Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President Donald Trump's nominee for Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary, will appear before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday to begin his confirmation process. Kennedy still has many detractors in and outside of Capitol Hill, and former Vice President Mike Pence is among them. The reasons Pence gives are because of Kennedy's pro-abortion and anti-vaccine stances.

Pence, in a rare statement, opposes RFK Jr. at HHS: "For the majority of his career, RFK Jr. has defended abortion on demand during all nine months of pregnancy, supports overturning the Dobbs decision and has called for legislation to codify Roe v Wade. If confirmed, RFK, Jr.…

— Kaitlan Collins (@kaitlancollins) November 15, 2024

Pence, in a rare statement, opposes RFK Jr. at HHS: "For the majority of his career, RFK Jr. has defended abortion on demand during all nine months of pregnancy, supports overturning the Dobbs decision and has called for legislation to codify Roe v Wade. If confirmed, RFK, Jr. would be the most pro-abortion Republican appointed secretary of HHS in modern history. On behalf of tens of millions of pro-life Americans, I respectfully urge Senate Republicans to reject this nomination and give the American people a leader who will respect the sanctity of life as secretary of Health and Human Services.”

Pence is not just using his rapidly shrinking pulpit to speak out against Kennedy; he is laying down money. Pence's advocacy group, Advancing American Freedom, mounted a digital ad campaign ahead of Friday's National March for Life to strongarm the Senate into rejecting his former boss' nominee. Not sure how much bitterness is driving this campaign, but $250,000 is a heck of a lot of money to set on fire.

RFK Jr. has supported dangerous health-related conspiracy theories, abortion-on-demand, and increasing access to psychedelics.

Senators must approach this selection with clear eyes and reject his nomination to be the Secretary of Health and Human Services.

— Advancing American Freedom (@AmericanFreedom) January 21, 2025

An advocacy group founded by former Vice President Mike Pence launched a six-figure ad campaign Wednesday opposing President Trump’s nomination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

The ad campaign from Advancing American Freedom, details of which were shared first with The Hill, includes digital ads that will run through the next couple of weeks in the nation’s capital as Kennedy awaits his confirmation hearing.

The ad spend also includes a mobile billboard that will travel around Capitol Hill and the March for Life, an annual anti-abortion event that will take place Friday on the National Mall.

The ads highlight various controversial comments Kennedy has made.

One references his past comments supporting abortion access throughout pregnancy. Another cites misinformation he shared about vaccines amid a measles outbreak in American Samoa. A third refers to past comments he made claiming the polio vaccine was linked to cancer. And another ad notes that Kennedy has argued vaccines cause autism.

The ads also feature a website address that directs viewers to a group the letter wrote urging senators to oppose Kennedy’s nomination.

Assisting Pence in amplifying this message is CRC Advisors chairman Leonard Leo. Leo has been a D.C. power player as co-chair of The Federalist Society and was instrumental in getting us Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch. 

Leo is known for leading successful campaigns to help key conservative members of the Supreme Court, including Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh, win confirmation. That success led to the 2022 Dobbs decision allowing states to ban abortion.

CRC Advisors, based in Alexandria, Virginia, worked closely with a friend of Kavanaugh’s to rebut sexual assault claims against the justice during his confirmation process. In 2023, POLITICO reported that Leo’s network of political nonprofits allowed him to funnel millions into CRC Advisors.

A 2023 POLITICO article outlined how Leo enriched himself by being Trump 45's point-man on these judicial nominees. 

Leo’s own personal wealth appeared to have ballooned as his fundraising prowess accelerated since his efforts to cement the Supreme Court’s conservative majority helped to bring about its decision to overturn abortion rights. Most recently, Leo reaped a $1.6 billion windfall from a single donor in what is likely the biggest single political gift in U.S. history.

I guess sharpening one's claws and seeing whether your political influence can destroy a Trump 47 nominee is the new game to be played, especially if there is money to be had—and there's always money to be had.

Kennedy's former vice presidential candidate and staunch MAHA advocate Nicole Shanahan calls out Pence and Leo, and notes their ties to pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, among other Big Pharma companies.

Why is a “conservative” PR firm spending hundreds of thousands of $ to try to sink RFK’s nomination? Could it be because they’re also pocketing millions from Big Pharma and super PACs that supported Nikki Haley’s campaign against Trump? This is the precise corruption the American… pic.twitter.com/c8k57HJEh5

— Nicole Shanahan (@NicoleShanahan) January 26, 2025

Why is a “conservative” PR firm spending hundreds of thousands of $ to try to sink RFK’s nomination? Could it be because they’re also pocketing millions from Big Pharma and super PACs that supported Nikki Haley’s campaign against Trump? This is the precise corruption the American public voted against in November!

Eli Lilly CEO David Ricks donated to both Pence's exploratory campaign for president and his presidential campaign. Pence didn't even make it to the Iowa caucuses, so that was money well spent.

David Ricks, who leads Eli Lilly, made a major early donation to a super PAC in support of former vice president Mike Pence — one of the first big 2024 donations from a major player in the pharmaceutical industry.

