McConnell—a childhood polio survivor—was the singular Republican holdout against Kennedy, marking the third time that the Kentucky lawmaker has voted against one of Donald Trump’s nominees.

“Mr. Kennedy failed to prove he is the best possible person to lead America’s largest health agency,” McConnell said in a statement. “As he takes office, I sincerely hope Mr. Kennedy will choose not to sow further doubt and division but to restore trust in our public health institutions.”

Per Trump, Kennedy will spend his time atop America’s public health agency researching the already thoroughly debunked conspiracy that ties vaccine usage to increased autism rates. But Kennedy’s appointment will also have him oversee a budget of nearly $2 trillion and a staff of 90,000 federal employees, as well as hand him the reins of critical health programs under the fold of HHS, such as the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.  (Dr. Mehmet Oz, the reality TV host and similarly failed 2024 presidential candidate, has been tapped to lead CMS, though a date for his confirmation hearing has not yet been set.)

The 71-year-old’s “Make America Healthy Again” agenda has not been laid out in specifics, but Kennedy has vaguely promised to tackle the nation’s rising obesity rates, SNAP benefits (formerly known as food stamps), and has claimed he will work the Department of Agriculture to eradicate ultra-processed foods from the American market.

Kennedy’s history in public health is questionable at best. His stances, which include unscientific beliefs that AIDS is not caused by HIV and that a large number of vaccines should be stripped from the market, could have major impacts on the agency designed to protect America’s health, especially as bird flu outbreaks begin to dot the country.

And Kennedy’s conspiratorial policies have been tied to legitimate harm halfway across the world. Preceding a deadly measles outbreak on Samoa in 2019, Kennedy’s anti-vax nonprofit Children’s Health Defense spread rampant misinformation about the efficacy of vaccines throughout the nation, sending the island’s vaccination rate plummeting from the 60–70 percent range to just 31 percent, according to Mother Jones.

That year, the country reported 5,707 cases of measles—an illness that the U.S. declared eliminated in 2000 thanks to advancements in modern medicine (read: vaccines)—as well as 83 measles-related deaths, the majority of which were children under the age of 5.

The virulent vaccine conspiracy theorist faced a slew of criticism throughout his confirmation hearings, including condemnation for making millions of dollars off his dangerous vaccine rhetoric, which included money stemming from speaking fees, dividends from his vaccine lawsuits, and leading Children’s Health Defense. His aggressive, anti-scientific approach to medicine made at least one senator emotional during his hearing before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

New Hampshire Senator Maggie Hassan argued, at the time, that Kennedy’s cashflow from “relitigating and churning settled science” was making it “impossible” for the medical community to move forward with legitimate research into autism and other disabilities.

The hearings also uncovered that Kennedy had paid close to $1 million to settle a sexual misconduct case brought by one of the employees at Children’s Health Defense, despite repeatedly denying what he had described as “frivolous, unfounded allegations” against him. But that wasn’t the only sexual assault claim against him: In 2024, Kennedy was accused of (and sort of apologized for) groping his children’s babysitter, Eliza Cooney, in the late 1990s.

The myriad details of Kennedy’s private life—as well as his virulent anti-vax prerogatives—gave pause to a number of lawmakers on the Hill. Kennedy has publicly admitted to dumping a dead bear cub in Central Park, believed the 2004 presidential election was stolen from Democrat John Kerry, peddled conspiracies that the CIA killed his uncle, chain-sawed off the head of a dead whale (per his daughter Kick Kennedy), and late last month was described by his cousin Caroline Kennedy as a “predator” who is “addicted to attention and power.”

In a late January missive to lawmakers, Kennedy’s 2024 running mate Nicole Shanahan promised to “personally fund challengers” to primary senators who dared to vote against Kennedy.

“I will make it my personal mission that you lose your seats in the Senate if you vote against the future health of America’s children,” the Silicon Valley lawyer and investor said in a video statement at the time. “You’re either on the side of transparency and accountability, or you’re standing in the way.”

