Caroline Kennedy wrote a letter to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions strongly discouraging them from confirming her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as U.S. Department of Health and Human Services secretary. Robert will be questioned by senators this week before being confirmed to President Donald Trump’s cabinet.
“Overseeing the FDA, the NIH, the CDC and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, agencies that are charged with protecting the most vulnerable among us is an enormous responsibility and one that Bobby is unqualified to fill,” Caroline wrote. “He lacks any relevant government, financial, management or medical experience. His views on vaccines are dangerous and willfully misinformed.”
Caroline’s letter, which The Washington Post first obtained, was also shared by her son Jack Schlossberg on X. He posted a video of his mother reading the letter aloud.
Caroline, former ambassador to Australia, also had personal concerns about her cousin. “It’s no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets because Bobby himself is a predator,” she wrote. “I watched his younger brothers and cousins follow him down the path of drug addiction. His basement, his garage, and his dorm room were the centers of the action where drugs were available, and he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in the blender to feed his hawks. It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence.”
She commended Robert’s recovery but said “siblings and cousins who Bobby encouraged down the path of substance abuse suffered addiction, illness and death while Bobby has gone on to misrepresent, lie and cheat his way through life.”
She also said Robert “preys on the desperation of parents of sick children, vaccinating his own kids while building a following hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs.”
Caroline also referenced Robert’s failed presidential bid. “We are a close family, and none of that is easy to say. It also wasn’t easy to remain silent last year when Bobby expropriated my father’s image and distorted President Kennedy’s legacy to advance his own failed presidential campaign, and then grovel to Donald Trump for a job.”
She urged a better leader for U.S. healthcare workers.
“They deserve a stable, moral and ethical person at the helm of this crucial agency. They deserve better than Bobby Kennedy and so do the rest of us. I urge the Senate to reject his nomination,” she wrote.
From Variety US