How RFK Jr. won Cassidy over

Feb 05, 2025

Driving The Day

Sen. Bill Cassidy speaks with reporters as he walks.

Sen. Bill Cassidy finally showed his hand on Monday and cast a "yes" vote to advance Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s HHS secretary nomination to the Senate floor. | Francis Chung/POLITICO

THE CONVINCING OF CASSIDY — After a nail-biting vote from the Senate Finance Committee on Tuesday, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is one step closer to becoming secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Chelsea reports with POLITICO’s Daniel Payne.

The key to Kennedy’s advancement was a “yes” vote from Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), a doctor-turned-senator who previously said he was conflicted about Kennedy and grilled the nominee about his earlier assertions that widely accepted vaccines are unsafe.

Now, Cassidy expects to have “a great working relationship to make America healthy again” with Kennedy.

Here’s what happened: Cassidy said in a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday he decided to vote “yes” to advance President Donald Trump’s nominee to lead HHS after Kennedy and the Trump administration assured him that Kennedy would not dismantle the nation’s vaccine safety systems or take government vaccine guidance offline.

Cassidy also had political reasons to vote to advance Kennedy: Voting against the nominee could have further jeopardized a reelection bid. Former Republican Rep. John Fleming, who’s called Cassidy out for voting in 2021 to convict Trump of instigating the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the Capitol, has already jumped in to challenge Cassidy for the party’s Senate nomination next year.

Cassidy, recounting conversations with Kennedy over the weekend and in the hours leading up to Tuesday’s vote, said he received a slew of commitments.

“He and I would have an unprecedentedly close relationship if he is confirmed,” Cassidy said, adding that the two will meet and speak “multiple times a month.” Kennedy also agreed to come before the health committee Cassidy chairs “on a quarterly basis” if requested.

The senator said Kennedy promised to let Cassidy have input in filling key roles at HHS and that the CDC wouldn’t remove online information about vaccine safety or statements that vaccines don’t cause autism or develop “parallel systems” for vaccine approval.

Background: Kennedy repeatedly said during his confirmation hearings that he wanted to review vaccine safety data and release it to the public — something health agencies already do — and annoyed Cassidy by declining to acknowledge the medical consensus that the shots are safe.

Cassidy didn’t say whether Kennedy had renounced those views in private conversation.

What’s next: The full Senate could vote on Kennedy’s nomination in the coming days.

Kennedy’s advisers still expect opposition on the Senate floor from Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who’s refused to meet with Kennedy and reiterated in a “60 Minutes” interview Sunday that vaccines are “critically important to health” and “a big deal to me.”

But other GOP senators who’d likely have to join with Democrats to defeat Kennedy don’t seem passionately opposed to the nominee.

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At the Agencies

TRUMP PLACES USAID STAFF ON LEAVE — By Friday evening, thousands of American employees of the U.S. Agency for International Development will be placed on leave, including those working abroad who will be required to return home, according to a notice from the Trump administration, POLITICO's Nahal Toosi and Robbie Gramer report.

The internal agency announcement, sent late Tuesday, is the latest strike against USAID, the main agency responsible for foreign humanitarian aid. President Donald Trump and his allies, including tech mogul Elon Musk, appear determined to shrink the agency and possibly subsume it into the State Department, despite protests by Democrats who say such drastic changes require congressional approval.

Earlier Tuesday, officials said most Washington-based USAID staff would be placed on paid administrative leave by the end of the day.

The notice said there would be exceptions to who is put on leave, including “designated personnel responsible for mission critical functions, core leadership and specially designated programs.”

The numbers involved were not entirely clear. USAID boasts that it has a global workforce of more than 10,000 people, but it works with many contractors and foreign nationals. The notice Tuesday said many contracts would be terminated. But direct hires will likely continue to be paid, at least while they are technically still on leave.

The notice left USAID officials and contractors in shock, even after a week of drastic moves by the Trump administration to dismantle the agency.

“I gave a lot of my adult life to this agency working in really adverse conditions in conflict zones, and what I got in return is a ‘thank you for your service’ out of nowhere so I can go file for unemployment, I guess,” said one USAID official who's posted abroad.

