Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | |
|---|---|
_(cropped_3-4).jpg) Official portrait, 2025 | |
| 26th United States Secretary of Health and Human Services | |
| Assumed office February 13, 2025 | |
| President | Donald Trump |
| Deputy | Jim O'Neill |
| Preceded by | Xavier Becerra |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. (1954-01-17)January 17, 1954 (age 71) Washington, D.C., U.S. |
| Political party |
|
| Spouses | |
| Children | 6 |
| Parents | |
| Relatives | Kennedy family |
| Education | |
Kennedy's opening statement during his first confirmation hearing to becomeSecretary of Health and Human Services Recorded January 29, 2025 | |
Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. (born January 17, 1954), also known by his initialsRFK Jr., is an American politician, environmental lawyer, author,conspiracy theorist, andanti-vaccine activist serving as the 26thUnited States secretary of health and human services since 2025. A member of theKennedy family, he is a son of senator and former U.S. attorney generalRobert F. Kennedy andEthel Kennedy, and a nephew of PresidentJohn F. Kennedy.
Kennedy began his career as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan. In the mid-1980s, he joined two nonprofits focused onenvironmental protection:Riverkeeper and theNatural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). In 1986, he became an adjunct professor of environmental law atPace University School of Law, and in 1987 he founded Pace's Environmental Litigation Clinic. In 1999, Kennedy founded the nonprofit environmental groupWaterkeeper Alliance. He first ran as aDemocrat and later startedan independent campaign in the2024 United States presidential election, before withdrawing from the race and endorsingRepublican nomineeDonald Trump.
Since 2005, Kennedy has promotedvaccine misinformation[1] and public-health conspiracy theories,[2] including thechemtrail conspiracy theory,[3]HIV/AIDS denialism,[4] and the scientifically disproved claim of a causal link betweenvaccines and autism.[5] He has drawn criticism for fuelingvaccine hesitancy amid a social climate that gave rise to the deadlymeasles outbreaks inSamoa andTonga.[6]
Kennedy is the founder and former chairman[7] ofChildren's Health Defense, ananti-vaccine advocacy group and proponent ofCOVID-19 vaccine misinformation. He has written books includingThe Riverkeepers (1997),Crimes Against Nature (2004),The Real Anthony Fauci (2021), andA Letter to Liberals (2022).
.jpg)
Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. was born at Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., on January 17, 1954. He is the third of eleven children of senator and U.S. attorney generalRobert F. Kennedy andEthel Skakel. He is a nephew of PresidentJohn F. Kennedy and SenatorTed Kennedy.[8]
Kennedy was raised at theKennedy Compound inHyannis Port, Massachusetts, and atHickory Hill, the family estate inMcLean, Virginia.[9][10][11] In June 1972, Kennedy graduated from the Palfrey Street School, a day school inWatertown, Massachusetts. While attending Palfrey, he lived with a surrogate family at a farmhouse inCambridge, Massachusetts.[12] Kennedy continued his education atHarvard University, graduating in 1976 with a Bachelor of Arts in American history and literature. With his former roommatePeter W. Kaplan, he did thesis research in Alabama.[13] He earned aJuris Doctor degree from theUniversity of Virginia School of Law in 1982[14][15] and aMaster of Laws fromPace University in 1987.[16]
He was nine years old when his uncle, President John F. Kennedy,was assassinated in 1963, and 14 when his fatherwas assassinated while running for president in 1968.[17] Kennedy learned of his father's shooting while atGeorgetown Preparatory School.[18] A few hours later, he flew to Los Angeles on Vice PresidentHubert Humphrey's plane, along with his older siblings,Kathleen andJoseph. He was with his father when he died. Kennedy was a pallbearer at his father's funeral, where he spoke and read excerpts from his father's speeches at the mass commemorating his death atArlington National Cemetery.[19][20]
After his father's death, Kennedy struggled with drug abuse, which led to his arrest inBarnstable, Massachusetts, forcannabis possession at age 16,[21][22] and his expulsion from two boarding schools:Millbrook andPomfret.[23][24] During this time, some in the Kennedy family regarded him as the "ringleader" of a pack of spoiled, rich kids who called themselves the "Hyannis Port Terrors", engaging in vandalism, theft, and drug use.[25][26] His first cousinCaroline Kennedy later blamed Kennedy for leading other members of their family "down the path of drug addiction", calling him a "predator".[27] At Harvard, Kennedy continued to useheroin andcocaine, often with his brother David, earning a reputation that has been described as a "pied piper" and "drug dealer".[28][29]
In 1972, Kennedy andRoger Ailes made a film about wildlife and conservation in Kenya.[30][31][32] Kennedy's book on Frank W. Johnson, Jr., a federal judge who led desegregation in Alabama, was published in 1978.[33][34][35][36]
In 1982, Kennedy was sworn in as anassistant district attorney forManhattan.[37] After failing the New Yorkbar exam, he resigned in July 1983.[38]
On September 16, 1983, Kennedy was charged withheroin possession inRapid City, South Dakota.[38] In February 1984, he pleaded guilty to a singlefelony charge of possession of heroin, and was sentenced to two years ofprobation and community service.[39][40] After his arrest, he entered a drug treatment center.[38] To satisfy conditions of his probation, Kennedy worked as a volunteer for theNatural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and was required to attend regular drug rehabilitation sessions.[41] Kennedy asserted that this ended his 14 years of heroin use, which he said had begun when he was 15.[29] His probation ended a year early.[41]
In 1984, Kennedy began volunteering at the Hudson River Fisherman's Association, renamedRiverkeeper in 1986 after a patrol boat it had built with settlement money from legal victories preceding Kennedy's arrival.[42][43] After he was admitted to the New York bar in 1985, Riverkeeper hired him as senior attorney.[41][42][44] Kennedy litigated and supervisedenvironmental enforcement lawsuits on the east coast estuaries on behalf of Hudson Riverkeeper and theLong Island Soundkeeper,[45] where he was also a board member. Long Island Soundkeeper sued several municipalities and cities along the Connecticut and New York coastlines.[46] On the Hudson, Kennedy sued municipalities and industries, includingGeneral Electric, to stop discharging pollution and clean up legacy contamination.[47] His work at Riverkeeper set long-term environmental legal standards.[47]
In 1995, Kennedy advocated for repeal of legislation that he considered unfriendly to the environment.[48] In 1997, he worked with John Cronin to writeThe Riverkeepers, a history of the early Riverkeepers and a primer for the Waterkeeper movement.[44]
In 2000, a majority of Riverkeeper's board sided with Kennedy when he insisted on rehiring William Wegner, a wildlife lecturer and falcon trainer[49][42] whom the organization's founder and president,Robert H. Boyle, had fired six months earlier after learning that Wegner had been convicted in 1995 for tax fraud, perjury, and conspiracy to violate wildlife protection laws.[42][50] Wegner had recruited and led a team of at least 10 who smuggledcockatoo eggs, including species considered endangered by Australia, from Australia to the U.S. over a period of eight years.[49][42] He served 3.5 years of a five-year sentence and was hired by Kennedy a few months after his release.[42] After the board's decision, Boyle, eight of the 22 members of the board, and Riverkeeper's treasurer resigned, saying it was not right for an environmental organization to hire someone convicted of environmental crimes and that it would hurt the organization's fundraising.[42][50]
