PHOENIX (AP) — Democratic Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs renewed a push Thursday to regulate groundwater in rural parts of the drought-stricken state, and she’s more optimistic this time that her efforts will find support in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

Hobbs stood alongside local officials, rural Republican leaders and Democratic lawmakers to unveil her proposal to create new management areas to regulate groundwater pumping — long used by farmers and rural residents without restriction. She urged legislators to take swift action to reach consensus.

“We made more progress last year on negotiating rural groundwater reform than has been made ever,” Hobbs said. “We’re not starting at ground zero. We’re starting at a good place.”

Identical bills were introduced in both chambers Thursday, but neither has Republican co-sponsors. Local conservative leaders like Prescott Mayor Phil Goode urged Republicans in the Legislature not to see water as a partisan issue.

“Last time I checked, there wasn’t Democratic water and Republican water,” he said. “There’s water for our state.”

Travis Lingenfelter, a Republican who chairs the Mohave County Board of Supervisors, said he expects Republicans to introduce rural groundwater legislation early next week, which the senate GOP spokesperson said she could not confirm.

Lingenfelter said Republicans and Democrats started at “polar opposite” places last year, but ongoing negotiations have brought the two sides “really close” to a middle ground.

Groundwater already is regulated in the state’s most populous areas — including Phoenix and Tucson — called active management areas, through a law passed in 1980 that hasn’t been updated since.

The legislation attempts to provide a just-right alternative between active management areas and irrigation non-expansion areas that limit farming on new land. Active management areas have been criticized as too regulatory, and irrigation non-expansion areas have been called not regulatory enough.

The legislation would create four rural groundwater management areas in basins experiencing severe decline near Gila Bend, Kingman, Vicksburg and Willcox, and shift the Willcox Basin that Hobbs designated as an active management area to the less restrictive model proposed in the legislation.

Conservation guidelines are intended to be more flexible than what Democrats proposed last year. The legislation also would establish councils — similar to what Republicans previously sought — with local leaders who will have the authority to set conservation targets.

Hobbs said she would not hesitate to act unilaterally if the Legislature fails to come to an agreement this session.

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Sejal Govindarao, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Conspiracy theories about vaccines. Secret meetings with dictators. An enemies list.

President Donald Trump’ s most controversial Cabinet nominees — Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Tulsi Gabbard and Kash Patel — flooded the zone Thursday in back-to-back-to-back confirmation hearings that were like nothing the Senate has seen in modern memory.

The onslaught of claims, promises and testy exchanges did not occur in a political vacuum. The whirlwind day — Day 10 of the new White House — all unfolded as Trump himself was ranting about how diversity hiring caused the tragic airplane-and-helicopter crash outside Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport.

And it capped a tumultuous week after the White House abruptly halted federal funding for programs Americans rely on nationwide, under guidance from Trump’s budget pick Russ Vought, only to reverse course amid a public revolt.

“The American people did not vote for this kind of senseless chaos,” said Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., earlier.

It was all challenging even the most loyal Republicans who are being asked to confirm Trump’s Cabinet or face recriminations from an army of online foot-soldiers aggressively promoting the White House agenda. A majority vote, in the Senate which is led by Republicans 53-57, is needed for confirmation, leaving little room for dissent.

Here are some takeaways from the day:

Tulsi Gabbard defends her loyalty — and makes some inroads

Gabbard is seen as the most endangered of Trump’s picks, potentially lacking the votes even from Trump’s party for confirmation for Director of National Intelligence. But her hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee offered a roadmap toward confirmation.

It opened with the chairman, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., swatting back claims that Gabbard is a foreign “asset,” undercover for some other nation, presumably Russia. He said he reviewed some 300 pages of multiple FBI background checks and she’s “clean as a whistle.”

But Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the top Democrat on the panel, questioned whether she could build the trust needed, at home and abroad, to do the job.

Gabbard, a lieutenant colonel in the Army Reserve, defended her loyalty to the U.S. She dismissed GOP Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, when he asked whether Russia would “get a pass” from her.

“Senator, I’m offended by the question,” Gabbard responded.

Pressed on her secret 2017 trip to meet with then-Syrian President Bashir Assad, who has since been toppled by rebels and fled to Russia, she defended her work as diplomacy.

Gabbard may have made some inroads with one potentially skeptical Republican. Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, asked whether Gabbard would recommend a pardon for Edward Snowden. The former government contractor was charged with espionage after leaking a trove of sensitive intelligence material, and fled to residency in Russia.

