WASHINGTON, United States (AFP) — US President Donald Trump’s embattled health secretary pick, vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F Kennedy Jr, squeaked through a crucial vote in his confirmation bid on Tuesday as senators advanced his nomination to the floor.

With Republicans having a one-seat advantage on the Senate Finance Committee, Kennedy’s future hinged on Bill Cassidy, a physician who has clashed with the former Democrat over unfounded claims linking vaccines to autism.

But Cassidy backed Kennedy after the 71-year-old environmental lawyer was given a vote of confidence from Trump, who urged support for the man whom just nine months ago he was calling “one of the most Liberal Lunatics ever to run for office.”

“20 years ago, Autism in children was 1 in 10,000. NOW IT’S 1 in 34. WOW! Something’s really wrong. We need BOBBY!!!” Trump posted on his website, Truth Social, ahead of the vote.

Cassidy is a rare occasional rebel in the Republican ranks but he faces reelection next year in Louisiana and risked picking up a challenger from the Republican Party’s Trumpist far right if he upset the president.

Kennedy’s various controversies are too numerous to itemize but the headline concerns for conservatives are his past support for abortion, his record suing big business as an environmental lawyer and his 2023 run for president as a Democrat.

Beyond vaccines, Democrats point mainly to sexual misconduct allegations, Kennedy’s suggestion that Covid-19 was designed to spare Jews, his linking of school shootings to antidepressants and his alleged mistreatment of animal corpses.

The New York Post, a reliably Trumpist newspaper, wrote a scathing editorial arguing that there was “too much wackiness” in Kennedy’s background to trust him with America’s health.

– Iron grip –
And Elizabeth Warren, the vice chair of the Senate Democrats, called Kennedy an “anti-science conspiracy peddler who is willing to gamble with American lives,” urging senators to reject the nomination.

The Senate can confirm nominees without a committee’s endorsement — it happened in the last Trump presidency with Mick Mulvaney — but Republican Majority Leader John Thune has cast doubt on how likely this is to happen.

That raised the stakes for Tulsi Gabbard, another conspiracy theorist with a long record of publicly opposing US national security policy, including siding with its adversaries, who faces her own key vote.

Success for Kennedy and Gabbard — two of the least experienced nominees in modern history — would be another powerful demonstration of Trump’s iron grip on his party, days after controversial Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s confirmation.

Like Kennedy, 43-year-old Gabbard is running the gauntlet of a party-line vote and just a single Republican no would sink her chances of endorsement by the Senate Intelligence Committee.

But Susan Collins, Todd Young and Jerry Moran — considered the swing votes — announced to various US media outlets on Monday that they would support the Hawaiian US Army Reserve officer, clearing her path to the Senate floor.

Collins said the one-time lawmaker — like Kennedy, a former Democrat who once ran for president — had addressed her concerns over her past support for pardoning NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

The Senate confirmed former congressman Doug Collins — no relation of the senator — as secretary of Veterans Affairs on Tuesday, a day after approving fracking executive Chris Wright to lead the Energy Department.

Pam Bondi is expected to be confirmed as attorney general in the early hours of Wednesday, replacing fellow Floridian Trump loyalist Matt Gaetz, who was the president’s first choice.

Gaetz, who withdrew amid allegations of drug abuse and sex with an underage girl that he denies, is looking set to be the only Trump nominee whose Cabinet ambitions will have been derailed in Congress.