A Kennedy could soon serve in a Cabinet position once again—but new claims from Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s cousin on the eve of his confirmation hearing threaten to tear the political dynasty apart.
Kennedy, a former independent candidate for president and President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, faces a confirmation hearing before the Senate Committee on Finance on Wednesday—but his family members have consistently spoken out against his nomination.
Caroline Kennedy, Kennedy’s cousin and the daughter of former President John F. Kennedy, finally broke her silence on Tuesday in a letter sent to senators obtained by the Daily Beast.
Kennedy said she had previously held back from speaking publicly because she was serving as U.S. ambassador to Australia during the election campaign season and because they are “a close generation of 28 cousins who have been through a lot together.” But now that her Kennedy kin is involved with the Trump administration, Kennedy said she felt “an obligation to speak out.”
‘PREDATOR’
Kennedy condemned her cousin as a “predator” and said he was “unqualified” for the role. “He lacks any relevant government, financial, management, or medical experience,” she wrote. “His views on vaccines are dangerous and willfully misinformed. These facts alone should be disqualifying.”
Later, she expanded on what she meant by the label. “Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children—vaccinating his own children while building a following by hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs.”
She also noted her cousin’s alleged involvement in an anti-vaccine group that met on the Pacific island nation of Samoa shortly before a deadly measles outbreak in 2019.
![Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks with Donald Trump at a 2024 campaign rally in Georgia.](https://www.thedailybeast.com/resizer/v2/OK4PAGER4RHAXKXGBKYOXVXXWA.jpg?auth=d2f420c179c66df34229478f00917d80ee9fa190597503c807592d8ca8974bb2&width=800&height=533)
PAST DRUG ABUSE
Kennedy commended her cousin’s “strength” and “discipline” for overcoming drug addiction, but also accused him of setting her family members down his same path. “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 wrote.
RFK Jr. descended into substance abuse after his father’s tragic assassination in 1968, when he was 14. His cousin claimed that “his basement, his garage, and his dorm room were the centers of the action where drugs were available.”
ANIMAL CRUELTY
Kennedy is a longtime falconer, and during the campaign season his past interactions with wildlife continued to draw headlines—including his bizarre tale of leaving a dead bear carcass in Central Park, as well as a resurfaced story about beheading a dead whale while on a trip with his family.
On Tuesday, Caroline Kennedy added to this list with her own story about how he fed his raptors. “He enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in the blender to feed his hawks,” Caroline wrote. “It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence.”
![Donald Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his wife Cheryl Hines shake hands as they depart the president’s inauguration ceremony.](https://www.thedailybeast.com/resizer/v2/3VLUQ4SPG5FRNCYYICYSDTOH3E.jpg?auth=16659c09a244720ac8b4b87e43fb613be30cd5bc6a01535ce1a1b79b3fedfe56&width=800&height=533)
JFK WOULD BE ‘DISGUSTED’
In her letter to senators, Kennedy echoed the concerns her family had been voicing for months. “We are a close family and none of this 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 grovelled to Donald Trump for a job,” she wrote.
Members of the Kennedy clan were previously outraged when a Super PAC aired a Super Bowl ad for his independent campaign for the presidency copying one run by John F. Kennedy over 60 years prior.
“Bobby continues to grandstand off my father’s assassination and that of his own father,” Kennedy continued. “It’s incomprehensible to me that someone who is willing to exploit their own painful family tragedies for publicity would be put in charge of America’s life-and-death situations.”
KENNEDY CLAN AGREES
Caroline Kennedy’s son, the sometimes controversial Jack Schlossberg, immediately came out in her support. “I’m so proud of my courageous mother, who’s lived a life of dignity, integrity and service,” he wrote in a post on X, sharing a video of her reading the letter she submitted.
RFK Jr., a lifelong Democrat, initially launched a campaign for the party’s presidential nomination, challenging incumbent Joe Biden. He dropped the bid after facing steep resistance within the party, and kicked off an independent bid for the White House.
By this point, multiple members of the Kennedy clan had come out in opposition to their wayward relative, including his sisters Kerry and Rory and his brother Christopher.
In August, he again shocked members of his family when he suspended his independent campaign and endorsed Trump.
Kerry, RFK Jr.’s sister and the president of the human rights organization named after their father, condemned the endorsement as a “betrayal of the values that our father and our family hold dear.”
In later appearances on cable news shows, she called her brother’s pivot to the Republican nominee “gaudy and obscene.” His brother, Max Kennedy, later penned an op-ed in the Los Angeles Times condemning the endorsement.
WHAT RFK JR. SAYS
But speaking to the Daily Beast in August, Kennedy brushed off the conflicts with his siblings and cousins, chalking it up to his relatives’ “strong opinions about things.”