Just a reminder before Kennedy’s tenure attempts to rewrite history: Since their invention, vaccines have proven to be one of the greatest accomplishments of modern medicine. The medical shots are so effective at preventing illness that they have practically eradicated some of the worst diseases from our collective culture, from rabies to polio and smallpox—a fact that has possibly fooled some into believing that the viruses and their complications aren’t a significant threat for the average, health-conscious individual.

This story has been updated.

The pseudo-president of the United States is calling for entire government agencies to be “deleted.”

“I think we do need to delete entire agencies, as opposed to leave part of them behind.... It’s kind of like leaving a weed,” Elon Musk told the World Governments Summit in Dubai in a video speech Thursday. “If you don’t remove the roots of the weed, then it’s easy for the weed to grow back. But if you remove the roots of the weed—it doesn’t stop weeds from ever going back, but it makes it harder.”

The tech mogul was asked about the changes he has been making with his Department of Government Efficiency, and he decided to crow on and on about his newest pet project of dismantling the whole federal government.

“So we have to really delete entire agencies, many of them,” Musk said. “And that’s not to say there won’t be an increase over time of bureaucracy in some new administration, but it will be from a much lower baseline. So certainly it’s a step in the right direction.”

So far, Musk has taken a sledgehammer to the U.S. Agency for International Development, setting off alarm bells, and is already axing programs and grants at the Department of Education. His vision aligns with that of President Trump, who promised to wipe out the department while campaigning for president.

Musk’s decisions are having drastic consequences all over the world, with even medical research under threat. Meanwhile, his own conflicts of interest continue, including a $400 million contract for the U.S. government to buy armored Tesla vehicles. It begs the question of how much the tech CEO is personally benefiting from his so-called efficiency crusade.

The State Department was set to buy $400 million worth of armored Teslas from Elon Musk over the next five years. But after a report from Drop Site News on Wednesday exposed the massive conflict of interest, the department quietly deleted the word “Tesla” and changed the $400 million line item to a generic “armored electric vehicles.”

“After @DropSiteNews revealed Tesla was forecast to be given a $400 million contract for “Armored Tesla,” the State Department altered its spreadsheet to obscure Tesla’s role,” Ryan Grim wrote on X. “Metadata shows the spreadsheet was revised several hours after our story published.”

“I’m pretty sure Tesla isn’t getting $400M. No one mentioned it to me, at least,” Musk wrote on X.

The “armored Tesla” notation was made in December 2024, a month after Trump was elected.  

The State Department did not respond to Drop Site News when asked about the sudden edit in the federal contact.

The question then is: Was this just a very dubious mistake? Or a clear cover-up? 

Donald Trump claimed that his phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday would be the beginning of the end for the war in Ukraine—but his former national security adviser doesn’t think so.

Speaking with CNN late Wednesday, John Bolton argued that Putin had made a puppet out of Trump, using basic flattery to warm him up before stripping the U.S. leader’s position apart. Trump had posted on Truth Social following the call that Putin had “used my very strong Campaign motto of, ‘COMMON SENSE.’”

“I think we know exactly what is going to happen,” Bolton told the network. “President Trump has effectively surrendered to Putin before the negotiations have even begun.

“The positions that Defense Secretary [Pete] Hegseth announced in Brussels—which, I’m sure I’d be stunned if Trump didn’t convey them directly to Putin in their phone call—constitute terms of a settlement that could have been written in the Kremlin,” Bolton said, noting that the details of the arrangement were practically Russian propaganda.

“It’s a complete reversal of the U.S. and NATO position on a number of issues; for example, up until today the official American position was that Ukraine should be returned to full sovereignty and territorial integrity. That’s gone,” he said.

“The question of NATO membership, as far back as 2008, had been that ultimately Ukraine would become a member. It doesn’t look like that’s around anymore, either,” Bolton continued.