While working with Riverkeeper, Kennedy spearheaded a 34-year battle to close theIndian Point nuclear-power plant.[51] Kennedy was featured in a 2004 documentary about the plant,Indian Point: Imagining the Unimaginable, directed by his sister, the documentary filmmakerRory Kennedy.[52] In 2017, Kennedy argued that the electricity Indian Point provided could be fully replaced byrenewable energy.[51] In 2022, after the plant's closure, carbon emissions from electricity generation in New York state increased by 37%, compared to 2019, before the start of the closure.[53][54]
Kennedy resigned from Riverkeeper in 2017.[42][55][56]
In 1987, Kennedy founded the Environmental Litigation Clinic at Pace University School of Law,[57] where for three decades he was the clinic's supervising attorney and co-director and Clinical Professor of Law.[58][59] Kennedy obtained a special order from the New York State Court of Appeals that permitted his 10 clinic students to practice law and try cases against Hudson River polluters in state and federal court, under the supervision of Kennedy and his co-director, Professor Karl Coplan. The clinic's full-time clients are Riverkeeper and Long Island Soundkeeper.[60]
The clinic has sued governments and companies for polluting Long Island Sound and theHudson River and its tributaries.[61] It argued cases to expand citizen access to the shoreline and won hundreds of settlements for the Hudson Riverkeeper.[62] Kennedy and his students also sued dozens of municipal wastewater treatment plants to force compliance with theClean Water Act.[60] In 2010, a Pace lawsuit forcedExxonMobil to clean up tens of millions of gallons of oil from legacy refinery spills inNewtown Creek in Brooklyn.[63]
On April 11, 2001,Men's Journal gave Kennedy its "Heroes" Award for creating the Pace Environmental Litigation Clinic.[64] Kennedy and the clinic received other awards for successful legal work cleaning up the environment.[65] The Pace Clinic became a model for similar environmental law clinics throughout the country.[66][67][68][69]
In June 1999, as Riverkeeper's success on the Hudson began inspiring the creation of Waterkeepers across North America, Kennedy and a few dozen Riverkeepers gathered in Southampton, Long Island, to found theWaterkeeper Alliance, which is now the umbrella group for the 344 licensed Waterkeeper programs[70] in 44 countries.[71] As president, Kennedy oversaw its legal, membership, policy and fundraising programs. The Alliance is dedicated to promoting "swimmable, fishable, drinkable waterways, worldwide".[72]
Under Kennedy's leadership, Waterkeeper launched its "Clean Coal is a Deadly Lie"[73] campaign in 2001, bringing dozens of lawsuits targeting mining practices, includingmountaintop removal[74] andslurry pond construction, as well as coal-burning utilities' mercury emissions andcoal ash piles.[75] Kennedy's Waterkeeper alliance has also been fighting coal export, including from terminals in thePacific Northwest.[76]
Waterkeeper waged a legal and public relations battle against pollution fromfactory farms. In the 1990s, Kennedy rallied opposition to factory farms among small independent farmers, convened a series of "National Summits" on factory meat products, and conducted press conference whistle-stop tours across North Carolina, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, Ohio, and in Washington, D.C. Beginning in 2000, Kennedy sued factory farms in North Carolina, Oklahoma, Maryland, and Iowa.[77] In a 2003 article, he argued factory farms produce lower-quality, less healthy food, and harm independent family farmers by poisoning their air and water, reducing their property values, and using extensive state and federal subsidies to impose unfair competition against them.[78]
Kennedy and his environmental work have been the focus of several films, includingThe Waterkeepers (2000),[79] directed byLes Guthman. In 2008, he appeared in theIMAX documentary filmGrand Canyon Adventure: River at Risk, riding the Grand Canyon in a wooden dory with his daughter Kick and anthropologistWade Davis.[80]
Kennedy resigned the Waterkeeper Alliance presidency in November 2020.[81]
Beginning in 1991, Kennedy represented environmentalists and New York City watershed consumers in a series of lawsuits against New York City and upstate watershed polluters. Kennedy authored a series of articles and reports[82][83][84][85] alleging that New York State was abdicating its responsibility to protect the water repository and supply. In 1996, he helped orchestrate the $1.2 billion New York City Watershed Agreement, whichNew York magazine recognized in its cover story, "The Kennedy Who Matters".[86] This agreement, which Kennedy negotiated on behalf of environmentalists and New York City watershed consumers, is regarded as an international model in stakeholder consensus negotiations and sustainable development.[87]
In 2000, Kennedy and the environmental lawyer Kevin Madonna founded theenvironmental law firm Kennedy & Madonna, LLP, to represent private plaintiffs against polluters.[88] The firm litigates environmental contamination cases on behalf of individuals, non-profit organizations, school districts, public water suppliers, Indian tribes, municipalities and states. In 2001, Kennedy & Madonna organized a team of prestigious plaintiff law firms to challenge pollution from industrial pork and poultry production.[89] In 2004, the firm was part of a legal team that secured a $70 million settlement for property owners in Pensacola, Florida whose properties were contaminated by chemicals from an adjacentSuperfund site.[90]
Kennedy & Madonna was profiled in the 2010 HBO documentaryMann v. Ford,[91] which chronicles four years of litigation by the firm on behalf of theRamapough Mountain Indians against theFord Motor Company for dumping toxic waste on tribal lands in northern New Jersey.[92] In addition to a monetary settlement for the tribe, the lawsuit contributed to the community's land being relisted on the federal Superfund list, the first time that a delisted site was relisted.[93]
In 2007, Kennedy was one of three finalists nominated by Public Justice as "Trial Lawyer of the Year" for his role in the $396 million jury verdict againstDuPont for contamination from its zinc plant inSpelter, West Virginia.[94] In 2017, the firm was part of the trial team that secured a $670 million settlement on behalf of over 3,000 residents from Ohio and West Virginia whose drinking water was contaminated by the toxic chemicalperfluorooctanoic acid, which DuPont released into the environment inParkersburg, West Virginia.[95]
In 2016, Kennedy became counsel to theMorgan & Morgan law firm.[96] The partnership arose from the two firms' successful collaboration on the case against SoCalGas Company following theAliso Canyon gas leak in California.[97] In 2017, Kennedy and his partners suedMonsanto in federal court in San Francisco, on behalf of plaintiffs seeking to recover damages fornon-Hodgkin's lymphoma cases that, the plaintiffs allege, were a result of exposure to Monsanto'sglyphosate-based herbicide,Roundup. Kennedy and his team also filed a class action lawsuit against Monsanto for failing to warn consumers about the dangers allegedly posed by exposure to Roundup.[98]
In September 2018, Kennedy and his partners filed a class-action lawsuit againstColumbia Gas of Massachusetts alleging negligence followinggas explosions in three towns north of Boston. Of Columbia Gas, Kennedy said, "as they build new miles of pipe, the same company is ignoring its existing infrastructure, which we now know is eroding and is dilapidated".[99]
In 2005, Kennedy clashed with national environmental groups over his opposition to the Cape Wind Project, a proposedoffshore wind farm inCape Cod, Massachusetts (inNantucket Sound). Taking the side of Cape Cod's commercialfishing industry, Kennedy argued that the project was a costly boondoggle. This position angered some environmentalists, and Kennedy was criticized byRush Limbaugh andJohn Stossel.[citation needed] InThe Wall Street Journal, Kennedy wrote, "Vermont wants to take its nuclear plant off line and replace it with clean, green power from Hydro-Québec—power available to Massachusetts utilities—at a cost of six cents per kilowatt hour (kwh). Cape Wind electricity, by a conservative estimate and based on figures they filed with the state, comes in at 25 cents per kwh."[100]
