Top Trump nominees advance as Senate confirms attorney general

US President Donald Trump's cabinet nominees have gained momentum as Robert F Kennedy Jr and Tulsi Gabbard cleared a key hurdle in the Senate, and Pam Bondi was confirmed.

The full Senate voted to approve Bondi as the next US attorney general, tasked with running the Department of Justice.

Kennedy, picked to be the next US health secretary, was advanced by the Senate Finance Committee in a 14-13 vote that split along party lines. Only Republicans voted in favour of him.

Gabbard chosen to serve as Director of National Intelligence, survived a narrow 9-8 vote before the Senate Intelligence Committee - also split along party lines.

Kennedy and Gabbard, both considered controversial picks, will now move to a vote before the full US Senate, which Republicans control 53-47.

Pam Bondi will become the country's top law enforcement officer on Tuesday evening after the Senate approved her by a 54-46 vote.

All Republican senators voted to confirm Bondi; Pennsylvania Senator John Fetterman was the only Democrat to vote in favour. The Senate currently is controlled by Republicans.

When she was nominated by Trump, he wrote on social media that she would end what he called the ''weaponization" of the justice department against Republicans and himself, which the Biden White House denied.

Born in Tampa, Florida, Bondi studied criminal justice at the University of Florida then received a degree from Stetson University College of Law. She was admitted to the Florida Bar in 1991.

A longtime Trump ally who has criticised the criminal cases against him, she was elected as Florida's first female attorney general in 2010, zoning in on opioid abuse and human trafficking.

During the confirmation process, Kennedy received some opposition from lawmakers of both parties due to his scepticism of vaccines.

Some also questioned whether he had enough expertise on matters including US public health infrastructure and healthcare programmes.

He spent much of his hearings, however, insisting he was not opposed to vaccines - nor a conspiracy theorist - but merely supported more stringent safety tests.

Still, senators often zeroed in on his past comments, including a podcast appearance where he said: "There's no vaccine that is safe and effective."

Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent who works with Democrats, praised Kennedy's "Make America Healthy Again" slogan. But the senator also showed pictures of baby clothes printed with anti-vaccine messages sold by Children's Health Defence, an organisation that the nominee led until recently.

Kennedy responded that he no longer had oversight of the group.

Although Kennedy's testimony last week did not win over any Democrats to his side, he did manage to secure the crucial support of Louisiana Republican Senator Bill Cassidy.

Cassidy, a physician, had expressed scepticism about Trump's nominee, but announced he would support him after being given "serious commitments" by Kennedy and the White House. This clears the way for a full Senate vote.

Kennedy is the son of Robert F Kennedy and the nephew of President John F Kennedy.

He initially floated a run for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2024, but later mounted an independent bid before dropping out and endorsing Trump.

The US political scion initially made his name as an environmental lawyer before turning to criticism of US healthcare - including food safety and anti-vaccine advocacy - in recent years.

As health secretary, Kennedy would be in charge of huge agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Kennedy has suggested that he will fire many of the people who work for these federal agencies, and Trump has said he would give his nominee broad leeway to reform the US food and healthcare systems.

Gabbard also faced opposition for some past controversial positions, including her decision to meet and defend former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in 2017, as well as a previous push to obtain a pardon for National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden.

At one point, Gabbard was pressed by both Republican and Democratic senators on whether she'd classify Snowden - who fled to Russia to avoid US law enforcement - as a "traitor". She declined to answer directly, saying only that he "broke the law".

She added that he had exposed "egregious illegal and unconstitutional programmes" that led to reforms, but she maintained that she would work to block future illegal leaks and disclosures.

• Five takeaways from Gabbard and Patel's confirmation hearings
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Several senators also noted that Gabbard had defended Russia's invasion of Ukraine at the start of the war. Democratic Senator Michael Bennet accused Gabbard of agreeing that a "totalitarian state" was "justified in rolling over the peaceful border of Ukraine".

Still, Republican senators who were initially sceptical of Gabbard eventually rallied behind her.

On Monday, Senator Susan Collins of Maine said Gabbard had addressed her concerns. Senator Todd Young of Indiana announced a day later that he, too, would back Gabbard after he secured her commitment to "advance our national security".

Gabbard is a former congresswoman from Hawaii and a military veteran who served with a medical unit in Iraq.

She was previously a member of the Democratic Party, and had championed liberal causes like government-run healthcare while serving in Congress.

In 2020, she ran for the Democratic presidential nomination, and later dropped out and endorsed Joe Biden.

Gabbard left the Democratic Party in 2022, accusing them of being "warmongers" driven by "cowardly wokeness". She became an independent before becoming a Republican in 2024 and backing Trump's presidential bid.

If confirmed by the full Senate, she would manage a budget of more than $70bn (£55bn) and oversee 18 intelligence agencies.