“This is a palpable harm to American national security, because what Hegseth and Trump did today was not only blow up the NATO position on Ukraine, they blew up a thing called the Belovezha Accords,” Bolton said, referring to the 1991 agreement between three Soviet states that effectively dissolved the Soviet Union by declaring their independence from Moscow, creating the countries of Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine.

“So it means that not only is unprovoked aggression by Russia against Ukraine now OK, every other former Republic in the Soviet Union is vulnerable to the same thing without any indication that the U.S. will do anything about it.”

Vice President JD Vance and Secretary of State Marco Rubio are scheduled to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy in Munich on Friday to discuss the state of the war. But Bolton believes that Putin is opting to negotiate through Trump because he believes “he’ll get more out of it.”

“And he’s absolutely right,” Bolton said.

The damage to America’s reputation wouldn’t stop in Eastern Europe, according to Bolton, who noted that Beijing would likely be keeping a close eye on how the U.S. reacts to “unprovoked aggression” with regard to Taiwan. Bolton also described new National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, who was confirmed on Wednesday, as “one of [Trump’s] worst nominations,” specifying that her controversial background would make it less likely for America’s allies to be willing to share intelligence with the United States.

Donald Trump bragged Wednesday about how easily he folded to his beloved Russian President Vladimir Putin, after handing the fellow autocrat everything he’d been hoping for.

“I just had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects.”

The president said that they’d spoken about how many Russians and Americans had been killed during World War II, and the two leaders agreed that they wanted to “stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine.”

“President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, ‘COMMON SENSE,’” Trump gushed.

“We agreed to work together, very closely, including visiting each other’s Nations,” Trump added. “We have also agreed to have our respective teams start negotiations immediately, and we will begin by calling President Zelenskyy, of Ukraine, to inform him of the conversation, something which I will be doing right now.”

Trump said that he’d instructed Secretary of State Marco Rubio, CIA director John Ratcliffe, National Security Adviser Michael Waltz, and special envoy for the Middle East Steve Witkoff to lead the negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

Before entering office, Trump had previously claimed that he would end the war in Ukraine “within 24 hours” of being elected president. When pressed in September on his actual plan, Trump said, “I’ll speak to one, I’ll speak to the other, I’ll get ’em together.”

Already, it’s clear that Trump simply intends to give in to Putin’s demands. On Wednesday, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth told U.S. allies that liberating all of Russia’s occupied Ukrainian territory was “an unrealistic objective.” He also backed down on the American push to have Ukraine join NATO, in compliance with a long-standing complaint from Putin.

Also on Wednesday, Tulsi Gabbard was confirmed as the director of national intelligence. Gabbard previously faced intense scrutiny for being a Russian stooge, with her own former staffers warning that she often read and shared articles from Russian state media. She also criticized American hostility toward Putin and pushed propaganda about Ukraine.

After Gabbard’s nomination was announced in November, the response in Moscow was “gleeful,” according to The New York Times. Komsomolskaya Pravda, a Russian newspaper, fawned over Gabbard, reporting that the CIA and FBI were “trembling” in response to her nomination. The article stated that Ukrainians considered Gabbard to be “an agent of the Russian state.”

“Behind closed doors, people think she might be compromised. Like it’s not hyperbole,” one Republican Senate aide told The Hill in December. “There are members of our conference who think she’s a [Russian] asset.”

Gabbard was able to overcome any meaningful skepticism on the part of Republicans, as she was confirmed by every single Republican senator, save one: Senator Mitch McConnell. Now, Moscow can rejoice at the installation of an authoritarian sympathizer in Gabbard, and keep its stolen territory from Ukraine, while shutting the country out of a military alliance.

Even an apparent Trump win—the release of Marc Fogel, an American detained in Russia—was the result of trading a crypto-criminal back to Moscow. Trump previously railed against prisoner exchanges, claiming that they were extortion.