Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-LA), a former physician, reflected on his vote to confirm Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as health secretary as Cassidy finishes out his final months as a U.S. senator, refusing to say whether he regrets the crucial vote.
The Louisiana senator, who lost his reelection primary after President Donald Trump endorsed his challenger, Rep. Julia Letlow (R-LA), cast the deciding vote confirming Kennedy after pressing the Make America Healthy Again leader on his stance on vaccines during his confirmation hearings. At the time, pundits looked to Cassidy to see whether he would pivot from his party to block Kennedy’s confirmation, but he ultimately fell in line, landing on the consensus that Kennedy could help with “restoring trust in our public health institution.”
In a Friday interview with Politico, however, Cassidy insinuated that he was “lied to” during Kennedy’s confirmation process, but did not clarify who lied or what the exact lie was.
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“I feel incredibly passionate about making this about serving the American people, particularly as regards to healthcare,” Cassidy said. “And if there’s a decision that’s been made in the past, which I made honestly, but somebody else was dishonest, I work to try and make it so that the dishonesty does not sabotage the health of the American people.”
Cassidy did not clarify who was “dishonest” about what in the interview, but his disputes over past conversations with Kennedy and the Trump administration have come under scrutiny before.
When speaking from the Senate floor in early 2025 about his vote to confirm Kennedy, Cassidy said Kennedy and Vice President JD Vance told him the nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services would not change vaccine policies without consulting the senator’s office. He also claimed Kennedy promised to “maintain” a key Centers for Disease Control and Prevention vaccine safety advisory panel “without changes.” Those comments came into the spotlight in June 2025, when Kennedy fired the 17 panel members and told Congress that Cassidy’s claim of the promise was “inaccurate.”
Cassidy told the outlet that he wants to look forward, refusing to express regret over the confirmation vote.
“You couldn’t operate, you couldn’t live, you couldn’t be effective if all you do is wallow in something,” Cassidy said. “You can’t wallow. You got to move on.”
However, he confirmed that he requested Kennedy appear before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, which Cassidy chairs, to testify about topics such as the current increase in measles cases. Cassidy said Kennedy confirmed he would testify, and they are “trying to arrange” a date for him to do so.
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Cassidy sounded off on the current clusters of measles outbreaks in the U.S., including the four adults who died of measles in Pennsylvania in 2026. He bashed Kennedy’s MAHA movement and its stance on vaccines in the interview as he prepares to leave the upper chamber this year.
“I’m just not that impressed with MAHA,” Cassidy said. “And why not? Because if you really want to ‘Make America Healthy Again,’ and because of your efforts, we now have record outbreaks of measles — boy, that’s not making America healthy again.”