Gabbard, who has called Snowden a brave whistleblower, said it would not be her responsibility to “advocate for any actions related to Snowden.”

Picking up one notable endorsement, Gabbard was introduced by one of the Senate’s more influential voices on intelligence matters, Richard Burr, the retired Republican chairman of the Intelligence Committee.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pressed again on vaccine safety

Kennedy faced a second day of grilling to become Health and Human Services secretary, this time at the Senate Health committee, as senators probed his past views against vaccines and whether he would ban the abortion drug mifepristone.

But what skeptical Democratic senators have been driving at is whether Kennedy is trustworthy — if he holds fast to his past views or has shifted to new ones — echoing concerns raised by his cousin Caroline Kennedy that he is a charismatic “predator” hungry for power.

“You’ve spent your entire career undermining America’s vaccine program,” said Sen. Chris Murphy D-Conn. “It just isn’t believable that when you become secretary you are going to become consistent with science.”

Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Va., took the conversation in a different direction reading Kennedy’s comments about the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in which he said in a social media post: “It’s hard to tell what is conspiracy and what isn’t.”

“Wow,” Kaine said.

Kennedy responded that his father, the late Robert F. Kennedy, told him that people in positions of power do lie.

But Kennedy’s longtime advocacy in the anti-vaccine community continued to dominate his hearings.

Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H., choked back tears when she told Kennedy that his work caused grave harm by relitigating what is already “settled science” — rather than helping the country advance toward new treatments and answers in healthcare.

But Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., immediately shifted the mood saying his own sons are fans of the nominee and he thanked Kennedy for “bringing the light” particularly to a younger generation interested in his alternative views.

Pressed on whether he would ban the abortion drug mifepristone, Kennedy said it’s up to Trump.

“I will implement his policy.”

A combative Kash Patel spars with senators over his past

Kash Patel emerged as perhaps the most combative nominee in a testy hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee as the nominee to lead the FBI.

Confronted with his own past words, writings and public comments, Patel, a former Capitol Hill staffer turned Trump enthusiast, protested repeatedly that his views were being taken out of context as “unfair” smears.

Sen. Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., read aloud Patel’s false claims of voter fraud in the 2020 election and another about his published “enemies list” that includes former Trump officials who have been critical of the president.

“’We’re going to come after you,’” she read him saying.

Patel dismissed her citations as “partial statement” and “false.”

Klobuchar, exasperated, told senators: “It’s his own words.”

Patel has stood by Trump in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack at the Capitol and produced a version of the national anthem featuring Trump and the so-called J6 choir of defendants as a fundraiser. The president played the song opening his campaign rallies.

During one jarring moment, Sen. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., asked Patel to turn around and look at the U.S. Capitol Police officers protecting the hearing room.

“Tell them you’re proud of what you did. Tell them you’re proud that you raised money off of people that assaulted their colleagues, that pepper sprayed them, that beat them with poles,” Schiff said.

Patel fired back: “That’s an abject lie, you know it. I never, never, ever accepted violence against law enforcement.”

Patel said he did not endorse Trump’s sweeping pardon of supporters, including violent rioters, charged in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

“I do not agree with the commutation of any sentence of any individual who committed violence against law enforcement,” Patel said.

In another Cabinet development, Republicans on the Senate Budget Committee advanced Trump’s budget nominee Russ Vought toward confirmation after Democrats boycotted the meeting in protest.

Vought was an architect of Project 2025 and influential in the White House memo to free federal funding this week, which sparked panic in communities across the country. Advocacy organizations challenged the freeze in court, and the White House quickly rescinded it, for now.

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Associated Press writers Farnoush Amiri, Matt Brown and Stephen Groves contributed to this report.

Lisa Mascaro, The Associated Press

BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) — When North Dakota’s petroleum association was going to hold a banquet honoring top fracking executives last year, it turned to Gov. Doug Burgum. The two-term Republican, now President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Interior Department, co-hosted the event — at the governor’s mansion.

And when energy industry lobbyists were looking for help taking on Biden administration greenhouse gas rules, they also turned to Burgum. In an email to Burgum’s office seeking the legal heft the state could provide, an industry lobbyist argued that “combating” such regulations required “a one-two punch” from industry and government.

