Caroline Kennedy has urged the US Senate to reject the nomination of her cousin, Robert F Kennedy Jr, to be health secretary, calling him a “predator” who is addicted to power.
In a letter to Senators, Ms Kennedy, who previously served as a US ambassador to Australia and Japan and is the daughter of former President John F Kennedy, etched a damning sketch of her cousin, the latest condemnation Robert F Kennedy Jr has received from members of his own, prominent Democratic family.
Several denounced her cousin’s bid for the presidency last year. The letter, obtained by The Associated Press, was first reported by The Washington Post.
Ambassador Caroline Kennedy’s statement to the US Senate on RFKJr’s nomination for HHS Secretary
This is a reading of a letter she just sent to Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
I’m so proud of my courageous mother, who’s lived a life of dignity,… pic.twitter.com/feysNA0Wwp
— Jack Schlossberg (@JBKSchlossberg) January 28, 2025
Ms Kennedy said in the letter that her cousin’s views on vaccines are disqualifying. She offered senators personal details from their lives growing up together that she said pose an even greater concern.
“I have known Bobby my whole life, we grew up together,” she said. “It’s no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets because Bobby himself is a predator.”
She described her cousin’s basement, garage and dorm as being an epicentre for drug use, where he would also put baby chickens and mice in blenders to feed to his hawks.
“It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence,” she wrote. She also read the letter in a video recording, which was shared on social media, including in a post on X by her son, Jack Schlossberg.
Attempts to reach Robert F Kennedy Jr for comment were not immediately successful.
He has openly talked about his heroin use and he pleaded guilty for bringing it on an airplane in 1984.
She also pointed out that Mr Kennedy plans to profit off a lawsuit against pharmaceutical company Merck over Gardasil, its human papillomavirus vaccine that prevents cervical cancer. Last year, he made more than 850,000 dollars (£684,000) from the arrangement.
“In other words, he is willing to enrich himself by denying access to a vaccine that can prevent almost all forms of cervical cancer and which has been safely administered to millions of boys and girls,” she wrote.
She had previously not spoken about his candidacy or nomination for health secretary.
Her father was assassinated in 1963 when she was a young girl. Robert F Kennedy Jr’s father, Robert Kennedy, was assassinated in 1968 during his presidential campaign event.
“Unlike Bobby, I try not to speak for my father – but I am certain that he and my uncle Bobby, who gave their lives in public services, and my uncle Teddy, who devoted his Senate career to improving health care, would be disgusted,” Ms Kennedy wrote.
Robert F Kennedy Jr will appear before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday in his bid to become Donald Trump’s health secretary.
Another hearing for his nomination will be held on Wednesday in front of the Health, Education, Labour and Pension, the committee his uncle, Ted Kennedy, once chaired.
