Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) was asked during an MSNBC interview if he believes the Republican Party is headed toward being “a party of no dissent.”
The context for the question is that few GOP lawmakers are voicing strong opposition to any part of President Trump’s agenda, even when the administration pushes policies — as in the case of the tariffs and healthcare/Medicaid cuts — that significantly impact GOP constituencies like farmers and the rural working class.
[Notable exceptions to the idea of a monolithic GOP Senate Conference include occasional opposition to administration policy from Republican Senators Rand Paul (Kentucky) and Lisa Murkowski (Alaska), who have objected to Trump’s use of the militarily to summarily execute suspected drug dealers at sea, and from the retiring Senators Thom Tillis (North Carolina) and Susan Collins (Maine) who along with Paul did not vote for Trump’s signature One Big Beautiful Bill Act.]
Thune replied that he didn’t think the GOP was becoming a “party of no dissent” and noted that he himself broke from the administration’s position after Trump and his Secretary of Health & Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., told pregnant women in September not to take Tylenol, citing an unproven link between the pain relief drug and autism.
Sen. Thune: “If I were a woman, I’d be talking to my doctor and not taking advice from RFK.”
Didn’t he vote to confirm him? pic.twitter.com/GRTGtvGQ7H
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) October 16, 2025
Note: Trump said Tylenol “is no good” and that pregnant women should “fight like hell” to take it only in cases of extreme fever. The president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, Dr. Steven Fleischman, disputed the claim, saying it “is not backed by the full body of scientific evidence and dangerously simplifies the many and complex causes of neurologic challenges in children.”
Thune, who voted with all of his Republican Senate colleagues except retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to confirm Kennedy as HHS Secretary (52-48), said: “If I were a woman, I’d be talking to my doctor and not taking advice from RFK or any other bureaucrat for that matter.”