While it is not surprising that the governor of the third-largest oil producing state would have a close relationship with fossil fuel producers, records obtained by The Associated Press reveal Burgum’s administration eagerly assisted the industry even as the governor was profiting from the lease of family land to oil companies. And his assistance came at a time when Burgum was leaning on those very connections to build his national profile in the Republican Party.

Now that the Senate has confirmed him to run the Interior Department, Burgum will have vast control over federal lands, including the issuance of oil and gas leases, as well as a mandate from Trump to extract such resources even though the U.S. is producing record amounts of fossil fuels.

The selection of Burgum, who briefly pursued the presidency in 2023 before endorsing Trump, represents an abrupt pivot from Biden’s emphasis on combating climate change. It also signals that Trump intends to follow through on a proposal made last spring when he urged oil and gas CEOs to donate $1 billion to his campaign in exchange for the dismantling of Biden’s environmental agenda.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment, and a spokesman for Burgum declined to make him available for an interview.

“Governor Burgum worked tirelessly to build a prosperous economy,” spokesman Rob Lockwood said in a statement. “As governor, he met with job creators and leaders who generated opportunities for the people of North Dakota.”

Under the partisan glare of Washington and faced with stricter federal ethics rules governing conflicts of interest, Burgum has pledged to sell his interest in his family’s lease with the shale oil giant Continental Resources, as well as another one with Hess, a Chevron subsidiary. He has also pledged to sell stock held in a handful of energy companies, some of which he interacted with as governor, which are worth as much as $200,000 according to his 2023 financial disclosures.

Close ties to an industry titan

There is perhaps no better demonstration of Burgum’s close ties to oil and gas producers than his friendship with Harold Hamm, the Continental founder. The billionaire Oklahoma wildcatter advises Trump on energy policy and is widely viewed as playing a role in helping Burgum secure the nomination to lead Interior. He did not respond to a request for comment.

Burgum has likened Hamm to Teddy Roosevelt for his “grit, resilience, hard work and determination” that he said “changed North Dakota and our nation.” The shout-out came after Hamm had donated $50 million toward a library honoring Roosevelt in western North Dakota — a passion project of Burgum’s.

Hamm also gifted Burgum a set of cuff links along with a note thanking Burgum for his “friendship.”

These were not his only displays of patronage. Though Burgum, an independently wealthy former software company CEO, had a dim chance of winning the Republican presidential primary, Hamm’s Continental Resources contributed $250,000 in the summer of 2023 to a super PAC supporting Burgum, records show.

Emails between Burgum and Hamm’s offices reveal the two communicated often.

In a May 2020 email, Hamm’s executive assistant asked if Burgum had time to talk with Hamm and shared a briefing document that railed against wind power and excoriated tax breaks for wind energy providers as “unconscionable.”

Ethics experts say there are other aspects of their relationship that pose a greater conflict of interest. As governor, Burgum never disclosed that his family leased roughly 200 acres of farmland to Continental for well drilling, as previously reported by CNBC. When Burgum ran for president and faced greater transparency requirements, he revealed making $50,000 in royalties from Continental in 2023.

“Tens of thousands of families and mineral owners have similar arrangements,” said Lockwood, the Burgum spokesman, “As the publicly available disclosures show: the cited agreement began many years before he became governor.”

Despite this relationship, Burgum took action that benefited Hamm. As chairman of North Dakota’s Industrial Commission, which regulates the oil and gas industry, he voted nearly a dozen times or more on measures that had favorable outcomes for Continental, records show.

Sarah Vogel, a Democrat and former North Dakota Agriculture Commissioner who previously sat on the commission, said Burgum seemed more like a cheerleader of the industry than a regulator.

“I don’t think he had a regulator’s mindset. He had a promoter’s mindset, which has probably made him beloved in the oil and gas industry,” Vogel said.

Other executives have ties to Burgum

Hamm is not the only oil executive or lobbyist who has cultivated ties with Burgum. Ryan Berger, a lobbyist for Occidental Petroleum, emailed Burgum’s staff last year seeking a meeting for Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub.

“In an ideal world, a face-to-face over lunch or dinner would be amazing,” Berger wrote in a May 2024 email.

The records revealed that a Who’s Who of oil executives had calls scheduled with Burgum. They include: CEOs of Chevron and Exxon; Marathon Oil officials had an audience with Burgum in 2022; and the governor also spoke before the Hess Corporation’s board of directors’ dinner. Burgum’s family also has an oil lease with Hess that paid him as much as $1,000, according to his financial disclosure.

