RFK Jr. wins support in the Senate, including incoming Majority Leader John Thune

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., President-elect Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of health and human services, held important meetings Tuesday with several Republican senators who are open to supporting his candidacy in one of the most controversial cabinet nominations to date.

According to statements reported by CNN, Senator John Thune, the next majority leader in the Senate, said RFK Jr. had done a great job explaining his position on vaccines to Republicans skeptical about his candidacy.

"I think he's done a good job of answering a lot of the questions about his views on vaccines," Thune said. "But I think he understands the value and benefit that vaccines play and have played through the years preventing disease."

Then, after being asked about RFK Jr.'s position on vaccines, Thune said the Trump nominee "did a really nice job in kind of explaining his overall philosophy and kind of how that translates on some of the specific issues."

This is a similar response to one made by President Trump at a press conference in which he characterized RFK Jr. as a much less "radical" person relative to public perception.

According to various reports, RFK Jr. advanced many of the 20 meetings with senators scheduled for this Tuesday. Several lawmakers he met with - including Josh Hawley of Missouri, Steve Daines of Montana, James Lankford of Oklahoma, Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and Roger Marshall of Kansas - quickly issued statements of support following their meetings.

"Today I got to sit down with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. - we had a substantive discussion about American healthcare & his plans to take on Big Pharma. We also had a good discussion, at length, about prolife policies at HHS," Hawley said on X before confirming that Trump's nominee was committed to pursuing the president-elect's pro-life agenda.

Beyond RFK Jr.'s breakthrough Tuesday, however, the nominee for health secretary still has yet to convince several skeptical Republicans about his candidacy, including Republicans who champion the agriculture industry in their states.

For example, Sen. John Hoeven, R-North Dakota, said he has yet to discuss his position on pesticides and fertilizers with RFK Jr.

"They've got to be able to use modern farming techniques, and that involves a lot of things, not only really sophisticated equipment, but also fertilizers and pesticides. So, we have to have that conversation," Hoeven said when asked about his position on Kennedy Jr. "I'm always going to stand up for farmers and ranchers."

Another prominent member of the Senate, Senator Chuck Grassley of Iowa, told reporters that he wanted Kennedy to know how agricultural production in the country improved from when he started farming in the 1960s.

"We raised 50 bushels of corn to the acre. Now, we raise on an annual average about 200 in Iowa. A lot more than that," Grassley said in remarks picked up by Fox News Digital. "And you can't feed 9 billion people on the face of the earth [if] we don't take advantage of genetic engineering."