Susan Collins in spotlight for Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr. confirmation hearings

Jan. 29—Sen. Susan Collins will be in the spotlight this week as high profile hearings get underway for two of President Donald Trump’s most controversial cabinet appointees.

But it will require some extra hustle from Maine’s senior senator. Both hearings are scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday.

Collins will question former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, during a hearing in front of the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

The Maine Republican also plans to question Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Trump’s appointee to lead Department of Health and Human Services, during a hearing before the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Collins serves on both committees and her staff is trying juggle her schedule so she can participate in both public hearing.

Independent Sen. Angus King also serves on the intelligence committee, which will have a separate opportunity to question Gabbard in private.

Collins has already shown she is willing to break ranks with Trump and her fellow Republicans on the president’s cabinet nominations.

She was one of three Republican senators to vote against former Fox News personality Pete Hegseth’s nomination to lead the Department of Defense last weekend, along with Republican Sens. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska. Collins cited Hegseth’s lack of experience and his past statements about women not belonging in the military as reasons for her ‘no’ vote.

In the end, Collins vote wasn’t needed since Vice President JD Vance broke the 50-50 tie.

Both Kennedy and Gabbard also face significant opposition, but Gabbard is believed to be the most vulnerable nominee. Senators are questioning her previous opposition to warrantless wiretapping of foreign targets and her sympathetic views of the Russian and former Syrian regimes.

The intelligence committee is comprised of nine Republicans and eight Democrats, so a single Republican ‘no’ vote would deprive Gabbard of a positive recommendation to the full Senate. The nomination would still be decided by the full Senate, however.

Collins’ office says the senator is still reviewing Gabbard’s positions. But she told the Washington, D.C. news outlet, The Hill, on Friday that there are “a lot obvious issues” with Gabbard, including her past opposition to a law allowing warrantless surveillance of foreign targets.

Gabbard has since offered qualified support for the power to wiretap foreign targets, but Collins isn’t convinced that Gabbard fully supports the program.

“There are a lot of obvious issues,” Collins told a reporter from The Hill. “Her answers to the written questions were very hedged on it. I know there’s been a lot of reporting that she’s changed her position. That’s not how I read her answers. I read them as, ‘I’ll take a look at the reforms and see if they meet my concerns.'”

Politico reported Monday that Trump allies are pressuring the committee to make its vote public as a way of pressuring wavering Republicans, including Collins, into supporting Gabbard. Unlike other committees, the intelligence committee typically deliberates and votes in private.

Collins will also have the opportunity to question Kennedy, a vaccine critic who has been nominated to lead the HHS Department. She has not taken a public position on the nomination, but has felt some pressure from advocates in Maine to reject it.

Doctors in Maine and elsewhere across the country have mobilized in opposition to Kennedy. This week, the nonprofit health advocacy group, Protect Our Care, launched ads urging senators in eight states, including Maine, to vote against Kennedy, who they said in a press release would “defund life-saving research and put every Americans’ health and well-being at risk.”

The 30-second digital ad blames RFK Jr.’s anti-vaccine views for contributing to the deaths of 83 people, including children, during a 2019 measles outbreak in Samoa. It calls Kennedy “dangerous, reckless and unfit” to lead the nation’s health care system programs that serve 125 million Americans.

Collins office did not respond to questions about whether the ads are having any effect.

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