Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s efforts to drastically reshape federal vaccine policies have created a window into divides between Maine’s top politicians.
The differences stretch back to when the Senate confirmed in February the anti-vaccine activist as President Donald Trump’s health secretary, with U.S. Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine, voting in support of Kennedy over opposition from all Democrats and U.S. Sen. Angus King, I-Maine, who caucuses with the minority party.
Last week, Collins responded to a question on whether she regrets voting to confirm Kennedy by wondering if Democrats regret voting in July against Dr. Susan Monarez’s nomination to lead the CDC before Kennedy fired her 29 days into the job.
King has not responded publicly to Collins but is aiming to force a Senate vote in October on reinstating transparency requirements that Kennedy rescinded this year. Adding to the fray is Gov. Janet Mills, a Democrat who may run against Collins in 2026 and said Tuesday that the senator and her Republican colleagues “were lied to” by Kennedy.
Maine’s most prominent politicians over the years have maintained friendly ties. But Collins helped recruit King’s 2024 challenger and figures to be in one of the nation’s biggest Senate races this year. Kennedy has shown the lingering divides between the state’s big names.
He reshaped a vaccine advisory panel by adding vaccine skeptics and joined Trump at a Monday news conference to link the use of acetaminophen during pregnancy to increased autism risks in children, a claim health experts swiftly rejected.
Monarez, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s former director whom Kennedy ousted, testified last week before Collins and a Senate committee on how long-contained diseases like whooping cough and polio are poised to make a comeback with Kennedy and anti-vaccine advisers in charge.
Collins has backed Monarez by crediting her for speaking up and asked questions during the hearing that were meant to allow Monarez to share how Kennedy provided no data or science to back up his request to change the childhood vaccination schedule. However, her office doubled down when asked whether she trusts Kennedy by referring again to her comments to CNN last week on Democrats and King voting against Monarez.
Collins reiterated in a statement Monday she was “alarmed” at Monarez’s swift firing and said she plans on questioning Kennedy after U.S. Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-Louisiana, the Senate health committee chair, called on Kennedy to testify in the coming weeks.
“I have many disagreements with Secretary Kennedy but believe that presidents should have the right to choose their own cabinets,” she said.
King has not mentioned Collins by name while criticizing Kennedy. His office deferred Tuesday to his February floor speech ahead of Kennedy’s confirmation vote in which King called Kennedy “a danger” and said “if this were a secret ballot, this man wouldn’t get 20 votes.”
“Everybody in this body knows he has no business anywhere near this position,” he said then.
King and U.S. Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, are also pushing ahead with a resolution to overturn Kennedy’s decision in March to rescind the “Richardson Waiver,” a policy in place since 1971 that required public comment on certain administrative actions from Kennedy’s department.
King’s office argued the repeal has essentially allowed Kennedy to make harmful decisions affecting health policy and Maine research grants without public input. The resolution has enough signatures to face a floor vote in October, though King’s office noted Collins and other Republican senators have not yet signed onto it.
The strongest words for those senators came from the governor in a brief interview following a Tuesday ceremony to celebrate an expansion of a health care manufacturing company in Brunswick.
“They confirmed him, and now they know they were lied to,” Mills said of GOP senators who backed Kennedy. “That’s a tragedy because lives are at stake. … It’s discouraging how soon, how quickly and how strongly this administration has disregarded public health and good science.”