“I feel devastated. I feel like it’s cruel, what they’re doing. Every day has been mass confusion,” said another USAID official currently serving overseas.

The officials were granted anonymity as they weren’t authorized to speak to press and feared political reprisal for going on-record.

CASSIDY COUNSEL EYES FDA JOB — Barrett Tenbarge is in talks with the Trump administration about a position at the FDA, according to two people familiar with the discussions granted anonymity to discuss personnel planning.

He currently works as general counsel for Senate HELP Committee Chair Bill Cassidy (R-La.), POLITICO’s David Lim reports.

In Congress

Mehmet Oz standing with a microphone in front of a chandelier.

Dr. Mehmet Oz, President Donald Trump's pick to lead CMS, paid a visit to Capitol Hill to meet with senators in an effort to gain their votes. | Matt Rourke/AP Photo

OZ ON THE HILL — Dr. Mehmet Oz is making his rounds on Capitol Hill to ratchet up support for his nomination to lead the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, POLITICO’s Robert King reports.

The doctor and TV personality known as Dr. Oz was at the Capitol on Tuesday and told POLITICO he met with Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) and key moderate Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine).

“I had great meetings with a lot of folks,” he said.

Key context: The Senate Finance Committee, which narrowly voted to advance Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to serve as HHS secretary on Tuesday, will also decide whether Oz will lead CMS — a sprawling agency that oversees Medicaid and Medicare as well as the Affordable Care Act’s insurance exchanges.

Zoom out: Besides Kennedy, Oz is one of several of President Donald Trump’s nominees to run health care agencies awaiting Senate action, including Jay Bhattacharya to head the NIH and Marty Makary to run the FDA.

Oz was previously a thoracic surgeon who later gained wide popularity as the host of a daytime talk show, and he’s faced criticism for advertising ineffective dietary solutions.

He made an unsuccessful Senate bid from Pennsylvania in 2022, losing to Democrat John Fetterman, and has little experience within the federal bureaucracy.

Even so: Oz is a big supporter of Medicare Advantage, the privately run insurance option within Medicare that has grown in popularity in recent years.

Eye on Insurers

CENTENE BOUNCES BACK — Centene, the biggest Medicaid insurer, posted a bump in profits Tuesday as the industry bounces back from the yearslong process of states removing ineligible people from their Medicaid rolls.

The process, which began in 2023, started after the end of a Covid-era provision that prevented states from examining eligibility of Medicaid enrollees and removing ineligible people. Major Medicaid insurers had previously reported drops in membership because of the unwinding process and sicker patient populations that are more expensive to cover.

But Centene CEO Sarah London said during a fourth-quarter earnings call Tuesday that the company is “looking forward to turning the page on the redeterminations era” in 2025 and “returning to overall Medicaid program stability.” The company posted a year-end net profit of $3.3 billion, up about 22 percent compared with last year. The performance surpassed Wall Street analysts’ estimates.

Though Centene’s overall Medicaid enrollments dipped compared with the same period last year, from 14.5 million to 13 million, overall enrollment was up 4 percent year over year, thanks to growth in its Obamacare business.

The company also saw stronger-than-expected growth in its Medicare Advantage and prescription drug plans. London also praised the proposed 2026 Medicare Advantage advance rate notice that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released last month, giving the insurers an increase in payments — a reversal of slight cuts to the privately run alternative to Medicare in the prior two years.

“While the information is not final, we are pleased to see the potential for a positive directional shift in funding for this important program,” she said.

Names in the News

Bill Dauster is now senior counsel on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee. He most recently was deputy staff director for Democrats on the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Janet Liang will join Oscar Health in the newly created role of president of Oscar Health Insurance, starting Feb. 24, the insurer announced in its earnings release. Liang previously served as group president and chief operating officer of care delivery for Kaiser Foundation Health Plan, Inc. and Hospitals.

Chikwe Ihekweazu has been appointed as the World Health Organization’s acting regional director for Africa. Ihekweazu joined the WHO in 2021 as the assistant director-general for the division of health emergency intelligence and surveillance systems in the emergencies program at WHO.

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