Former Hawaii U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard, President Donald Trump's pick to serve as director of national intelligence, appears before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Thursday, Jan. 30, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Screenshot from committee webcast)

WASHINGTON — Former Hawaii U.S. Rep. Tulsi Gabbard got a step further on Tuesday in her bid to serve as the next director of national intelligence after a U.S. Senate panel propelled her nomination to the Senate floor.

Gabbard — who has stood among President Donald Trump’s most controversial Cabinet nominees — managed to secure enough votes in the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to advance her nomination, 9-8, along party lines, the panel confirmed to States Newsroom.

The lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve faced serious concerns from lawmakers of both parties regarding her nomination following a series of controversies, including over her foreign policy views and meetings she took part in with then-Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

But Gabbard provided further clarity to some of her past statements and actions last week in front of the Senate intelligence panel and described her vision on working “to end the politicization of the intelligence community,” if confirmed.

Tuesday’s committee vote by no means guaranteed Gabbard’s confirmation, but the outcome brought her closer to potentially securing the post responsible for overseeing the vast intelligence community.

That community, made up of 18 agencies and organizations, has a budget of more than $100 billion.

Gabbard, who is now a Republican but ran an unsuccessful 2020 Democratic presidential campaign, managed to win the support of senators on the panel who voiced skepticism surrounding her nomination, including GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine and Todd Young of Indiana.

Collins said Monday that Gabbard addressed her concerns regarding the nominee’s views on Edward Snowden — a former contractor at the National Security Agency who leaked classified information regarding surveillance efforts.

During last week’s confirmation hearing, Gabbard took heat for refusing to call Snowden a traitor.

However, Collins managed to get Gabbard to say that she would not support a pardon for Snowden, if confirmed.

Gabbard also garnered the support of Young, who in a Tuesday post on social media backed the nominee while sharing a letter she wrote to the Indiana Republican outlining multiple commitments she will make, if confirmed. 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of Health and Human Services, testifies during his Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing at the Dirksen Senate Office Building on Jan. 29, 2025, in Washington, D.C.  (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. moved one step closer to becoming Health and Human Services secretary on Tuesday after a Senate committee favorably reported his nomination to the floor.

The Finance Committee’s 14-13 party-line vote doesn’t necessarily guarantee Kennedy will receive Senate confirmation, though it signals he does have the chance despite decades of spreading false information about vaccine safety.

Louisiana Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy, who backed Kennedy in committee, said during a floor speech later Tuesday he had received hundreds of messages personally and thousands into his office expressing strong support from some and dismay from others about the prospect of Kennedy gaining Senate confirmation.

“The most notable opponents of Mr. Kennedy were pediatricians on the front lines of our children’s health, who regularly have to combat misinformation,” Cassidy said. “They are aware that children are now contracting diseases that they would not have contracted if the child was vaccinated.”

Cassidy, who worked as a physician for decades before becoming a senator, said Kennedy and the Trump administration have assured him they will protect “the public health benefit of vaccination.”

“Mr. Kennedy and the administration committed that he and I would have an unprecedentedly close, collaborative, working relationship if he is confirmed,” Cassidy said. “We will meet or speak multiple times a month.”

Pledges by Kennedy

Cassidy said Kennedy and the Trump administration committed that if confirmed, Kennedy would: 

• Work within the current vaccine approval and safety monitoring systems and not establish parallel systems;

• Maintain the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory committee on immunization practices recommendations without changes;

• Keep statements on the CDC’s website that state vaccines do not cause autism;

• Provide at least 30 days notice to the HELP Committee if HHS wants to make changes to any of the federal vaccine safety monitoring programs;

• Allow the HELP Committee chairman to choose a representative on any board or commission formed to review vaccine safety; and

• Appear before the HELP Committee on a quarterly basis if requested.

“If Mr. Kennedy is confirmed, I will use my authority of the Senate committee with oversight of HHS to rebuff any attempt to remove the public’s access to life-saving vaccines without ironclad causational scientific evidence that can be accepted and defended before the mainstream scientific community and before Congress,” Cassidy said. “I will watch carefully for any effort to wrongly sow public fear about vaccines between confusing references of coincidence and anecdote.”

Cassidy said that if Kennedy is confirmed as HHS secretary by the full Senate, he expects Kennedy would support overhauls Cassidy has planned for the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the National Institutes of Health.

“We also need to reform institutions, like FDA and NIH, and those, as has already been indicated, are my priorities as chairman of the HELP Committee. I look forward to his support in accomplishing this,” Cassidy said.

‘Manifestly unqualified’

Democrats raised their concerns about how Kennedy’s confirmation would impact the country’s public health system, just before the committee voted.

Georgia Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock said that Kennedy is “manifestly unqualified for the job he seeks.”

“We need a serious person at the helm of the HHS, an agency responsible for the health of about half of all Americans,” Warnock said. “Mr. Kennedy appears more obsessed in chasing conspiracy theories than chasing solutions to lower health care costs for working families in Georgia and to make sure that we are protected.

“The last thing we need is a dilettante dabbling in conspiracy theories at HHS.”

‘Go wild’

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis said that he believes Kennedy will “go wild” as HHS Secretary.

“I hope he goes wild and actually finds a way to reduce the cost of health care,” Tillis said. “I hope he goes wild and instead of having the discussions that we have had for the 10 years that I’ve been in the Senate of making Medicaid work and making people on Medicaid healthier, I hope he goes wild and figures out how to do it because the status quo has not achieved much in the way of gain.

“I hope he goes wild on food safety discussions so that we can actually approve our food safety supply.”