In 1999, Kennedy, Chris Bartle and John Hoving created abottled water company, Keeper Springs, which donated all of its profits to Waterkeeper Alliance.[101]
Kennedy was a venture partner and senior advisor at VantagePoint Capital Partners, one of the world's largestcleantechventure capital firms. Among other activities, VantagePoint was the original and largest pre-IPO institutional investor inTesla, Inc.[102] VantagePoint also backed BrightSource Energy and Solazyme, amongst others. Kennedy is a board member and counselor to several of Vantage Point's portfolio companies in the water and energy space, including Ostara, a Vancouver-based company that markets the technology to removephosphorus and other excessive nutrients fromwastewater, transforming otherwise pollution directly into high-grade fertilizer.[103] He is also a senior advisor to Starwood Energy Group and has played a key role in a number of the firm's investments.[104]
He is on the board of Vionx, a Massachusetts-based utility-scalevanadium flow battery systems manufacturer. On October 5, 2017, Vionx,National Grid and theU.S. Department of Energy completed the installation of advanced flow batteries atHoly Name High School in the city ofWorcester, Massachusetts. The collaboration also includesSiemens and theUnited Technologies Research Center and constitutes one of the largest energy storage facilities in Massachusetts.[105]
Kennedy served on the board of the New YorkLeague of Conservation Voters.[106]
Kennedy is a partner in ColorZen, which offers a turnkey-cotton-fiber pre-treatment solution that reduces water usage and toxic discharges in thecotton-dyeing process.[107][108][109]
Kennedy was a co-owner and director of thesmart-grid company Utility Integration Solutions (UISol),[110] which was acquired byAlstom. He is presently a co-owner and director of GridBright, the market-leading grid management specialist.[111]
In October 2011, Kennedy co-foundedEcoWatch, an environmental news site.[112] He resigned from its board of directors in 2018.[113]
In his first case as an environmental attorney, Kennedy represented theNAACP in a lawsuit against a proposal to build a garbage transfer station in a minority neighborhood inOssining, New York.[114] In 1987, he successfully suedWestchester County to reopen theCroton Point Park, which was primarily used by poor and minority communities fromthe Bronx.[115] He then forced the reopening of thePelham Bay Park, which New York City had closed to the public and converted to a police firing range.[44]
.jpg)
Starting in 1985, Kennedy helped develop the international program for environmental, energy, and human rights of theNatural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), traveling to Canada and Latin America to assist indigenous tribes in protecting their homelands and opposing large-scale energy and extractive projects in remote wilderness areas.[116]
In 1990, Kennedy assisted indigenousPehuenches in Chile in a partially successful campaign to stop the construction of a series of dams on Chile's iconicBiobío River. That campaign derailed all but one of the proposed dams.[117] Beginning in 1992, he assisted theCree Indians of northern Quebec in their campaign against Hydro-Québec to halt construction of some 600 proposed dams on eleven rivers inJames Bay.[118]
In 1993, Kennedy and NRDC, working with the indigenous rights organizationCultural Survival, clashed with other American environmental groups in a dispute about the rights of Indians to govern their own lands in theOriente region of Ecuador.[119] Kennedy represented theCONFENIAE, a confederation of indigenous peoples, in negotiation with the American oil companyConoco to limit oil development in Ecuadorian Amazon and, at the same time, obtain benefits from resource extraction for Amazonian tribes.[119] Kennedy was a vocal critic ofTexaco for its previous record of polluting theEcuadoran Amazon.[120]
From 1993 to 1999, Kennedy worked with fiveVancouver Island First Nations in their campaign to end industrial logging byMacMillan Bloedel inClayoquot Sound, British Columbia.[121] In 1996, he met with Cuban presidentFidel Castro to persuade him to halt his plans to construct a nuclear power plant atJuraguá.[122] During the meeting, Castro reminisced about Kennedy's father and uncle, speculating that U.S. relations with Cuba would have been far better had President Kennedy not been assassinated.[123]
Between 1996 and 2000, Kennedy and the NRDC helped Mexican commercial fishermen haltMitsubishi's proposal to build a salt facility in theLaguna San Ignacio, an area in Baja wheregray whales breed and nurse their calves.[124] Kennedy wrote in opposition to the project, and took the campaign to Japan, meeting withJapanese Prime MinisterKeizo Obuchi.[125] In 2000, he assisted local environmental activists to stop Chaffin Light, a real estate developer, and U.S. engineering giantBechtel from building a large hotel and resort development that, Kennedy argued, threatenedcoral reefs and public beaches used by local Bahamians, at Clifton Bay,New Providence Island.[126]
Kennedy was one of the early editors ofIndian Country Today, North America's largestNative American newspaper.[127] He helped lead the opposition to the damming of theFutaleufú River in theSouthern Zone of Chile.[128] In 2016, due to the pressure precipitated by the Futaleufú Riverkeepers campaign against the dams, the Spanish power companyEndesa, which owned the right to dam the river, reversed its decision and relinquished all claims to the Futaleufú.[129]
Kennedy has been a critic of environmental damage by the U.S. military.[130][131]
In a 2001 article, Kennedy described how he sued theU.S. Navy on behalf of fishermen and residents ofVieques, an island ofPuerto Rico, to stop weapons testing, bombing, and other military exercises. Kennedy argued that the activities were unnecessary, and that the Navy had illegally destroyed several endangered species, polluted the island's waters, harmed the residents' health, and damaged its economy.[132] He was arrested for trespassing atCamp Garcia Vieques, the U.S. Navy training facility, where he and others were protesting the use of a section of the island for training. Kennedy served 30 days in a maximum security prison in Puerto Rico.[133]
The trespassing incident forced the suspension oflive-fire exercises for almost three hours.[134] The lawsuits and protests by Kennedy, and hundreds of Puerto Ricans who were also imprisoned, eventually forced the termination of naval bombing in Vieques bythe Bush administration.[135]
In a 2003 article for theChicago Tribune, Kennedy called the U.S. federal government "America's biggest polluter" and theU.S. Department of Defense the worst offender. Citing theEnvironmental Protection Agency (EPA), he wrote, "unexploded ordnance waste can be found on 16,000 military ranges ... and more than half may contain biological or chemical weapons."[131]
Kennedy considered running for political officein 2000 whenDaniel Patrick Moynihan, aU.S. senator from New York, did not seek reelection to theseat formerly held by Kennedy's father.[136]
In 2005, Kennedy considered running for New York attorney general in the2006 election, which would have put him up against his then-brother-in-lawAndrew Cuomo, but he ultimately chose not to, despite being considered the front-runner.[137]
On December 2, 2008, Kennedy said he did not want New York GovernorDavid Paterson to nominate him to the U.S. Senate seat to be vacated byHillary Clinton, Obama's nominee forSecretary of State. Some outlets indicated that Kennedy was a possible candidate for the position. He said that Senate service would leave him too little time with his family.[138]
As a "well-respected climate lawyer" in the 2000s,[139] Kennedy was "often linked to top environmental jobs in Democratic administrations", including in the2000,2004, and2008 presidential elections.[140] He was considered as a potential chair of theWhite House Council on Environmental Quality forAl Gore in 2000 and considered for the role ofEPA administrator underJohn Kerry in 2004 andBarack Obama in 2008.[140]