On Inauguration Day, Burgum declined an invitation to attend a party at the posh Hay-Adams Hotel that was hosted by Hamm and several petroleum trade associations and oil companies.

Many of those executives and lobbyists, who will have business before the Interior Department, already know how to reach him.

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Slodysko reported from Washington.

Brian Slodysko And Jack Dura, The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate confirmed Doug Burgum as interior secretary late Thursday after President Donald Trump tapped the North Dakota billionaire to spearhead the Republican administration’s ambitions to boost fossil fuel production.

The vote was 79-18.

Burgum, 68, is an ultra-wealthy software industry entrepreneur who came from a small North Dakota farming community, where he worked at his family’s grain elevator.

He served two terms as governor of the oil-rich state and launched a presidential campaign in 2023, but dropped out months later and quickly endorsed Trump.

Trump also picked Burgum to chair a new National Energy Council that’s tasked with achieving American “energy dominance.” He would have a seat on the National Security Council — a first for the interior secretary.

His directive from Trump is to make it even easier for energy companies to tap fossil fuel resources, including from public lands. That raised alarms among environmentalists and some Democrats as greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels bake the planet.

Burgum eagerly assisted the energy industry during his time as governor, when he was also profiting from the lease of family land to oil companies, according to records obtained by The Associated Press.

During his confirmation hearing, Burgum said the U.S. can use energy development as leverage to promote peace and to lower consumer costs.

He raised concerns about the reliability of renewable power sources promoted under former President Joe Biden, and said the U.S. needs to generate more electricity from sources such as coal and nuclear that can run constantly.

Democrats in response accused the Trump administration of abandoning an “all of the above” energy policy to favor fossil fuels.

“They said wind is dead on the offshore. They are trying to do as much of this as possible to create demand for coal, for fossil gas,” Hawaii Democratic Sen. Brian Schatz said during a Thursday floor speech.

Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, said Burgum would rightfully prioritize energy innovation over regulation.

“He’s going to take the common-sense action of unlocking our lands for oil and for gas production,” Barrasso said. He added that more than 600,000 acres of land in Wyoming have been approved for energy production but were not offered for development by the Biden administration.

The U.S. currently produces more crude oil than any nation in history, according to the Energy Information Administration. More cost-effective technology in recent decades drove drilling booms in states including New Mexico, Texas and North Dakota, where vast expanses of rural farmland have been industrialized by oil and gas companies.

The booms brought billions of dollars in tax revenue to state and federal governments. But burning those fuels is also unleashing immense volumes of carbon dioxide that scientists say is warming the planet.

The Interior Department has jurisdiction over a half-billion acres of federal land and vast areas offshore. Those areas produce about one-quarter of U.S. oil annually.

The interior secretary also oversees the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Bureau of Land Management and other subagencies.

Burgum succeeds Deb Haaland, who under Biden sharply scaled back oil and gas sales and promoted solar and wind projects on federal lands.

Trump made energy development a centerpiece of his first term and is again vowing to abolish restrictions on the industry that are intended to protect the environment and public health.

Burgum, during his hearing earlier this month before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources committee, suggested to lawmakers that carbon dioxide from fossil fuels could be captured to neutralize their contribution to global warming.

Carbon-capture skeptics say the technology is untested at scale and allows the fossil-fuel industry to continue largely unchanged even as climate change becomes increasingly urgent.

During Haaland’s tenure at the Interior Department, officials also reversed actions taken during Trump’s first term that weakened protections for imperiled species while making it easier for private developers to pursue projects on public lands.

Republicans in Congress have said they plan to again seek changes to rules on endangered species and they want Burgum to help.

Burgum says federal lands can be used for many purposes including recreation, logging and oil and gas production that can lift local economies.

“Not every acre of federal land is a national park or a wilderness area,” he told lawmakers.

Matthew Brown, The Associated Press

Hospitals in Colorado, Virginia and the nation’s capital said Thursday they have paused gender-affirming care for young people as they evaluate President Donald Trump’s executive order aimed at cutting federal support for such care.

Denver Health in Colorado has stopped providing gender-affirming surgeries for people under age 19, a spokesperson confirmed Thursday, in order to comply with the executive order and continue receiving federal funding. It is unclear whether the hospital will continue providing other gender-affirming care for youth, including hormone therapy and puberty blockers.

