Senate votes along party lines to confirm RFK Jr. as secretary of HHS

The U.S. Senate has approved Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), placing President Donald Trump’s controversial pick at the helm of a $1.7 trillion department in transition.

The HHS is a massive department that encompasses the $1.1 trillion Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The HHS has 80,000 employees.

The HHS supports billions in medical and drug research, tracks disease trends and emerging viruses, and provides health insurance to millions of low-income families, poor children, and seniors. The NIH and CDC are considered among the premier health and scientific agencies in the world, whose funding and research was vital in developing vaccines to stem the Covid-19 pandemic.