CNN senior data reporter Harry Enten revealed on Thursday that Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the “most popular” official in President Donald Trump’s cabinet.
Kennedy holds a -7 point net approval rating, which is higher than the approval ratings of Vice President J.D. Vance, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and Secretary of State Marco Rubio, according to Enten’s aggregate data. The HHS Secretary has become one of the most embattled officials among Democrats and members of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), with many calling for his resignation.
“RFK Jr. is not a drag on President Trump. He’s not the most embattled. In fact, he is the most popular official in Trump’s cabinet at least according to the poll,” Enten said.
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Kennedy fired the now-former CDC director, Susan Monarez, in August as part of his shakeup of the agency. He also fired 17 members of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, which recommends which vaccines Americans should receive and when, in June for allegedly being “plagued with persistent conflicts of interest.”
One member of the panel resigned on June 4 after Kennedy removed the COVID-19 vaccine from the childhood schedule.
During a tumultuous hearing on Thursday, Kennedy got into multiple quarrels with members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee over his recent changes to the CDC and the vaccine schedule. Kennedy outlined the CDC’s “disastrous” failures in protecting Americans from infectious diseases and for recommending “nonsensical policies” during the pandemic, including the closures of small businesses.
“These changes were absolutely necessary to restore the CDC’s role as the world’s gold standard public health with a central mission of protecting Americans from infectious disease,” Kennedy said during the hearing. “CDC failed that responsibility miserably during COVID when its disastrous and nonsensical policies destroyed small businesses, violated civil liberties, closed our schools and caused generational damage in doing so, masked infants with no science and heightened economic inequality.”
The committee harshly criticized Kennedy for undermining confidence in vaccines and established science. Following the hearing, several Democratic members of the House and Senate called on Kennedy to resign, including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
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