Cassidy Accuses RFK Jr. of Lying to Win His Confirmation Vote, Says Public Health Commitments 'Have Been Violated'

Since Cassidy cast the vote that cleared Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s nomination out of the Senate HELP Committee in early 2025, the Louisiana senator has watched the commitments Kennedy made to him get systematically walked back, and he said so plainly on CBS News' Face the Nation on June 28, 2026.

"At this point, the commitments that were made to me have been violated. When commitments are made, trust is destroyed," Cassidy told Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan. His interview was conducted June 25.

What Cassidy Says He Was Promised

In a Senate floor speech on February 4, 2025, Cassidy laid out what Kennedy had pledged: among other things, that the CDC would keep language on its website stating there is no established link between vaccines and autism.

The CDC page today technically still carries a heading that reads "Vaccines do not cause Autism." But it now appears with an asterisk and a note at the bottom of the page disclosing that the phrase remains only because of an agreement with Cassidy. Immediately below the heading, the page states: "this webpage has been updated because the statement 'Vaccines do not cause autism' is not an evidence-based claim." The page then argues that no studies specifically prove the listed infant vaccines do not cause autism.

Decades of large-scale research, reviewed repeatedly by the CDC itself, the Institute of Medicine, and independent researchers, has found no evidence that vaccines cause autism. Framing the absence of a narrow study design as scientific uncertainty is not neutral. It is a rhetorical move.

Why Cassidy Voted Yes in the First Place

The strongest defense of Cassidy's original vote is the one he still makes himself. He told CBS News he faced a binary choice: Kennedy with congressional oversight and specific commitments, or Kennedy installed as a White House health czar with no guardrails at all.

"Either he was going to be in a position where there were guardrails... or he was going to be appointed White House health czar, in which case he would have the president's ear without the guardrails," Cassidy said. That is a coherent argument. Whether it was naive is a separate question.

Cassidy said he now believes Kennedy "lied" to him to secure the vote, calling it "pretty clear" and "easy to surmise." He stopped short of saying Kennedy had committed an impeachable offense, according to The Independent's reporting on the same interview.

The Yelling Match with Trump

The RFK Jr. criticism is one piece of a broader rupture between Cassidy and the Trump administration. The week before the Face the Nation interview, Cassidy and Trump got into a shouting match at a Senate GOP caucus lunch on June 25, with Trump reportedly calling Cassidy a "lunatic" after Cassidy called the war in Iran a mistake, according to The Independent.

Cassidy later told Brennan he "lost his temper," attributing it partly to his Irish ancestry. He said he passed Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff a note during that heated meeting offering to change his vote on the Iran War Powers resolution in exchange for a White House briefing, a briefing he said he had been repeatedly denied. He changed his vote after Witkoff agreed.

Public Health Credibility

Cassidy's core charge extends beyond one CDC webpage. "If you build public health upon a foundation of lies, then you're going to have the absence of adequate public health," he said. As a licensed physician chairing the Senate health committee, he is not an outside critic. He is the Republican who made Kennedy's confirmation possible.

Cassidy also said polling shows the American public still understands vaccines are important, and that the administration "has gotten off the anti-vaccine message into something more positive" in recent months. That is a limited concession: he is crediting the administration for dialing back publicly, not for reversing course substantively.

The Political Context

Cassidy lost his Louisiana primary in May 2026 to a Trump-backed challenger. He, along with Sen. Thom Tillis, will be leaving Congress. Cassidy told Brennan he believes Congress will continue holding Trump accountable after they go, then added, "I don't know" if the president understands the Senate is a separate body from the presidency, according to CBS News.

The unresolved question is whether Cassidy's public break with Kennedy produces any concrete result before he leaves office. He chairs the Senate HELP Committee through the end of his term. Whether he uses that authority to call Kennedy before the committee or force a public accounting of the CDC webpage reversal is something he has not announced as of June 29, 2026.