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Welcome to the online version of From the Politics Desk, an evening newsletter that brings you the NBC News Politics team’s latest reporting and analysis from the White House, Capitol Hill and the campaign trail.
In today’s edition, Robert F. Kennedy begins meeting with senators in Washington, while Donald Trump holds his first post-election news conference. Plus, senior political editor breaks down a key underlying factor that led to Kamala Harris’ November defeat.
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Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump’s pick to be Health and Human Services secretary, plans to meet with over two dozen Republican senators on Capitol Hill this week, according to a source familiar with his plans.
Kennedy is poised to face questions about his long history of anti-vaccine rhetoric, his vision for reshaping the health care industry and his support for abortion rights.
The list of senators includes John Thune, R-S.D., who will be Senate majority leader next year, and John Barrasso, R-Wyo., who will be the majority whip, as well as soon-to-be Senate Finance Chair Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, whose committee will oversee and vote on Kennedy’s planned nomination.
His first sit-down was with Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., who called it a “great meeting” and said, “I’m completely supportive of what he wants to accomplish, and I wish him the best of luck.”
Scott said he and Kennedy both want “transparency” on vaccines.
Other notable names on Kennedy’s expected meeting list are moderate Sen. Lisa Murkowski, R-Alaska; Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who faces re-election in 2026; and Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., a senior member of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee that will also review his nomination.
One key senator to watch in Kennedy’s battle for confirmation is Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who is stepping down from GOP leadership after 18 years in the top job but staying on as a senator. McConnell, a polio survivor, fired a warning shot Friday in response to a New York Times report that a Kennedy adviser once asked the FDA to rescind approval of the polio vaccine.
“The polio vaccine has saved millions of lives and held out the promise of eradicating a terrible disease,” McConnell said in a statement. “Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous.”
A Kennedy spokesperson told The New York Times that he and the adviser in question had not discussed the adviser’s push to revoke approval of the polio vaccine. Kennedy spokeswoman Katie Miller told NBC News on Friday, “The Polio Vaccine should be available to the public and thoroughly and properly studied.”
Asked Monday if he supports the polio vaccine, Kennedy told reporters, “Yeah, I support it.”
During a news conference Monday, Trump said that he was a “big believer” in the polio vaccine and that Kennedy is a “very rational guy.”
Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., said he will have “questions” for Kennedy on his abortion views.
“Obviously, HHS under the first Trump administration was very clear on the issue of abortion conscience protections and all those things. But [President Joe] Biden’s team unwound all of that,” Lankford said in a recent interview. “Those are questions I’m going to ask.”
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President-elect Donald Trump was upbeat Monday at his first post-election news conference, saying there was a big difference between now and when he took office in 2016: Some of his former adversaries are now being nice to him.
“Everybody wants to be my friend,” he said about how he’s being treated by CEOs of major technology companies, whom he has portrayed as adversaries in the past. “I don’t know, my personality changed or something.”
During the Mar-a-Lago event, the first he has hosted himself since November, Trump said that one of the biggest differences over the last four years is that “everybody was fighting me.”
“The biggest difference is that people want to get along with me this time,” he added.
Trump referred to recent meetings with Apple CEO Tim Cook, Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai and former Alphabet President Sergey Brin. He also said he plans to meet with Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos later this week. Several major tech companies, including Amazon, Meta and OpenAI have already donated $1 million each to Trump’s inaugural fund.
Trump and the head of the Japanese tech conglomerate SoftBank, Masayoshi Son, also announced a $100 billion investment effort designed to spur artificial intelligence and related infrastructure projects.
A few of the other notable moments from Monday’s news conference:
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In the six weeks since the 2024 presidential election, there have been plenty of explanations for Democrats’ defeat.
Some argue Kamala Harris and her party were too progressive. Others believe they weren’t progressive enough. And others point the finger at culture, “neoliberalism,” media consumption, podcasts, immigration and, of course, inflation.
But from the polling data, there’s an even more fundamental reason why Harris lost to Donald Trump: Joe Biden’s presidency was historically unpopular. And Harris, as the sitting vice president, was unable to separate herself from Biden, or incapable of it.
Just look at Gallup’s historic presidential job approval ratings. Every modern president with a job rating at 45% or lower before the election saw their party lose that race.
And the task for a sitting vice president has been even harder. Only one modern sitting VP, George H.W. Bush, has succeeded the president under which he or she served. Bush 41 did it when Ronald Reagan’s approval rating was at 58% before the 1988 election.
In 2000, Al Gore got oh-so-close to winning the White House when Bill Clinton’s approval rating was at 57%.
But Harris’ situation is more comparable to Hubert Humphrey’s in 1968. Back then, President Lyndon Johnson’s approval rating was at 42%, and VP Humphrey lost the popular vote to Richard Nixon by nearly 1 percentage point.
Guess what: Heading into last November’s presidential election, Biden’s approval was at 41%. And Harris — similar to Humphrey — lost the popular vote by nearly 1.5 percentage points.
Now the reasons for Biden’s low approval rating are up for debate. How much of it was the border? Or the Afghanistan withdrawal? Or inflation? Or his age? Or a combination of all of the above?
Yet no matter how you slice it, he was unpopular for much of his presidency. And an unpopular president is a chief reason why a political party can lose control of the White House.
That’s all from the Politics Desk for now. If you have feedback — likes or dislikes — email us at politicsnewsletter@nbcuni.com
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