Conservative Columnist Urges GOP to ‘Fight’ Trump and Torpedo Pro-Choice HHS Nominee RFK Jr.
AP Photo/Alex Brandon
Conservative Washington Post columnist Ramesh Ponnuru — who doubles as the editor of National Review‘s print magazine — is urging Senate Republicans to “start a fight” with President-elect Donald Trump and reject Health and Human Services Secretary-designate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Under the headline, “Pro-lifers should start a fight over RFK Jr.,” Ponnuru began by lamenting that pro-lifers have “lost their confidence” in the years since achieving their greatest victory in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, even refraining from criticizing Trump as he’s put distance between himself and their position.
“The pro-life movement needs to recover its fight, and its self-respect. The Kennedy nomination is the place to draw a line,” he submitted, noting that Kennedy had previously expressed his support for abortion even on “full-term” fetuses.
“The sidelining of pro-lifers in the Republican Party is sure to continue, however, if they tacitly consent to it. That’s what acquiescing to Kennedy’s confirmation would amount to,” argued Ponnuru, who also knocked Kennedy for his “character” and “dangerous lies about vaccines causing autism.”
He continued:
Today, pro-lifers still have leverage. It would take only four pro-life Senate Republicans to sink Kennedy’s nomination (because Democrats will almost certainly be united against him) or at least wring some concessions out of him.
Starting a fight would require pro-life activists and senators to be willing to throw their weight around — and to appreciate that they have weight in the first place. Some might hold back out of fear of angering Trump, or perhaps they have grown to like Kennedy during the course of the campaign or wish to handle this behind closed doors, opting for secret deals rather than public takedowns. But demonstrated power is a sturdier foundation for a political movement than the goodwill of politicians. That’s something pro-lifers understood before Trump.
“The president-elect might reasonably feel that he owes Kennedy for dropping his own presidential bid to endorse him. If so, Trump should have decided to make Kennedy nutrition czar,” concluded Ponnuru. “It’s up to pro-lifers to point out that Trump owes them, too.”
