The Cowardice of Senate Republicans
They act like they're willing to push back against Trump's dangerous legislation and Cabinet members, but at every move they bend to the president and his madness.
Bill Cassidy drew a line. Or at least it looked that way.
The Republican senator, a conscientious Louisiana physician before entering politics, insisted that President Donald Trump’s famously anti-vaccine nominee for health secretary protect America’s lifesaving vaccine development process. And after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pledged to “maintain…without changes” a key vaccine advisory board, Cassidy waved off objections from public health experts and secured Kennedy’s confirmation.
Now Kennedy has fired the entire advisory board, fired the director of the Centers for Disease Control, and driven out other CDC leaders for resisting his immunization-weakening orders. An embarrassed Cassidy responded yesterday by joining senators of both parties in grilling Kennedy at a committee hearing. He did not, however, join Democrats in calling for the secretary’s ouster.
This fiasco was both predictable and typical of Trump’s second term. If you want profiles in courage, don’t look in the Senate Republican caucus.