Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s choice for health secretary, plowed through his second day of confirmation hearings on Thursday, delivering a vigorous defense of his views on vaccination during a contentious three-hour session that was high on drama and revealed that a critical Republican senator still had doubts.The hearing before the Senate Health Committee was raucous and emotional. Mr. Kennedy got into a shouting match with Senator Bernie Sanders, the Vermont independent, while Senator Maggie Hassan, Democrat of New Hampshire, broke down in tears when talking about her 36-year-old son, who has cerebral palsy. Mr. Kennedy himself did not shy away from confrontation.Here are five takeaways:A key Republican vote is still undecided.The Republican who may hold the key to Mr. Kennedy’s future, Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, did not get to a yes on Thursday. Mr. Cassidy, chairman of the health committee and a doctor, also serves on the Senate Finance Committee, the panel that will determine whether Mr. Kennedy’s nomination moves forward to the Senate floor.Mr. Cassidy opened the hearing by recounting the story of a patient who needed a liver transplant. He said that caring for the woman was the “worst day of my medical career,” because he knew a $50 vaccine could have prevented her fate. “Your past of undermining confidence in vaccines with unfounded or misleading arguments concerns me,” Mr. Cassidy said. “Can I trust that that is now in the past? Can data and information change your opinion, or will you only look for data supporting a predetermined conclusion?”By the end of the hearing, Mr. Cassidy made clear that his questions had not been answered. He wondered aloud whether Mr. Kennedy would use his “credibility” to support or undermine faith in vaccines, saying, “I’ve got to figure that out for my vote.”If Mr. Cassidy votes against Mr. Kennedy in the Finance Committee, Mr. Kennedy could still have a vote on the Senate floor if Republican leaders employ procedural tactics to force it. But if Democrats remain united in their opposition, Mr. Kennedy can afford to lose only three Republican votes if he is to win final confirmation. Two other Republicans seen as potential no votes — Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Senator Susan Collins of Maine — are members of the health committee and pressed Mr. Kennedy on vaccines.Of the two, Ms. Murkowski expressed more skepticism and seemed more likely to vote against Mr. Kennedy. She told him that Alaska had made “considerable gains” in “vaccinating the many people in very rural areas where one disease outbreak can wipe out an entire village.” She implored him to use “your podium, your platform” to promote trust in vaccination.Kennedy is not backing off his skeptical view of vaccines.Allies of Mr. Kennedy have expressed concern that when the debate is about vaccines — and not healthy eating or other more consensus agenda items — he is losing ground. But Mr. Kennedy showed little inclination to try to change the discussion on Thursday.Again and again, Democratic senators pushed Mr. Kennedy to declare that vaccines do not cause autism, a discredited theory that Mr. Kennedy has promoted for years, and save lives. Again and again, he refused to do it.Mr. Kennedy’s stock answer was to tell senators to show him the science, without acknowledging that there is already a body of research from the United States and other countries that has found no connection between vaccines and autism.“If you show me science that says that I’m wrong, I’m going to say I was wrong,” he said at one point.When Mr. Cassidy asked him to “reassure mothers, unequivocally and without qualification, that the measles and hepatitis B vaccines do not cause autism,” Mr. Kennedy started to say he would not go into the job with any preconceived notions.Mr. Cassidy cut him off, telling him it was a yes-or-no question, but Mr. Kennedy would not budge, insisting that he still needed to be convinced. “If you show me data,” he said, “I will be the first person to assure the American people” that “they need to take those vaccines.”Mr. Kennedy also stood by a statement that Black people should adhere to different immunization schedules. He told Senator Angela Alsobrooks, Democrat of Maryland and one of two Black women on the panel, that research showed that Black people needed fewer antigens, the components of vaccines that provoke an immune response.Ms. Alsobrooks cut him off. “Mr. Kennedy, with all due respect, that is so dangerous,” she said. “Your voice would be a voice that parents would listen to.”Republicans are deeply divided about vaccination.The hearing demonstrated the divisions within the Republican Party around vaccination. Three Republicans — Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma and Senator Tommy Tuberville of Alabama — praised Mr. Kennedy for raising questions about vaccines.When Mr. Paul, who is also a doctor, suggested that infants did not need to be vaccinated against hepatitis B at birth, Mr. Cassidy stepped in to contradict him. Mr. Tuberville, a former football coach, announced at the hearing that his son and daughter-in-law had “done their research” and were not going to have their child vaccinated on the recommended schedule.Mr. Mullin went so far as to suggest that vaccines may indeed cause autism — a theory that has been repeatedly debunked by numerous studies. “There’s an issue that I have as a father of six, that when my kids come out from getting their vaccines, they look like a freaking pin cushion. I mean, 72 vaccinations,” he said, adding, “When you start looking at the rise of autism, why wouldn’t we be looking at everything?”Senators are grappling with Mr. Kennedy’s star power.If confirmed, Mr. Kennedy would come to the position of health secretary with an unusually powerful platform, something both supporters and detractors have noted. He is a scion of the storied Kennedy political clan. He has named his own movement — Make America Healthy Again — earning him congratulations from Mr. Sanders. Many of his ideas, such as promoting healthy eating and tackling chronic disease, are appealing. And he has a devoted legion of followers, many of them the so-called MAHA Moms, positioning him as an important part of the Trump coalition.Senator Jim Banks, Republican of Indiana, put it this way: “President Trump just won a historic election victory, and you were a big part of it.”He observed that “a lot of those moms” who attended the hearing were from his home state. “And that’s why you have my full support, and anything other than voting for you to confirm you would be thumbing my nose at that movement,” he told Mr. Kennedy.That power is precisely what makes Mr. Kennedy’s opponents, as well as those senators on the fence, nervous. Ms. Murkowski described him as an “influencer” when she pleaded with him not to sow doubt in vaccines.“My phone blows up with people who really follow you, and there are many who trust you more than they trust their own physician,” Mr. Cassidy told him. “And so the question I need to have answered is, what will you do with that trust?”Kennedy is a lot like Trump — and a little bit like one of his chief antagonists.“I alone can fix it,” Mr. Trump memorably said at the Republican National Convention in 2016. Mr. Kennedy, in promoting himself as the right candidate for health secretary, said much the same, promoting himself as the leader of a “transcendent” movement that he had created.Testifying on Wednesday before the Senate Finance Committee, Mr. Kennedy had his own “I alone can fix it” moment, citing his experience fighting agencies like the Food and Drug Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.“When you litigate against them, you get a Ph.D. in corporate capture and how to unravel it,” Mr. Kennedy said. “I’ve written six books about these agencies. I know a lot about them, and I know how to fix it. And there’s nobody who will fix it the way that I do, because I’m not scared of vested interests.”On Thursday, he invoked the strength of the MAHA movement. “This is one of the most powerful and transcendent movements I’ve ever seen,” Mr. Kennedy said. “The nation is ready for change and recognizes that this is a unique inflection moment.”Mr. Sanders has his own grass-roots movement, as he pointedly reminded the room: “I ran for president like you!”Mr. Kennedy addressed Mr. Sanders as “Bernie,” a breach of protocol for a witness addressing a senator, before delivering a lecture wrapped up in a rebuke.“Senator, the health care system is broken. It’s not working,” he said. “You’ve been working on it your entire career, as Americans get less and less healthier as premiums go up.”Then, referring to Mr. Trump, Mr. Kennedy said, “He has asked me to fix it for the American people.”
