Why it's spineless
Freshman Sen. Jim Banks barely pretended to vet the nominee. During the confirmation hearings he said he would vote to confirm Kennedy because voting no would be "thumbing my nose" at the MAHA moms — the pro-Kennedy voter coalition. That's not advise and consent; it's an on-the-record admission that political optics, not the nominee's qualifications or two decades of vaccine misinformation, drove his vote.