November 22: RFK Jr. May Be Denied Confirmation for Being Formerly Pro-Choice
There are no actual Democrats in Trump’s Cabinet so far, but he’s hoping to appoint an ex-Democrat to run HHS. As I noted at New York, RFK Jr. is in trouble for not abandoning abortion rights far or fast enough.
Donald Trump’s shocking nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to head up the vast Department of Health and Human Services led to a lot of concerns about his suitability and ideological compatibility with the MAGA folk that would surround him at the Cabinet table. Kennedy’s reflexive hostility to vaccines puts him at odds with many Republicans. His complaints about Big Pharma, agribusiness giants, and use of pesticides by farmers have earned him some enemies who are very influential in the Republican Party. And his denunciation of processed foods as child-killing evils has to personally annoy the Big Mac aficionado of Mar-a-Lago.
But even if none of those longtime controversies surrounding the former Democrat make him radioactive among the Senate Republicans who would have to confirm him for HHS, he’s also in considerable trouble with one of the GOP’s oldest and most important allies: the anti-abortion movement. Suspicion of him in that quarter is natural, since Kennedy for many years maintained a standard Democratic position favoring abortion rights, though it was never an issue that preoccupied him. Then, as a presidential candidate who drifted out of the Democratic primaries into an independent bid, he was all over the place on abortion. He made remarks that ranged from unconditional support for the right to choose even after fetal viability to support for a three-month national ban to various points in between.
At a minimum, anti-abortion activists would like to pin him to an acceptable position, but they also seem inclined to secure concessions from him in exchange for declining to go medieval on his confirmation, as Politico explains:
“Abortion opponents — concerned about Kennedy’s past comments supporting abortion access — have two major asks: that he appoint an anti-abortion stalwart to a senior position in HHS and that he promise privately to them and publicly during his confirmation hearing to restore anti-abortion policies from the first Trump administration, according to four anti-abortion advocates granted anonymity to discuss private conversations. And Kennedy, according to a fifth person close to the Trump transition, is open to their entreaties.”
He’d better be. Despite Trump’s abandonment of the maximum anti-abortion stance during his 2024 campaign, the forced-birth lobby remained firmly in his camp and has maintained even more influence among Republican officeholders who haven’t “pivoted” from the 45th president’s hard-core position to the 47th president’s current contention that abortion policy is up to the states. Indeed, you could make the argument that it’s even more important than ever to anti-abortion activists that Trump be surrounded by zealots in order to squeeze as many congenial actions as possible out of his administration and the Republicans who will control Congress come January. And there’s plenty HHS can do to make life miserable for those needing abortion services, Politico notes:
“At a minimum, anti-abortion groups want to see the Trump administration rescind the policies Biden implemented that expanded abortion access, such as the update to HIPAA privacy rules to cover abortions, as well as FDA rules making abortion pills available by mail and at retail pharmacies. … The advocates are also demanding the return of several Trump-era abortion rules, including the so-called Mexico City policy that blocked federal funding for international non-governmental organizations that provide or offer counseling on abortions, anti-abortion restrictions on federal family-planning clinics and a federal ban on discriminating against health care entities that refuse to cover abortion services or refer patients for the procedure when taxpayer dollars are involved.”
Anti-abortion folk could overplay their bullying of Kennedy and annoy the new administration: The Trump transition team has already vetoed one of the Cause’s all-time favorites, Roger Severino, for HHS deputy secretary, though it may have been as much about his identification with the toxic Project 2025 as his extremist background on abortion policy. It probably doesn’t help that objections to Kennedy for being squishy on abortion were first aired by former vice-president Mike Pence, who has about as much influence with Trump 2.0 as the former president’s former fixer Michael Cohen.
As for Kennedy, odds are he will say and do whatever it takes to get confirmed; he’s already had to repudiate past comments about Trump’s authoritarian tendencies, including a comparison of his new master to Adolf Hitler (a surprisingly common problem in MAGA land). Having come a very long way from his quixotic challenge to Joe Biden in 2023, Kennedy really wants to take his various crusades into the new administration, at least until Trump inevitably gets tired of hearing complaints from donors about him and sends him back to the fever swamps.
I’d like to repeat a question that was raised recently at TPM: Where are the surrogates??
Obama is a cool, reserved kind of guy. We may want him to attack more, but that just isn’t his style. He thinks it’s beneath his dignity to respond to stupid attacks with more stupid attacks, and it is. He’d rather laugh off the stupidity and focus on what matters.
But that doesn’t mean someone else shouldn’t be out there making the case and grabbing the media by the lapels. We’ve already heard Biden doing it, but he can’t do it alone either. What if there were a press conference, today, with, say, Hilary Clinton, Claire McCaskill, Brian Schweitzer, and Mark Warner. What if they said, “We’re asking the media, right now: cut it out. Stop doing McCain’s bidding by chasing every stupid issue he tosses to you. Report on the issues. Report on the candidates – on who they really are, and what they’ve done, not on who they want you to think they are.” Just a simple, clear message – then repeated, as nauseam, in speeches, interviews, whatever, around the country, day after day. That’s how the GOP does it – because it works.
The media won’t report on something unless it’s an event. So you have to create the event. And the best resource for creating events are the dozens of well known, well respected Democrats around the country. Don’t leave Barack out there to respond to all this garbage by himself.
How about turning the “elitist” charge against the Republicans?
I’m thinking of a commercial that pans across the faces of Washington and members of his first cabinet–Jefferson, Hamilton, Adams, etc.
The image would suggest that the Founders were an elite insofar as they were unusually talented, knowledgeable, and sophisticated.
Even a SERIES of commercials using iconic moments from American history:
Would Lincoln be a Republican today? No. Would Teddy Roosevelt, the Trust Buster, be one? No. Would Ike? Probably not. Is this the same Republican Party the country used to admire? No. (Not since Nixon.)
Use these images from American history both to appeal to patriotism [remember how many people watched the PBS series on the Civil War] and to show that Democrats value talent and want to advance merit, that Obama & Biden belong to that tradition.
But just how do we do so? Isn’t that a catch 22? Especially when they get to attack us without cautious or remorse? If we compliment her, we are confirming the wisdom of the pick, and her fitness for office, but if we attack her, we are attacking working mothers??
What you are missing is how any real or imagined attacks of Palin by Obama put McCain in the sympathetic role of the protective father. They want us to attack Palin, they will create imaginary attacks even if we don’t, and it will work for them.
The only way to attack Palin is in conjunction with McCain, Palin, Bush & Cheney. We have to elevate her to McCain’s level. We have to stand her up before we can knock her down.
Interesting article on Joe Scarborough that has been kept quiet by the MSM!
http://www.truthalliance.net/Archive/tabid/67/a…
Lest, we forget, there would have been no need for a Surge if Bush & Co. had not taken the U.S. into a Phony & Pretend War on Terrorism while the Real War on Terrorism in Afghanistan where Bin Ladin lived, was ignored! And if we do not Wise up this might happen in the future!
http://www.youtube.com/v/PdJUCU1UH2w
In a cleverly pre-emptive strike, McCain is falsely accusing Obama of wanting to teach children sex education — it was to teach children how to protect themselves from sexual predators — because they knew Newsweek will be soon coming out with an article on Sarah Palin! “Judge Warned Palin About Emotional Child Abuse.”