(DCNF)—Republican Florida Rep. Anna Paulina Luna is sounding the alarm about corporate interests threatening to tank Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to serve as President Donald Trump’s Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary.
With Kennedy facing two confirmation hearings next week, the prospective HHS secretary’s confirmation is uncertain due to a number of GOP holdouts who are thus far noncommittal. Luna, who supports Kennedy’s nomination and has been a driving force behind Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) priorities in Congress, is warning that senators will face immense pressure from large corporations profiting off the country’s chronic disease crises to oppose Kennedy’s nomination.
“I do believe that there are nefarious actors within the agriculture and food industries that are going to start putting financial top-down pressure on some of these senators in an effort to block his confirmation because they’re making a lot of money on making people sick, Luna, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, told the DCNF. “[Opposing Kennedy’s nomination] would signify that they’re corporate shills that have no invested interest in keeping our people healthy but sick for their own personal gain and interest.”
“There’s a lot of good people here in Washington, but there’s also a lot of bad people that I think are more controlled by corporations,” Luna added.
Luna, who served as a surrogate for Trump’s 2024 Presidential campaign, believes that GOP senators would be rejecting the president’s mandate and core campaign promise to “Make America Healthy Again” if they were to oppose Kennedy’s nomination to serve as HHS secretary. Senators that vote “no” on Kennedy’s nomination would also invite backlash from millions of Trump-Vance voters across the country, including self-described “MAHA moms” that want to feed their families healthy foods free of toxins and harmful additives, according to Luna, who counts herself in that cohort.
“A lot of people have no idea the underground force that they’re playing with: the amount of moms especially that just do not want this sh*t in their food,” Luna, who described herself as label-conscious when she goes grocery shopping, said during the interview.
Kennedy’s GOP Holdouts
Kennedy is scheduled to appear before the Senate Finance and Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committees on Wednesday and Thursday.
The finance committee will likely vote the following week to advance Kennedy’s nomination to the Senate floor. Due to Senate Republicans’ one-seat majority on the committee, a single GOP senator could block Kennedy’s nomination in the event all Democratic lawmakers on the committee oppose Kennedy.
Three Republican senators who sit on the finance committee — Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, Todd Young of Indiana and Thom Tillis of North Carolina — have yet to take a firm position on Kennedy’s nomination.
Young’s staff told the DCNF that the Indiana Republican’s meeting with Kennedy was “very positive.”
Tillis has committed to voting for any Trump nominee that advances out of committee, but has not commented on whether he plans to support Kennedy during the Finance committee vote. A spokesperson for Tillis did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment.
Cassidy, a former gastroenterologist, has complimented parts of Kennedy’s advocacy around ultra-processed foods and chronic disease, but suggested the HHS secretary nominee is “wrong” about vaccines, during an interview on “Fox News Sunday” on Jan 5.
Had a frank conversation with HHS nominee @RobertKennedyJr. We spoke about vaccines at length. Looking forward to the hearings in HELP and Finance. pic.twitter.com/FIcNYLNlr0
— U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy, M.D. (@SenBillCassidy) January 8, 2025
GOP Sens. Susan Collins of Maine, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, seen as more willing to oppose some of Trump’s nominees, could also pose problems for Kennedy. Just four GOP senators could tank Kennedy’s nomination on the Senate floor assuming all Senate Democrats vote against Kennedy to lead HHS.
MAHA’s Momentum Heading Into Kennedy’s Confirmation Fight
Luna told the DCNF that more of her Republican colleagues are adopting Kennedy’s positions on various food and health issues that the presumptive HHS secretary pushed to the forefront of the national political conversation during the 2024 presidential campaign.
“There’s also conversations on the floor from other members that are also now becoming educated on it [harmful ingredients in the food supply] and just are horrified because they have young kids, grandchildren,” Luna told the DCNF. “A lot of people were just too trusting and unaware of what was happening with the food industry and just big corporate production … and how much stuff they were adding in just basically as filler instead of actual quality content, food products,” Luna told the DCNF.
But the Florida lawmaker has faced resistance from her own party in attempting to regulate harmful chemicals in the food supply.
Bills that Luna introduced last Congress to ban artificial food dyes linked to cancer and high-fructose corn syrup, associated with increased risk of obesity and diabetes, did not advance out of the Republican-controlled Energy and Commerce committee.
Our food affects every part of our lives, including our hormones, immune system, microbiome, brain chemistry, and more. What we fuel our bodies with matters.
That’s why I’ve introduced legislation to BAN harmful additives and toxic seed oils from everyday foods! #MAHA
— Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (@RepLuna) January 22, 2025
She is considering introducing legislation this Congress to place warning labels on artificial and harmful food ingredients, which could garner more support from GOP colleagues than implementing outright bans.
Luna’s spokesperson sent the DCNF a list of 15 food additives she would like to regulate by requiring their packaging comes with warning labels, similar to the ones seen on cigarette boxes. Many of these ingredients, including Red Dye 40, Green Dye 3, Yellow Dyes 5 and 6, either require warning labels or are banned in the European Union.
Luna is optimistic that the Biden Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) decision to ban Red Dye 3 in the last weeks of the administration, a long-time goal of Kennedy’s, spurs momentum at the federal level to further crackdown on harmful additives in the food supply.
The FDA banned Red Dye 3 for use in cosmetics and topical drugs in 1990 after scientific studies linked the synthetic dye to cancer in laboratory animals, but allowed the color additive to remain in the food supply.
“It’s not going to just be him [Kennedy],” Luna told the DCNF. “It’s going to be me pushing from the House side. I’m going to get a sponsor in the Senate, and then you’ll have top down pressure so we can hit it from all angles.”
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