WASHINGTON >> Robert F. Kennedy Jr. swept onto Capitol Hill late Monday as the anti-vaccine health guru from the famous political family reintroduced himself to senators, this time as President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to lead the nation’s Health and Human Services Department.

It was a soft-opening debut for Kennedy, whose wide-ranging views — yes to raw milk, no to fluoride, Ozempic and America’s favorite processed foods — are raising alarms in the scientific community and beyond. In the Senate he’s facing a mix of support, curiosity, skepticism and downright rejection among the senators who will be asked to confirm him to Trump’s Cabinet.

Kennedy’s first stop Monday was on potentially friendly terrain, to the offices of a few GOP senators allied with Trump, the start of a robust, weeks-long process.

One Republican, Sen. Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma, said Kennedy told him, “I 100% support the polio vaccination.” But Mullin added that their conversation also turned to other childhood vaccinations. He predicts Kennedy will be confirmed.

“The more you talk to him, the more he explains it, the more you like him,” Mullin said.

Kennedy also visited Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, a staunch ally of Trump who has predicted that Kennedy will be confirmed to the post, despite facing scrutiny over his longtime anti-vaccine advocacy.

“What he wants with vaccines is, which is what I believe in, is transparency,” Scott told CNN after the meeting.

The man known simply as RFK, Jr., 70, is the latest in the Trump rival-turned-partner orbit, a former Democratic presidential hopeful now in line to run the world’s largest public health agency, with its whopping $1.7 trillion budget, and some of the U.S. most important public services.

HHS has a broad reach across the lives of Americans — inspecting the nation’s food, regulating medicines and overseeing research of diseases and cures. It provides health insurance for nearly half of the country — poor, disabled and older Americans, including via Medicare.

Outside skeptics

Richard Besser, CEO of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and former acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called Kennedy “a truly dangerous” choice.

Besser, in an op-ed in U.S. News and World Report, said Kennedy stands out as a “single potential Cabinet member who could do the most damage to the American people’s lives.”

Ahead of Kennedy’s arrival he was given a word of advice from one important voice: outgoing Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell, a childhood polio survivor, who cautioned the nominee against views opposing the vaccine.

“Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming Administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts,” McConnell said recently.

On Friday, the New York Times reported that a lawyer helping Kennedy vet appointees for the incoming Trump administration had petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine. Seemingly in an effort to distance himself from the petition, Kennedy told reporters Monday that he was “all for” the shot.

Trump said Monday during his own press conference he’s a “big believer” in polio vaccines and sought to tamp down fears about Kennedy, saying he will be “much less radical” than people think.

The incoming GOP leader, Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, said Kennedy will have to address questions about his views on the polio vaccine and other issues.

“Well, I think he’ll have to address that,” Thune said. “We’ll find out.”

Other key issues

Kennedy’s nomination also will test the nation’s emerging political realignment, as Trump expands his base of supporters to include former Democratic voters shifting elsewhere. Kennedy’s views find favor but also opposition from both sides of the political aisle.

In particular, Kennedy’s ideas about ridding the nation’s food of additives has drawn interest if not support from some Democrats, but his criticism of major farm interests have also raised concerns from the agricultural industry.

This report contains information from the New York Times.