According toPolitico, the Obama transition team decided not to nominate Kennedy due to his past heroin conviction and opposition from Senate Republicans. ThenUnited States Chamber of Commerce lobbyistWilliam Kovacs said that Kennedy's nomination "would speak volumes as to where Obama is going with his appointments ... A Kennedy appointment is as liberal as you can possibly get ... There is no one [candidate] based firmer in extremes."[139] Republican SenatorJim Inhofe of Oklahoma also criticized the proposal, saying Kennedy was too radical and would further a left-wing agenda if appointed.[139]
In a speech in New Hampshire on March 3, 2023, Kennedy said he was considering arun for president in 2024: "I am thinking about it. I've passed the biggest hurdle, which is that my wife has greenlighted it."[141]
.jpg)
Kennedy filed his candidacy for theDemocratic presidential nomination on April 5, 2023.[142] He formally declared his candidacy at a campaign launch event at thePark Plaza Hotel inBoston on April 19.[143] On October 9, he became anindependent candidatein the election.[144] He is the fifth member of his family to seek the presidency.[a]
Listing many false conspiracy theories that Kennedy used during campaign appearances,PolitiFact named his presidential campaign its 2023 "lie of the year".[148]
In May 2024, Kennedy was considered for theLibertarian Party's nomination for president, but lost toChase Oliver.[149] In Colorado, the stateLibertarian Party selected Kennedy, but Oliver appeared on the ballot as the Libertarian nominee.[150][151]
Kennedy's campaign was noted for receiving significant support from Republican donors and Trump allies who believed he would serve as a "spoiler", taking the votes of those who would have otherwise voted for the Democratic nominee.[152] In August 2023, it was revealed thatTimothy Mellon, who gave $15 million toDonald Trump'ssuper PACMAGA Inc., also donated $5 million to Kennedy's super PAC, making him Kennedy's largest single donor.[152][153] Mellon donated another $5 million to Kennedy's super PAC in April and another $50 million to MAGA Inc. in May.[154][155] In July 2024, Forbes reported that Mellon had donated $25 million to Kennedy and Kennedy-affiliated groups.[156]
In August, facing declining poll numbers, limited campaign funds, and increasing challenges to ballot access, the Kennedy campaign began appealing to the Harris and Trump campaigns, seeking a cabinet post in exchange for an endorsement. Harris reportedly rebuffed Kennedy,[157] but Trump said he "probably would [consider the offer], if something like that would happen".[158] On August 22, the Kennedy campaign filed to be removed from the Arizona ballot amid reports he would drop out to endorse Trump.[159]
On August 23, Kennedy dropped out and endorsed Trump, saying he intended to maintain ballot placement in certain non-swing states.[160][161][162] This was a reversal for Kennedy, who had previously said he would "under no circumstances" join Trump on a presidential ticket, that his and Trump's positions "could not be further apart", and that Trump was a "terrible human being", a "discredit to democracy", and "probably asociopath".[163][164][161] In his speech endorsing Trump, Kennedy described speaking with Trump and his advisers and said he discovered that he and Trump were "aligned on many key issues".[160]
In December, Kennedy was featured in the documentary filmInactive, Americaʼs Silent Killer, about the growing global epidemic of physical inactivity and its impact on health, particularly in North America.[165]
Days before the2024 United States presidential election,Donald Trump said that Kennedy would have "a big role in health care". According toThe Washington Post, Kennedy's position was not originally meant to be one requiring Senate confirmation.[166][167] On November 14, after winning the election, Trump announced his intention to nominate Kennedy forsecretary of health and human services (HHS).[168][169] During the week of December 16, 2024, Kennedy began meeting with senators in advance of his confirmation hearings.[170][171][172] In January 2025, theSenate Committee on Finance and theSenate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee (HELP) held hearings on Kennedy's nomination.[173][174] SenatorBernie Sanders, the committee'sranking member, was critical of Kennedy during the hearing.[175]
In December 2024, more than 75Nobel Laureates urged theU.S. Senate to oppose Kennedy's nomination, saying he would "put the public's health in jeopardy".[176][177] As of January 9, 2025, over 17,000 doctors who are members of Committee to Protect Health Care had signed an open letter urging the Senate to oppose Kennedy's nomination,[178] arguing that Kennedy had spent decades undermining public confidence in vaccines and spreading false claims and conspiracy theories,[179] that he was a danger to national healthcare, and that he was unqualified to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.[180] As of January 24, 2025, more than 80 organizations had voiced opposition to Kennedy's nomination.[181]
Kennedy disclosed to an HHS ethics official his arrangement with a law firm specializing in pharmaceutical drug injury cases, Wisner Baum, whereby Kennedy earns 10% of fees awarded in contingency cases that he refers to the firm. If confirmed as HHS director, Kennedy would retain the arrangement only in cases that do not directly affect the federal government.[181][182] He listed his income from Wisner Baum for this arrangement as $856,559. Before assuming the position of director of HHS, he will have from the law firm the complete and final payments for concluded cases against the U.S. government.[183][needs update] He added that will assign his son his interests in litigation against the maker ofGardasil, a vaccine given to preventcervical cancer caused byhuman papillomavirus (HPV).[184]
On February 4, 2025, the Senate Committee on Finance voted 14–13 to forward Kennedy's nomination to a full Senate vote.[185] The deciding vote was fromBill Cassidy, who was originally hesitant, but said he had received "serious commitments" from the Trump administration and "honest counsel" from Vice PresidentJD Vance in exchange for his support of Kennedy's nomination.[185] According to the Senate HELP Committee site, Cassidy, a doctor who practiced for 30 years before becoming a politician, told the committee that he had had a patient withacute hepatitis B who needed aliver transplant and had to be transported byMedivac. He called the transplant "an invasive, quarter-of-a-million-dollar surgery—in 2000—that, even if successful, would leave this young woman with a lifetime of $50,000 per year medical bills", adding, "As I saw her take off, I was so depressed. A $50 of vaccine could have prevented this all".[186] Of the two committees that Kennedy spoke before, only the Senate Finance was to vote on his nomination.[187]
On February 13, 2025, the Senate confirmed Kennedy as Secretary of Health and Human Services by a vote of 52 to 48, with formerSenate Republican Conference leaderMitch McConnell the sole Republican to vote against him. Apolio survivor, McConnell was critical of efforts to revoke approval of thepolio vaccine. He said, "anyone seeking the Senate's consent to serve in the incoming administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts". All Democrats also voted against Kennedy.[188]
On February 13, 2025, Kennedy was sworn in as the 26th secretary of health and human services in theOval Office by JusticeNeil Gorsuch.[189] He is the firstindependent orthird-party presidential candidate to become acabinet member after running for president.[190]
Minutes after Kennedy was sworn in, Trump signed Executive Order 14211, which ordered the creation of a "Make America Healthy Again"(MAHA) Commission to be chaired by Kennedy.[191][192] Its objectives include investigating the incidence and causes of chronic childhood diseases and "assess[ing] the prevalence of and threat posed by the prescription ofselective serotonin reuptake inhibitors,antipsychotics,mood stabilizers, stimulants, and weight-loss drugs".[192]
