Republican senators largely rallied to RFK Jr.’s defense, claiming he put concerns about his previous anti-vaccine rhetoric “to bed” during his tense confirmation hearing.

Sen. Roger Marshall R-Kan., a physician, brushed off the nominee’s history of pushing vaccine misinformation when asked by ABC News.

“I think you’re mischaracterizing. I think what Bobby Kennedy Jr. has always said is he wants the truth out there,” he responded. “Right now, Americans don’t trust what’s coming out of the CDC.”

Republicans defended Kennedy’s history of promoting what his critics call other public health “conspiracy theories.” Kennedy, for example, has falsely claimed COVID-19 was ethnically targeted to spare “Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese [people].”

“All the things he was accused of being a conspiracy theorist on, figured out to be the truth,” Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., said.

On vaccines, Democrats said Kennedy was flip-flopping on a life-and-death issue.

“I mean, that’s all politics, and it’s all about creating obfuscation. It is not as he says about science, and he would be a lot better off if we have somebody in that job to who is for all the science,” Sen. Michael Bennett D-Colo., told ABC News.

-ABC News’ Jay O’Brien