WASHINGTON >> Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard cleared committee votes Tuesday to advance to full consideration from the GOP-dominated Senate to join President Donald Trump’s Cabinet.

Kennedy, a vocal vaccine skeptic and activist lawyer, appeared on track to become the nation’s health secretary after winning the crucial support of Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, a doctor who says Kennedy has assured him he would not topple the nation’s childhood vaccination program.

And Gabbard, a former Democratic congresswoman, looks set to become Trump’s director of national intelligence despite concerns raised about her past comments sympathetic to Russia and a meeting with Syria’s now-deposed leader.

Gabbard is one of Trump’s most divisive nominees, with lawmakers of both parties also pointing to her past support for government leaker Edward Snowden. But the Senate Intelligence Committee advanced her nomination in a closed-door 9-8 vote, with the committee’s Democrats voting no.

Kennedy nomination

In a partisan vote, the Republican-controlled Senate Finance Committee advanced Kennedy’s nomination 14-13, sending his bid to oversee the $1.7 trillion U.S. Health and Human Services agency for a full vote on the Senate floor.

All Democrats on the committee opposed Kennedy, whose family name had been synonymous with their party for generations before he aligned with Trump during the 2024 presidential campaign. They sounded an alarm on Kennedy’s work to sow doubt around vaccine safety and his potential to profit off lawsuits over drugmakers.

A full Senate vote has not yet been scheduled, but with Cassidy’s vote no longer in doubt Kennedy’s nomination is likely to succeed absent any last-minute vote switches. Kennedy has been among the more contentious of Trump’s Cabinet choices, and Republicans coalescing around him showed another powerful measure of near lockstep allegiance to the president.

Senator’s misgivings

Cassidy had publicly detailed his personal struggle, as a doctor who has seen the lifesaving ability of vaccines, with Kennedy’s confirmation. “Your past, undermining confidence in vaccines with unfounded or misleading arguments, concerns me,” Cassidy told Kennedy last week.

Yet when it came to his vote Tuesday, he advanced Kennedy with a simple “aye.”

Cassidy, who is up for reelection next year and could face a primary challenge, later described “intense conversations” with Kennedy and Vice President JD Vance that started over the weekend and continued into Tuesday morning, just before the vote. Those conversations yielded “serious commitments” from the administration, Cassidy said. His reelection campaign had “absolutely zero to do with the decision,” he told reporters.

Cassidy said in a speech later on the Senate floor that, in exchange for his support, Kennedy has promised not to make changes to existing vaccine recommendations that have been made by a federal advisory committee and has agreed not to scrub the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of statements that clarify vaccines do not cause autism.

“He will be the secretary,” Cassidy said. “But I believe he will also be a partner in working for this end.”

Cassidy said Kennedy’s formidable following waged a maximum pressure campaign, bombarding his office with thousands of messages daily. Pediatricians reached out, too, expressing fears of rampant disease outbreaks and deaths among children if a man who has a history of denigrating inoculations is installed as the nation’s health secretary, he said.

Republican Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky have also been seen as potentially unsecured votes, because they voted against Trump’s defense secretary nominee and have expressed concerns about Kennedy’s anti-vaccine work. Kennedy could lose support from all three of those senators and still become the health secretary.

Democrats’ views

Democrats, meanwhile, have continued to raise alarms about Kennedy’s potential to financially benefit from changing vaccine guidelines or weakening federal lawsuit protections against vaccine makers.

“It seems possible that many different types of vaccine-related decisions and communications — which you would be empowered to make and influence as Secretary — could result in significant financial compensation for your family,” Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Ron Wyden of Oregon wrote in a letter sent over the weekend to Kennedy.

As secretary, Kennedy would be responsible for food and hospital inspections, providing health insurance for millions of Americans and researching deadly diseases.

Gabbard’s nomination

Gabbard’s nomination now heads to the full Senate for consideration. A vote has not been scheduled yet.

Following a contentious confirmation hearing last week, where some Republican senators questioned Gabbard harshly, GOP support for her fell into place following a pressure campaign over the weekend unleashed by Trump supporters and allies, including Elon Musk.

Though some Republicans have questioned Gabbard’s past views, they support her calls to overhaul the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which coordinates the work of 18 federal agencies focused on intelligence collection and analysis. GOP lawmakers have also taken aim at the office, saying it’s grown too large and politicized.

Gabbard is a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard who deployed twice to the Middle East and ran for president in 2020. She has no formal intelligence experience, however, and has never run a government agency or department.

Gabbard’s past praise of Snowden drew particularly harsh questions during the nomination hearing. The former National Security Agency contractor fled to Russia after he was charged with revealing classified information about surveillance programs.

Gabbard said that while Snowden revealed important facts about surveillance programs she believes are unconstitutional, he violated rules about protecting classified secrets. “Edward Snowden broke the law,” she said.

A 2017 visit with Syrian President Bashar Assad is another flash point.

Gabbard defended her meeting with Assad, saying she used the opportunity to press the Syrian leader on his human rights record.

She has also repeatedly echoed Russian propaganda used to justify the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine and in the past opposed a key U.S. surveillance program.

Democrats said Gabbard’s response to questions about her past views did little to satisfy them. Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona said Gabbard lacks the judgment to take on a job that is so critical to the nation’s security.

“Healthy skepticism is a good thing, but when someone consistently embraces sensational, but poorly supported claims while dismissing the thorough assessments of our intelligence community, it becomes dangerous,” Kelly said in a statement explaining his vote. “But rather than ease my concerns, she confirmed them.”