On February 14, 2025, agencies including theCenters for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and theNational Institutes of Health (NIH) were informed that approximately 5,200 newly hired federal health workers were to be fired that day.[193]
In April 2025, Kennedy fired most of the staff of theNational Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, shuttering nearly all its departments. Programs including approvals of new workplace safety equipment and research into firefighter health were abruptly canceled.[194]
In June 2025, Kennedy announced that he was removing all 17 members of theAdvisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) and replacing them with new members.[195]
On February 20, 2025, during an unusually severe influenza season, HHS instructed the CDC to suspend its ad campaign promoting flu vaccination. The advertising, in part a response to declining flu vaccination rates, promoted the message that vaccination would result in much milder symptoms and lower chances of becoming severely ill for those with the flu.[196][197]
Kennedy's tenure began during a measles outbreak in the southwestern U.S., including the first measles death in a decade. TheTexas Department of State Health Services reported 146 cases, 20 hospitalizations, and one death in late February.[198] In his first public comments, on February 26, Kennedy said there had been two deaths and that "there have been four measles outbreaks this year. In this country last year there were 16. So it's not unusual. We have measles outbreaks every year." Such outbreaks of the disease had been declared domestically eliminated, prior to theresurgence of measles in the United States that started in the 2010s.[199] He also falsely claimed that the people hospitalized were done so "mainly for quarantine",[200] a claim healthcare professionals refuted.[201] U.S. SenatorRon Wyden wrote: "Nothing about kids dying from measles is normal. Anti-vaxxers like RFK Jr. and the Republicans who enable them are responsible for every single one of these deaths."[202]
Days later, Kennedy called the outbreak a "top priority" for the department.[203] His messaging regarding the outbreak cited fringe theories blaming poor diet and health. He promotedcod liver oil, steroid inhalation, an antibiotic,vitamin A, and other questionable treatments that he called "almost miraculous". While recommending vaccination against measles, he also overstated the vaccine's possible harms and suggested that acquiring immunity from catching the disease would be better. The CDC says that the MMR vaccine is "much safer than getting measles, mumps, or rubella". The antibiotic is not effective against a viral disease such as measles. Vitamin A is part of measles treatment primarily in areas where children may be deficient in the vitamin.[204][205][206][207][208]
On February 28, HHS top spokesperson Thomas Corry abruptly resigned, two weeks after being sworn in as the assistant secretary of public affairs. He reportedly clashed with Kennedy over his management of the department during the measles outbreak.[209][210]
On March 2, Kennedy was criticized for writing an op-ed forFox News that called vaccines a "personal choice" and recommended vitamins and good nutrition to combat measles.[211] But he also wrote in the piece: "Vaccines not only protect individual children from measles, but also contribute to community immunity, protecting those who are unable to be vaccinated due to medical reasons."[212][213]
After Kennedy took to the media to falsely claim that vitamin A is both aprophylactic and treatment for measles, doctors in Texas began to see children infected with measles also having symptoms ofvitamin A toxicity.[214][215]
On March 28, Kennedy toldPeter Marks, the head of the FDA's vaccine program, that he should resign or be fired. Marks wrote a resignation letter that lamented Kennedy's attempts to erode trust in vaccines: "It has become clear that truth and transparency are not desired by the secretary, but rather he wishes subservient confirmation of his misinformation and lies."[216] Days earlier, the CDC head of communications said after his own resignation, "Kennedy and his team are working to bend science to fit their own narratives, rather than allowing facts to guide policy."[217]
In April, Kennedy praised Texas doctor Ben Edwards as one of two "extraordinary healers" using unverified treatments for measles; the week before, Edwards was aware that he was infected with measles when he met children and parents at his clinic without wearing a mask.[218]
On May 22, 2025, the MAHA Commission released a report about childhood chronic disease.[219] It was described as "wide-ranging" and claimed that a range of factors, including diet, vaccinations, medical prescriptions, physical stress, food additives, and pesticides, are "potential drivers behind the rise in childhood chronic disease that present the clearest opportunities for progress".[220]
On May 29,NOTUS first reported that some of the studies the MAHA Commission's report cited did not exist; the authors of several other studies the report cited said their work was mischaracterized.[221][222][219] Medical researcherIvan Oransky said the errors were characteristic ofgenerative AI usage: "They come up with references that share a lot of words and authors and even journals, journal names, but they're not real."[223] Some of the report's citationURLs contained the string "oaicite", indicating a tool produced byOpenAI was used.[224]
White House press secretaryKaroline Leavitt said these errors were "formatting issues that are being addressed and the report will be updated. But it does not negate the substance of the report, which, as you know, is one of the most transformative health reports that has ever been released by the federal government."[225][219] Asked whether the MAHA Commission's report used generative AI, Leavitt said, "I can't speak to that."[219] The report was repeatedly updated that day.[224] NOTUS released a follow-up addressing the updates and reported that while several errors from the original report had been edited or removed, new errors were found, including updated citations that misinterpret scientific studies.[226]
When CDC directorSusan Monarez was ousted in August 2025, several CDC leaders quit over Kennedy's anti-science policies. In a resignation note,National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases directorDemetre Daskalakis wrote that Kennedy and his appointees "threaten the lives of the youngest Americans and pregnant people". In a statement, lawyers for Monarez said that Kennedy had been "weaponizing public health for political gain" and "putting millions of American lives at risk". Also among those leaving wereDebra Houry, the chief medical officer, and the heads of several other directorates. Houry's farewell announcement referenced vaccine misinformation, the 2025measles outbreak, and the 2025shooting attack on the CDC.[227][228] Days after the departure, nine former CDC leaders from both Democratic and Republican administrations wrote inThe New York Times that the shakeup at the agency was "unlike anything our country has ever experienced".[229]
On September 22, 2025, Kennedy approved a $50 million grant to theNational Institute of Health (NIH) for 13 projects to "help transform autism research" through the proposed Autism Data Science Initiative.[230][231]
Kennedy is a prominent voice in the anti-vaccine movement, spreading anti-vaccinemisinformation,disinformation, andpropaganda.[232][37][233][234][235] The infectious disease specialistMichael Osterholm has said that Kennedy's "anti-vaccine disinformation" is effective "because it's portrayed to the public with graphs and figures and what appears to be scientific data. He has perfected the art of illusion of fact." Osterholm added:[235]
This is about people's lives. And the consequences of promoting this kind of disinformation, as credible as it may seem, is simply dangerous.