In Virginia, VCU Health and Children’s Hospital of Richmond said they have suspended gender-affirming medication and gender-affirming surgical procedures for those under 19 years old.

In Washington, D.C., Children’s National Hospital said the hospital had “paused prescriptions of puberty blockers and hormone therapy to comply with the directives while we assess the situation further.” The hospital already did not perform gender-affirming surgery on minors, a spokesperson said Thursday.

Trump’s order, signed Thursday, is part of a push to reverse Biden administration policies meant to protect transgender people and their care. It ordered agencies to take steps to makes sure that hospitals receiving federal research and education grants “end the chemical and surgical mutilation of children.”

Other hospitals told The Associated Press that their current practices would continue. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago said hospital officials are reviewing the order and “assessing any potential impact to the clinical services we offer to our patient families.”

“Our team will continue to advocate for access to medically necessary care, grounded in science and compassion for the patient-families we are so privileged to serve,” the statement said.

The language in Trump’s executive order — using words such as “maiming,” “sterilizing” and “mutilation” — contradicts what is typical for gender-affirming care in the United States. It also labels guidance from the World Professional Association for Transgender Health as “junk science.”

WPATH said in a statement that restrictions and bans on “access to necessary medical care for transgender youth are harmful to patients and their families.”

Gender-affirming medical care for transgender youth isn’t common. A new study shows that fewer than 1 in 1,000 U.S. adolescents with commercial insurance received puberty blockers or hormones during a recent five-year period, and the bulk of gender-affirming surgeries are not performed on youth.

The Denver hospital said Trump’s order would affect the mental health of its transgender patients, and that they would continue to receive primary and behavioral health care.

“Denver Health is committed to and deeply concerned for the health and safety of our gender diverse patients under the age of 19,” the hospital’s statement said.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Carla K. Johnson, Devna Bose And Laura Bargfeld, The Associated Press

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — Sen. Bill Cassidy has emerged as a central figure in the confirmation of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose nomination to health and human services secretary poses an equally consequential moment for the second-term Republican facing an uncertain political future in Louisiana.

A physician-turned-politician, Cassidy has questions about Kennedy’s past claims linking common vaccines to autism, a position the gastroenterologist rejects and sought repeatedly to convince the nominee to renounce during a committee hearing Thursday.

Yet, Republicans and voters at home in the state President Donald Trump carried handily are pressing Cassidy, who is up for reelection in 2026, to vote yes.

Already at odds with a segment of his party for voting to convict Trump during his 2021 impeachment, Cassidy acknowledged his own desire Thursday to see Trump succeed in his second term as president. His questioning of Kennedy on Thursday demonstrated vividly the conflict between Cassidy’s medical views and his desire to be an ally to the president and his supporters.

Ultimately Cassidy stopped short of saying whether he will vote to approve Kennedy’s nomination, though the hearing did offer some clues.

“You may be hearing from me over the weekend,” Cassidy said.

Who is Cassidy hearing from?

There was no ambiguity from Louisiana Republicans in their advice to Cassidy.

Prominent party members, including the state GOP’s organizational leader, vocal conservatives and a potential primary challenger, made clear in their public signals to Cassidy that he would be flouting the will of the party were he to oppose the nominee of a candidate who carried Louisiana so handily.

State Surgeon General Ralph Abraham, state Republican Chair Derek Babcock and a conservative coalition in the Louisiana House of Representatives that adopted its congressional counterpart’s title, the Freedom Caucus, all wrote to Cassidy urging him to vote to confirm Kennedy.

Republican Gov. Jeff Landry’s letter sent perhaps the clearest signal to Cassidy. In a letter to Cassidy, his former House colleague and longtime Trump devotee recalled Kennedy’s appearance in Baton Rouge, and noting “Kennedy proved to be an asset to the state as we navigated the edicts of the federal government.”

Republican State Rep. Raymond Crews said Cassidy’s standing among Louisiana Republicans is riding on his vote on Kennedy.

A vote against Kennedy “wouldn’t match up with the country, and it particularly doesn’t match up with the state of Louisiana,” Crews said.

What’s Kennedy’s Standing among Louisiana’s Republican base?

Cassidy acknowledged in his opening to the committee Thursday what Louisiana statehouse Republicans have noticed: Kennedy has a following in Louisiana.

“My phone blows up with people who really follow you,” Cassidy said, noting the calls he gets urging him to vote to confirm. “And there are many who trust you more than they trust their own physician.”