Ricks in June donated $25,000 to a special political action committee called Committed to America, which was founded to support Pence. Ricks’ contribution ranks in the top 30 donations to the super PAC so far, according to federal campaign finance filings.

But the Brownstone Institute lays out absolutely damning connections between Advancing American Freedom and Big Pharma corporations like Pfizer.

For one, the AAF received a $100,000 donation from the Searle Freedom Trust in 2022, created by Daniel C. Searle — founder of the pharmaceutical company G.D. Searle. Over the past decade, the trust has given over $200 million in grants to various conservative groups. G.D Searle has been involved in a few controversies, such as its studies of artificial sweetener Aspartame in 1970. An FDA task force criticized Searle’s studies as “at best…sloppy and suffering from…a pattern of conduct which compromises the scientific integrity of the studies.” The controversy was further fueled by perceived conflicts of interest, as several officials involved in the approval process later accepted positions linked to Searle.

(Searle also developed the first commercial oral contraceptive, Enovid, which was a major catalyst for the women’s liberation movement of the 1960s and 1970s and faced significant resistance from religious groups and conservative organizations. I’m not exactly sure what Pence’s view is on this matter, but he tends to have far more conservative views on reproductive issues — far more than President Trump. It’s a bit strange he’s attacking RFK, Jr. on the abortion front.)

Notably, G.D Searle is no longer an independent pharmaceutical company. 

It is now part of Pfizer.

More telling is that Marc Short, Pence's former VP Chief of Staff, is now one of the many co-chairmen of Advancing American Freedom. Short co-signed the Advancing American Freedom letter in opposition to Kennedy's nomination. While serving as COS to VP Pence, Short actively held stock in several pharmaceutical corporations involved in the COVID-19 response, and even though he made attempts to divest himself, according to an NPR piece, he never did.

According to NPR, he also owned stock in Johnson & Johnson, Merck, Eli Lilly, and other companies involved in the federal Covid response worth between $506,043 and $1.64 million.

The hallmark of Kennedy's career and his commitment, if confirmed as HHS Secretary, is to take on Big Pharma and its insidious influence over American medical and health policy. Pence and his organization apparently want no part of this; their role is to protect their interests, and the American people are not among them.

Though #Pfizer claims to be a standard-bearer for “quality, safety and value,” it has a corporate rap sheet a mile long. #BigPharma #ProfitsOverPeoplehttps://t.co/Cu24XRWFBo

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) October 23, 2020

But another potential reason that Pence wants the Kennedy nomination tanked is Kennedy's position on not just the COVID vaccines but on the national COVID response in 2020-21, a response that was headed by none other than then-Vice President Mike Pence. Kennedy was a vociferous opponent of the vaccine and mask mandates dictated by the task force stars Dr. Anthony Fauci and Dr. Deborah Birx. He wrote an entire book about Fauci and his crimes, and in 2023, he mounted a huge "Stop the Mandates" rally in the nation's capital, which brought thousands to the National Mall to protest the failed COVID response and the Biden-Harris administration's doubling down on that failure.

Robert F Kennedy, Jr. just arrived to the Defeat the Mandates rally.#DefeatTheMandates #WashingtonDC pic.twitter.com/sEvAOqLrU1

— Oliya Scootercaster 🛴 (@ScooterCasterNY) January 23, 2022

In this new era of government transparency and opening the books, as HHS Secretary, Kennedy would have great power to expose just what was — and was not — done by the coronavirus task force, and any negligence, fault, or malfeasance would land squarely in Pence's lap. Pence has very little credibility left, thanks to his betrayal of President Trump and his lackluster presidential run to prove he was right in his betrayal. So, if there are any vestiges of credibility left, an investigation into the task force would likely blow this to smithereens.

Mike Pence is a sad and desperate man fighting for relevance by opposing RFK Jr.’s nomination to HHS.

He was a long forgotten Governor with no political future until @realDonaldTrump selected him as VP in 2016.

Pence was a coward after the stolen 2020 election. He abandoned… pic.twitter.com/vTgyXgN40m

— Mark Lucas (@lucasiowa) January 27, 2025

Mike Pence is a sad and desperate man fighting for relevance by opposing RFK Jr.’s nomination to HHS. 

He was a long forgotten Governor with no political future until @realDonaldTrump selected him as VP in 2016.

Pence was a coward after the stolen 2020 election. He abandoned President Trump and the January 6th defendants. 

He betrayed Trump and MAGA by running against his former boss in 2024.  His campaign was a joke. Just like Kamala Harris, he dropped out before the Iowa Caucus.  

Now he is partnering with Never Trumpers to oppose RFK Jr.’s nomination in a desperate attempt to regain relevance. 

Support RFK Jr.’s nomination via the @Article3Project  Action Center. Click the link below:

Pence opposes Kennedy because he needs to save what is left of his reputation. But Pence's opposition could well be the final nail in the coffin of his irrelevancy.