Kennedy has said that he is not against vaccines but wants them to be more thoroughly tested and investigated.[236][237] InThimerosal: Let the Science Speak (2015), he writes that he does not see himself as anti-vaccine: "People who advocate for safer vaccines should not be marginalized or denounced as anti-vaccine. I am pro-vaccine. I had all six of my children vaccinated. I believe that vaccines have saved the lives of hundreds of millions of humans over the past century and that broad vaccine coverage is critical to public health. But I want our vaccines to be as safe as possible."[238] But in July 2023, Kennedy said, "There's no vaccine that is safe and effective."[239][240]
In January 2024, Kennedy published a podcast aboutLyme disease in which he said it is "highly likely to have been a military weapon" developed at thePlum Island Animal Disease Center. Multiple experts and authoritative sources have debunked the charge and called it "absurd".[241]
Kennedy's article "Deadly Immunity" appeared in the July 14, 2005, issue ofRolling Stone and onSalon.com. It defends controversial allegations thatthimerosal-containing vaccines cause autism.[242][243][244]
From 2015 to 2023, Kennedy chairedChildren's Health Defense, formerly known as the World Mercury Project, an anti-vaccine advocacy group he joined in 2015.[37][234] In its early years, the group focused on mercury in industry and medicine, especially the ethylmercury used in thimerosal in vaccines.[245][246]
The group alleges that exposure to certain chemicals and radiation has caused a wide range of conditions in many American children, includingautism,attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD),food allergies,cancer, andautoimmune diseases. Children's Health Defense has blamed and campaigned against vaccines,fluoridation of drinking water,paracetamol (acetaminophen),aluminum, andwireless communication, among other things. The group has been identified as one of two major buyers of anti-vaccineFacebook advertising in late 2018 and early 2019.[37][247][248] Members of his family have criticized Kennedy and his organization, saying he spreads "dangerous misinformation" and that his work has "heartbreaking" consequences.[249]
Kennedy and Children's Health Defense have falsely claimed that vaccines cause autism.[5][245][250] Kennedy focused onthe subset of vaccines that contained thimerosal, amercury-based anti-microbial that has been falsely claimed to cause autism.[251]Thimerosal has never been used inMMR,chickenpox,pneumococcal conjugate, orinactivated polio vaccines.[252] In 2001, thimerosal was removed from all other childhood (under six years old) vaccines except for a few versions of flu and hepatitis vaccines.[253] No childhood vaccine now contains more than traces (1 microgram or less) of thimerosal, except for flu, which is also available without thimerosal in the U.S.[254] For those six years and older, including pregnant women, all vaccines are now available in versions with only trace amounts of thimerosal.[255]
In April 2015, Kennedy participated in a Speakers' Forum to promote the filmTrace Amounts, which promotes the discredited claim of a link betweenautism andmercury in vaccinations. At a screening, he called the increased diagnosis of cases of autism (which he calls an "autism epidemic") a "holocaust".[256] He has been heavily criticized for such statements.[257][258][259][260]
In 2020, theCenter for Countering Digital Hate said that Kennedy uses his status as an environmental activist to bolster the anti-vaccination movement, regularly appearing in online conversations with the discredited British former doctorAndrew Wakefield, the anti-vaccination activistDel Bigtree, and the conspiracy theoristRashid Buttar.[261] Investigative journalistBrian Deer wrote that Kennedy is friends with Wakefield and Bigtree.[262] Deer describes Wakefield as "a former doctor whose medical license was revoked in his native Britain in 2010 amid charges of ethical violations."[262] In 2019 (days beforehis letter to Samoa), Kennedy said, "In any just society, we would be building statues to Andy Wakefield."[263][262]
Kennedy is listed as executive producer ofVaxxed II: The People's Truth, the 2019 sequel to Wakefield's and Bigtree's anti-vaccination propaganda filmVaxxed.[264]
In February 2021, Kennedy'sInstagram account was deleted "for repeatedly sharing debunked claims" aboutCOVID-19 vaccines.[265] In March 2021, the Center for Countering Digital Hate identified Kennedy as one of 12 people responsible for up to 65% of anti-vaccine content on Facebook andTwitter.[266]
Kennedy has said that governments and the media are conspiring to deny that vaccines cause autism.[267][268][269]
In June 2005, Kennedy wrote an article, "Deadly Immunity", that appeared in bothRolling Stone andSalon.com and alleged a government conspiracy to conceal a connection between thimerosal and childhoodneurodevelopmental disorders, includingautism.[270] The article contained factual errors, leadingSalon to issue five corrections.[271][272]Joan Walsh,Salon.com's editor-in-chief at the time and the soleSalon editor of the piece, said she had mistakenly relied onRolling Stone's fact-checking, a process she later learned was "less than arduous". As soon as the piece was up, she said, "We were besieged by scientists and advocates showing how Kennedy had misunderstood, incorrectly cited, and perhaps even falsified data ... It was the worst mistake of my career. I probably should have been fired."[273]
In 2011,Salon.com retracted the article in its entirety.[271] It said the retraction was motivated by accumulating evidence of alleged errors and scientific fraud underlying the vaccine-autism claim.[274] A corrected version of the original article was published onRolling Stone's website.[270] Kennedy said onThe Joe Rogan Experience—and was paraphrased inThe New York Times as saying—that "Salon caved to pressure from government regulators and the pharmaceutical industry." Walsh responded: "That's just another lie. We caved to pressure from the incontrovertible truth and our journalistic consciences."[273]
In May 2013, Kennedy delivered the keynote address at the anti-vaccination[275] AutismOne /Generation Rescue conference.[276][277]
In 2014, Kennedy's bookThimerosal: Let the Science Speak: The Evidence Supporting the Immediate Removal of Mercury – a Known Neurotoxin – from Vaccines, was published.Whilemethylmercury is a potent neurotoxin, thimerosal is not. According to the CDC, there is "no convincing evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines".[252][254] The book's preface is byMark Hyman, a proponent of thealternative medical treatment calledfunctional medicine.[278] Kennedy has published many articles on the inclusion ofthimerosal in vaccines.[279][280][281][282]
On January 10, 2017, incomingWhite House press secretarySean Spicer confirmed that Kennedy andPresident-electDonald Trump met to discuss a position in the Trump administration. Kennedy said afterward that he had accepted an offer from Trump to chair the Vaccine Safety Task Force, but a spokeswoman for Trump's transition said that no final decision had been made.[283] In an August 2017 interview withSTAT News reporterHelen Branswell, Kennedy said that he had been meeting with federal public health regulators at the White House's request to discuss defects in vaccine safety science.[284]
On February 15, 2017, Kennedy and the actorRobert De Niro gave a press conference at theNational Press Club in Washington, D.C., in which they said the press was working for the vaccination industry and did not allow debates on vaccination science. They offered a $100,000 reward to any journalist or citizen who could point to a study showing that it is safe to inject mercury into babies and pregnant women at levels currently contained influ vaccines. Craig Foster, a psychology professor who studiespseudoscience, deemed the challenge "not science", calling it a "carefully constructed 'contest' that allows its creators to generate the misleading outcome they presumably want to see". Foster added, "Proving that something is safe is importantly different than proving that something is harmful."[285]
On June 4, 2019, during a visit toSamoa, coinciding with its 57th annual independence celebration, Kennedy appeared in an Instagram photo with Australian-Samoan anti-vaccine activistTaylor Winterstein. Kennedy's charity and Winterstein have both perpetuated the allegation that theMMR vaccine played a role in the 2018 deaths of two Samoan infants, despite the subsequent revelation that the infants had mistakenly received amuscle relaxant along with the vaccine. Kennedy has drawn criticism for fuelingvaccine hesitancy amid a social climate, that gave rise to the 2019 Samoa measles outbreak, which killed over 70 people, and the2019 Tonga measles outbreak.[286][287][288]