That’s, in part, due to Kennedy’s appearance before a packed 2021 Louisiana legislative committee hearing in Baton Rouge, when he joined in opposition to then-Gov. John Bel Edwards’ proposal to add COVID-19 vaccinations to the list of shots required for Louisiana public school students.

At the invitation of then-Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry, Kennedy was hailed during the visit to Baton Rouge by opponents of the Democratic governor’s proposal, many of them part of organized parent groups.

The appearance endeared Kennedy to opponents of Edwards’ measure, which was defeated in the Republican-controlled legislature, said Louisiana Rep. Julie Emerson, a member of the House Health and Welfare Committee at the time.

“He’s a bit of a folk hero in Louisiana because of that,” Emerson said.

How does the hearing affect Cassidy’s political future?

Cassidy is already unpopular with a segment of Louisiana Republicans for voting in January 2021 to convict Trump after his second impeachment stemming from the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by Trump supporters on the U.S. Capitol. Cassidy’s vote came right after he was sworn in to his second term.

He has drawn a primary challenger in state Treasurer John Fleming, and others are considering entering the race against him. Louisiana last year adopted a closed party primary election system, abandoning the “jungle primary,” which would have given Cassidy a smoother path.

Before, all candidates for Senate — Republicans, Democrats and third-party candidates — ran in the same open primary, where all registered voters could vote. If a candidate didn’t get 50 percent in that vote, the top two would face a runoff. That system favored better-known candidates with cross-party appeal. The new primary would draw registered Republicans and GOP-leaning independents.

Trump, who puts a premium on loyalty to him, has long been troubled by Cassidy for his impeachment vote, say Louisiana Republican insiders, few of whom see any scenario where Trump endorses him. The best possible outcome for Cassidy could be, even if he votes to confirm Kennedy, for Trump to endorse no one.

Still, a vote against Kennedy would be out of step for Cassidy within his state’s party, said state Sen. Blake Miquez, a potential Cassidy primary challenger.

“We shouldn’t be playing the old D.C. games intended to obstruct Trump’s agenda,” he told The Associated Press.

How did Cassidy Handle Kennedy’s hearing?

Cassidy approached the hearing with obvious nods to his competing allegiances, as a doctor and an elected official representing a state where Trump won 60 percent of the vote.

“I want President Trump to be successful,” he said in opening the hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee he chairs.

Still, Cassidy sought to elicit from Kennedy — pointedly, if also politely — a commitment to recant statements linking vaccines for measles and Hepatitis B to autism, a connection that has been widely debunked by medical researchers.

Twice during the hearing, Cassidy recalled his 18-year-old patient suffering acute liver failure who needed emergency transplant surgery, which would burden her with medical bills for the rest of her life. “Fifty dollars worth of vaccine could have prevented this all,” the liver disease specialist said.

“Your past undermining confidence in vaccines with unfounded or misleading arguments concerns me,” he said.

Initially, Kennedy seemed conciliatory: “If you show me data, I will be the first person to assure the American people that they need to take those vaccines.”

Dissatisfied, Cassidy said he was concerned “that you’ve never acquainted yourself with anything that might contradict what you were previously saying.”

Then Cassidy took another crack, this time conceding to Kennedy’s terms to see the data first. “If the data is brought to you, and these studies have been out there for quite sometime,” he said, “will you say, ‘I see this. It’s stood the test of time.’?”

Offered that caveat, Kennedy was happy to oblige.

“Not only will I do that,” he said, “I will apologize for any statements that misled people otherwise.”

Did Cassidy tip his hand?

Asked by reporters in the days leading up to the hearings, Cassidy said: “I’m still working through it. I look forward to the hearings and I will allow that to guide my decision.”

By suggesting Thursday to Kennedy at the close of the hearing that he might reach Kennedy over the weekend, Cassidy seemed to suggest his concerns had not been allayed.

Repeating in his closing remarks his desire for Trump to succeed, Cassidy returned to Kennedy’s answer that he would promote vaccines he had criticized as long as someone demonstrated their safety.

Cassidy said he and Kennedy agreed that families wanted vaccines that were necessary, safe and effective.

“But we’ve approached it differently,” he said with an air of understatement.

“I think I can say that I’ve approached it using the preponderance of evidence,” he said. “And you’ve approached it using selective evidence to cast doubt.”

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Beaumont reported from Des Moines, Iowa.

Thomas Beaumont And Sara Cline, The Associated Press