Senator Bill Cassidy, a physician and key G.O.P. vote, joined Democrats in aggressively questioning Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Trump’s pick for health secretary. He did not say how he would vote.

In his first Senate confirmation hearing to be secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. repeated claims we have written about before on vaccines and chronic disease.

Alexandra Sifferlin, a health and science editor for Times Opinion, hosted an online conversation on Wednesday with the Opinion columnist Zeynep Tufekci and the Opinion writers David Wallace-Wells and Jessica Grose about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s first of two confirmation hearings for secretary of health and human services.

Kennedy Jr. about his commitment to aiding rural hospitals during Kennedy’s confirmation hearing, it was one of the rare moments when both a Republican senator and President Donald Trump’s nominee to head the Department of Health and Human Services appeared to be making sense.

The issue isn’t only his troubling views but whether a complex federal agency can function effectively under his leadership.

The recent Senate confirmation hearings for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. presented a striking scene that would confuse a time traveler from 10 years ago. Democratic lawmakers took turns excoriating a man who once embodied their ideals. Sen. Bernie Sanders, seemingly grasping for gotchas, was reduced to questioning Kennedy about baby clothing merchandise.

The two went back and forth in a near-shouting match, at which point Senator Markwayne Mullin complained Sanders was “battering the witness.”

KFF Health News reporters break down the biggest takeaways from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s confirmation hearings for secretary of Health and Human Services.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, made disputed claims before the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.

Mr. Kennedy appears to have most Republicans behind him as he seeks the job of health secretary, though he couldn’t escape his past stances on vaccines and abortion.

The many controversial people appointed to the Trump administration, from Elon Musk to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., have at least one thing in common: They dislike and distrust experts. While anti-intellectualism and populism are nothing new in American life,

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he wasn’t antivaccine as senators pressed on his past remarks, in the first of two days of hearings over his nomination for health secretary.