At a White House press briefing on September 22, 2025, President Trump, joined by Kennedy and other senior officials, said the FDA would revise drug labels to discourage the use ofacetaminophen inTylenol during pregnancy, citing a possible link to autism. Medical scientists disagreed with this recommendation. Steven J. Fleischman, president of the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, wrote, "It is highly unsettling that our federal health agencies are willing to make an announcement that will affect the health and well-being of millions of people without the backing of reliable data."[289][230][290]
That same day, Kennedy and Trump backed theFDA approval of the chemotherapy drugleucovorin to also help alleviate the symptoms of autism.[230] Their justification for this approval was based on limited evidence.[290]
On October 9, 2025, Kennedy alleged a link between autism andcircumcision,[291][292] citing a 2015Danish study.[293] Scientists and medical experts have rejected Kennedy's assertion about a link between autism and circumcision.[292][294]
.jpg)
During theCOVID-19 pandemic, Kennedy promoted multiple conspiracy theories related to COVID, including false claims thatAnthony Fauci and theBill & Melinda Gates Foundation were trying to profit off a vaccine,[295][296][297] and suggesting thatBill Gates would cut off access to money of people who do not get vaccinated, allowing them to starve.[298] In August 2020, Kennedy appeared in an hour-long interview withAlec Baldwin onInstagram and touted a number of incorrect and misleading claims about vaccines and public health measures related to the pandemic. Public health officials and scientists criticized Baldwin for letting Kennedy's claims go unchallenged.[299]
In May 2021, Kennedy petitioned the FDA to rescind authorization for all current and future COVID vaccines. The vaccines had saved about 140,000 lives in the United States. John Moore, a professor of immunology at Weill Cornell Medical College, called Kennedy's request "an appalling error of judgment".[300]
Kennedy has promoted misinformation about theCOVID-19 vaccine, falsely suggesting that it contributed to the death ofHank Aaron and others.[301][302][37] In February 2021, his Instagram account was blocked for "repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines".[265][303] TheCenter for Countering Digital Hate identified Kennedy as one of the main propagators of conspiracy theories about Bill Gates and5G phone technology. His conspiracy theory activities considerably increased his social media impact. Between the spring and fall of 2020, his Instagram account grew from 121,000 followers to 454,000.[261][304]
Kennedy has expressed skepticism about theCOVID-19 pandemic, contending that it served to benefit billionaires. According to Kennedy, the pandemic resulted in a "$4.4 trillion shift in wealth from the American middle class to this new oligarchy that we created—500 new billionaires with the lockdowns, and the billionaires that we already had increased their wealth by 30%".[305]
In November 2021, Kennedy's bookThe Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health was published. In it, Kennedy alleges that Fauci sabotaged treatments for AIDS, violated federal laws, and conspired with Bill Gates and social media companies such as Facebook to suppress information about COVID-19 cures, to leave vaccines as the only option to fight the pandemic.[306][307] In the book, Kennedy calls Fauci a "powerful technocrat who helped orchestrate and execute 2020's historic coup d'état against Western democracy". He claims without proof that Fauci and Gates had schemed to prolong the pandemic and exaggerate its effects, promoting expensive vaccinations for the benefit of "a powerful vaccine cartel".[308]
The book repeats several discredited myths about the COVID-19 pandemic, notably about the effectiveness ofivermectin.[234] TheNeue Zürcher Zeitung wrote that in the book "polemics alternate with chapters that pedantically seek to substantiate Kennedy's accusations with numerous quotations and studies".[308] Kennedy also released a video depicting Fauci with a Hitler mustache.[309] In response to the book, Fauci called Kennedy "a very disturbed individual" and has publicly said that, having met with Kennedy to discuss vaccines early during his tenure in the Trump administration, he "[doesn't] know what's going on in [Kennedy's] head, but it's not good".[310][311]
Kennedy wrote the foreword toPlague of Corruption, a 2020 book by the former research scientist and the anti-vaccine conspiracy theoristJudy Mikovits.[37]
In August 2020, Kennedy appeared as a speaker at a partially violent demonstration inBerlin wherepopulist groups called for an end to restrictions caused by COVID-19.[312][313] His YouTube account was removed in late September 2021 for breaking the company's new policies on vaccine misinformation.[314]
In January 2022, during a speech at an anti-vaccination rally on the National Mall in Washington D.C., Kennedy said: "Even in Hitler's Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in the attic like Anne Frank did. Today the mechanisms are being put in place that will make it so none of us can run, none of us can hide."[315] TheAuschwitz Memorial responded on Twitter: "Exploiting of the tragedy of people who suffered, were humiliated, tortured & murdered by the totalitarian regime of Nazi Germany—including children like Anne Frank—in a debate about vaccines & limitations during global pandemic is a sad symptom of moral & intellectual decay." Kennedy's wife, the actressCheryl Hines, also condemned his comments, tweeting that the reference to Frank was "reprehensible and insensitive".[316] Two days later, Kennedy apologized for his comment.[309] In June 2023, Instagram reinstated his account.[317]
In July 2023, at a private dinner, Kennedy was recorded saying, "There is an argument that [COVID-19] is ethnically targeted", adding, "COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are the most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese ... we don't know whether it's deliberately targeted or not." TheAmerican Jewish Committee and theAnti-Defamation League immediately condemned his remarks, with the latter saying that Kennedy's statement "feeds into sinophobic and antisemitic conspiracy theories".[318][319]
Kennedy responded that he "never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews" and that he does not "believe and never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered". He explained his remarks by citing a 2021 study that he said showed that "COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races" due to racial differences in the effectiveness of COVID-19'sfurin cleave docking site, thus serving "as a kind of proof of concept for ethnically targeted bioweapons".[320]
Experts strongly criticized these further claims, saying the study said nothing about Chinese people or bioweapons and that Chinese people and Ashkenazi Jews contract COVID-19 at rates similar to other ethnic groups and nationalities. The virologistAngela Rasmussen said, "Jewish or Chinese protease consensus sequences are not a thing in biochemistry, but they are in racism and antisemitism."[319]
Kennedy targets Black Americans with anti-vaccine propaganda and conspiracy theories, linking vaccination with instances ofmedical racism such as theTuskegee Syphilis Study.[321][233] Echoing others in the anti-vaccination movement, Children's Health Defense claimed that the U.S. government seeks to harm ethnic minorities by prioritizing them for COVID-19 vaccines. In March 2021, Children's Health Defense released an anti-vaccine propaganda video, "Medical Racism: The New Apartheid", that promotes COVID-19 conspiracy theories and claims that COVID-19 vaccination efforts are medical experiments on Black people. Kennedy appears in the video, inviting viewers to disregard information dispensed by health authorities and doctors. Brandi Collin-Dexter, a Fellow at theShorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy, said, "the notorious figures and false narratives in the documentary were recognizable" and "the film's incompatible narratives sought to take advantage of the pain felt by Black communities."[233][322][323] At the urging of disinformation experts, the film was removed from Facebook, but Kennedy was permitted to keep his account.[324]
In his 2021 bookThe Real Anthony Fauci: Bill Gates, Big Pharma, and the War on Democracy and Public Health, Kennedy writes that he takes "no position on the relationship between HIV and AIDS",[306]: 347 but spent over 100 pages quotingHIV denialists such asPeter Duesberg who question the isolation of HIV and theetiology of AIDS.[325] Kennedy refers to the "orthodoxy that HIV alone causes AIDS"[306]: 348 and the "theology that HIV is the sole cause of AIDS",[306]: 351 and repeats the false HIV/AIDS denialist claim that no one has isolated the HIV virion and "No one has been able to point to a study that demonstrates their hypothesis using accepted scientific proofs.": 348 He also repeats the false claim that the early AIDS drugAZT is "absolutely fatal"[306]: 332 due to its "horrendous toxicity".[306]: 298
