Trump team looks to allay GOP concerns about RFK Jr’s past support for abortion access

(CNN) — Donald Trump’s transition team is quietly strategizing how to assuage the anti-abortion wing of the Republican Party amid concerns that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s past comments supporting abortion access could complicate his confirmation as the president-elect’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

Republican senators and anti-abortion leaders have already sounded the alarm about Kennedy, who was running as a Democrat as recently as last year, and his past support for abortion access until fetal viability, which Trump’s team sees as a key vulnerability.

Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford, a new member of Senate GOP leadership, recently told Fox News: “It’ll come up in the hearing 100%. There’s no question that this will be an issue. I will raise it if no one else does.”

Trump’s team has already begun giving assurances to anti-abortion leaders that they plan to stack other top health care positions with anti-abortion advocates to help alleviate those concerns, two people with direct knowledge of the conversations said.

“I made clear to them that this needs to be tended to,” one anti-abortion leader, who spoke with the transition team over their concerns, told CNN. “We have some serious policy and personnel concerns that have been propriety to our community for 30 years. The expectation they’ve given me is they will have an assistant HHS secretary who more aligns with us.”

Few in Trump’s orbit were surprised by his decision to name Kennedy to the top health care role since he had repeatedly vowed on the campaign trail to give the former independent presidential candidate, who endorsed him in August, power over health policy. But questions over Kennedy’s ability to win over Senate Republicans vital to his confirmation arose with the transition team both before and after he was offered the position, two sources briefed on the matter told CNN.

Even before Trump selected him, the team had discussed staffing HHS with deputies who are more conservative on reproductive rights to signal that the agency would not deviate from Trump’s position, sources briefed on the discussions said. Once those staffing decisions are made, Kennedy is expected to meet with anti-abortion rights senators on the Hill.

Abortion opponents say they have two priorities they want Kennedy to address: installing anti-abortion advocates in top roles and restoring the anti-abortion policies enacted in Trump’s first term.

“There’s no question that we need a pro-life HHS secretary, and of course, we have concerns about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. I believe that no matter who is HHS secretary, baseline policies set by President Trump during his first term will be re-established,” Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, told CNN.

Some of the policies anti-abortion advocates, like SBA Pro-Life America, have said they want in a second Trump term are for HHS to revive restrictions on federal funding going to family planning organizations that provide information about abortion.

One Republican senator, who spoke to CNN on the condition of anonymity to speak freely, said Republican senators concerned about Kennedy’s position on abortion will expect him to commit to reintroducing the restrictions on federal funding when he meets with them privately ahead of his confirmation hearings.

“My general sense is that those of us who are more on the pro-life side of the spectrum here certainly don’t want the federal government promoting abortions,” the Republican senator said. “I think it’s pretty simple, and I think that would be the expectation.”

Anti-abortion groups are also calling for the Trump administration to bring back an expansive approach to enforcing so-called “conscience protections,” which allow doctors and even hospitals to opt out of performing the procedure, and pushing for a reversal of several Biden-era policies, including guidance instructing hospitals to perform abortion in medical emergencies, even in states that ban the procedure, as well as a policy that allows for abortion pills to be obtained without an in-person doctor’s visit.

Trump, amid pressure from anti-abortion groups and allies, said in April he believes abortion policy should be left to the states to legislate and later vowed to veto a federal abortion ban as president should such a bill reach his desk.

In a statement to CNN, Trump transition spokesperson Katie Miller said Kennedy “has every intention of supporting President Trump’s agenda to the fullest extent.”

“This is President Trump’s administration that Robert F. Kennedy has been asked to serve in and he will carry out the policies Americans overwhelmingly voted for in President Trump’s historic victory,” Miller said.

A spokesperson for Kennedy did not respond to requests for comment. But Kennedy himself is aware of the concerns about him, two people familiar with the discussions said, and plans to personally assure senators that he supports Trump’s view that abortion should be left to states.

During the 2024 campaign, Kennedy adopted several different positions, drawing criticism at various points from both abortion rights organizations and anti-abortion groups. In August 2023, while still running in the Democratic primary, Kennedy said he would sign a law banning abortion after three months of pregnancy if he were elected, though his campaign walked back his statement at the time.

During a podcast interview in May, when he was running as an independent, Kennedy said he opposed any government limits on abortion at the state or federal level but walked back his comment after blowback from anti-abortion advocates, including from inside his own campaign. In the final months of his campaign, before he suspended his bid and endorsed Trump, Kennedy advocated for abortion to be legal until fetal viability and endorsed the framework implemented under Roe v. Wade.

But he often downplayed the importance of abortion access as a salient political issue for voters, minimizing it as one of several “culture war issues” that are less important than “existential issues” like the national debt, inflation, attacks on freedom of speech and the increase in diagnoses of chronic diseases.

In recent conversations with Trump’s transition team, Kennedy has indicated that he has little interest in shaping abortion policy, even as his role as secretary would give him broad authority over abortion access, including access to abortion medication.

Instead, he has said he plans to focus more of his efforts on his promises to curb obesity and upend the nation’s food industry, sources familiar with the talks said.

There is also a general belief within Trump’s orbit that, despite being controversial, Kennedy may secure at least a couple of Senate Democratic votes. However, that sentiment is not strong enough to prevent the transition from working to reassure concerned Republicans.

Kennedy’s wavering on the issue led Trump’s former vice president, Mike Pence — who staunchly opposes abortion rights and declined to endorse Trump this year — to call on GOP senators to reject his nomination.

“On behalf of tens of millions of pro-life Americans, I respectfully urge Senate Republicans to reject this nomination and give the American people a leader who will respect the sanctity of life as secretary of Health and Human Services,” Pence said in a statement following Trump’s selection of Kennedy for the HHS role, calling the pick “deeply concerning to millions of pro-life Americans.”

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who had lobbied Trump during his 2024 campaign to support a 15-week national abortion ban with exceptions, recently told The Dispatch of Kennedy: “I want to see what he has to say about abortion. … That will matter a lot to me.”

Some GOP senators, including those who sit on the chamber’s Pro-Life Caucus, said they are confident Kennedy will honor Trump’s position.

“Being a Cabinet secretary is not an exercise in individuality, you know? These people serve the principal, the principal is the president,” Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley told CNN. “So, I assume that he will support the president’s policies, whatever his personal position is. You don’t get hired because of your personal positions.”

Hawley added: “I don’t want to presume I know the answers, but I’d be really surprised if he didn’t say ‘I’ll support the president’s policies on this and faithfully execute those.’”

Fellow Missouri Republican, Sen. Eric Schmitt, acknowledged he has concerns about Kennedy’s views on abortion but defended him nevertheless, arguing he was picked by Trump to shake things up and “challenge a lot of things that so-called scientists don’t seem to want to challenge anymore.”

“So am I going to agree with him on everything? I am ardently pro life. Of course not. But again, I think the president deserves the opportunity to put people in place who are going to implement change within, within these agencies that got way too big, way too powerful and they’re not accountable to anyone,” Schmitt told reporters in the Capitol.

CNN’s Tierney Sneed and Ted Barrett contributed to this report.

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