Molecular biologistDan Wilson said that Kennedy falsely claimed thatLuc Montagnier, the discoverer of HIV, was a "convert" to Duesberg's fringe hypothesis. Wilson concludes that Kennedy is a "full blown" HIV/AIDS denialist.[325][306] EpidemiologistTara C. Smith suggests that Kennedy's book "even flirts with outright germ theory denial", quoting from a portion in which Kennedy contrasts thegerm theory of disease withterrain theory[326] and another in which he writes thatLouis Pasteur "is said to have recanted" germ theoryon his deathbed in favor ofAntoine Béchamp's terrain theory,[326]: Table 1 an unproven claim that circulates among germ theory denialists.[327]
In August 2024, after endorsing Trump for president and starting to work with Trump's campaign, Kennedy posted, "We are going to stop this crime" ofchemtrails. Belief in chemtrails involves a conspiracy theory that airplane water vapor trails (contrails) are purposely dumped chemicals designed to harm people.[328][329]
Several members of Kennedy's close family have distanced themselves from his anti-vaccination activities and conspiracy theories on public health, and condemned his comments equating public health measures withNazi war crimes.[330] On May 8, 2019, his nieceMaeve Kennedy McKean and elder siblings Kathleen and Joseph wrote an open letter saying that while Kennedy has championed many admirable causes, he "has helped to spread dangerous misinformation over social media and is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines". They also cited the roles played by President John F. Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy in (respectively) signing and reauthorizing the Vaccination Assistance Act of 1962.[331]
On December 30, 2020, another niece, Kerry Kennedy Meltzer, a physician, wrote a similar open letter, saying that her uncle published misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines' side effects.[332] John F. Kennedy's daughterCaroline Kennedy said her family was generally united in supporting public health infrastructure, citing the work of Ted Kennedy andEunice Kennedy Shriver. She added, "I think Bobby Kennedy [Jr.]'s views on vaccines are dangerous, but I don't think that most Americans share them, so we'll just have to wait and see what happens."[333][334]
On January 28, 2025, Caroline Kennedy publicly denounced Kennedy in a letter she sent U.S. senators and in a video of her reading the letter, calling him a "predator" and a "hypocrite" who was unqualified to be the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. She accused him of animal cruelty and "encouraging" other family members, such as his brother David Kennedy, into substance abuse that led to addiction, illness, and death. Caroline Kennedy's cousin Stephen Smith Jr. said, "I completely support my cousin Caroline's view that RFK Jr. is unqualified in terms of experience and character for the role of Secty of HHS."[335]
Kennedy's political rhetoric often invokesconspiracy theories.[336][319][337]
Kennedy has argued that poor communities shoulder a disproportionate burden of environmental pollution.[107] Speaking at the 2016South by Southwest environment conference, he said, "Polluters always choose the soft target of poverty", noting that Chicago'sSouth Side has the highest concentration of toxic waste dumps in the U.S.,[338] and added that 80% of "uncontrolled toxic waste dumps" are in black neighborhoods, with the largest site inEmelle, Alabama, which is 90% black.[339]
Kennedy has said that "systematic"erosion of the middle class is taking place, remarking in a 2023 interview withUnHerd that American politicians have "been systematically hollowing out the American middle class and printing money to make billionaires richer". He said that thefinancial industry and themilitary–industrial complex are funded at the expense of the Americanmiddle class; that the U.S. government is dominated bycorporate power; theEnvironmental Protection Agency is run by the "oil industry, thecoal industry, and thepesticide industry"; and that theFood and Drug Administration is dominated by "Big Pharma".[305] Kennedy sees a "vibrant middle class" as the economy's backbone and has said that the economy has deteriorated because the middle class has become poorer.[340]
In an interview withAndrew Serwer, Kennedy said that the gap between rich and poor in the U.S. had become too great and that "the very wealthy people should pay more taxes and corporations". He also expressed support forMassachusetts senatorElizabeth Warren's wealth tax plan, which would impose an annual tax of 2% on every dollar of a household's net worth over $50 million and 6% on every dollar of net worth over $1 billion.[341]
Kennedy is critical of the United States' alliances withdictatorships likeSaudi Arabia. He criticized theSaudi-led intervention in the Yemeni civil war, calling it a "genocide against the Iranian-backed Houthi tribe".[342] Kennedy is a supporter ofIsrael. In December 2023, he had a heated exchange withBreaking Points hostKrystal Ball, in what RabbiShmuley Boteach called "the single greatest defense of Israel on videos since the start of the"Gaza war.[343] In a March 2025 HHS news release, he referred to student protests against Israel's actions in Gaza as "anti-semitism" and the product of "woke cancel culture".[344][345]
An opponent of themilitary industry andforeign interventions, Kennedy was critical of theIraq War as well as American support for Ukraine againstRussia's invasion of the country. He condemned the Russian invasion of Ukraine,[346] but called theRusso-Ukrainian War "a U.S. war against Russia" and said the war's goal was to "sacrifice the flower of Ukrainian youth in an abattoir of death and destruction for the geopolitical ambition of the neocons".[305] He called for a peace agreement in Ukraine based on theMinsk Accords; in his view, theDonbas region should remain in Ukraine but also be given territorial autonomy and placed under the jurisdiction ofUnited Nationspeacekeeping forces, whileAegis missile systems should be removed from Eastern Europe.[347]
Kennedy said Ukraine should beforbidden from joining NATO, and announced that as president he would consider admitting Russia to NATO and deescalating tensions withChina.[305][347] He said the 2014Ukrainian revolution was anattempted coup sponsored by the U.S. against the Ukrainian government, and that the Ukrainian governmentcommitted atrocities against the Russian population in Donbas, wrongly claiming that all casualties of theDonbas War between 2014 and 2022 (about 14,000) were Russians.[348] He said that Russians living there "were being systematically killed by the Ukrainian government".[305]
Kennedy denounced the operations of formerCIA directorAllen Dulles, condemning U.S.-backed coups and interventions such as the1953 Iranian coup d'état as "bloodthirsty", and blamed U.S. interventions in countries such as Syria and Iran for the rise of terrorist organizations such as ISIS and creatinganti-American sentiment in the region.[342] Kennedy said the CIA has no accountability and declared his intention to restructure the agency.[305]
Kennedy's disapproval of U.S. intervention in foreign governments was expressed in a 1974Atlantic Monthly article titled "Poor Chile", discussingthe overthrow of Chilean president Salvador Allende.[349] He also wrote editorials against the execution of Pakistani presidentZulfikar Ali Bhutto by GeneralMuhammad Zia-ul-Haq.[350][351] In 1975, he published an article inThe Wall Street Journal criticizing assassination as a foreign policy tool.[352] In 2005, he wrote an article for theLos Angeles Times decrying President Bush's use of torture as anti-American.[353] His uncle Senator Ted Kennedy entered the article into theCongressional Record.[354]
In an article titled "Why the Arabs Don't Want Us in Syria" published inPolitico in February 2016, Kennedy referred to the "bloody history that moderninterventionists likeGeorge W. Bush,Ted Cruz, andMarco Rubio miss when they recite their narcissistic trope that Mideast nationalists 'hate us for our freedoms.' For the most part they don't; instead they hate us for the way we betrayed those freedoms—our own ideals—within their borders."[342] Kennedy blames the Syrian war on a pipeline dispute. He cites apparentWikiLeaks disclosures alleging that the CIA led military and intelligence planners to foment aSunni uprising againstSyria's president,Bashar al-Assad, following his rejection of a proposedQatar-Turkey pipeline through Syria in 2009, well before theArab Spring.[355]
In a June 2023 interview, Kennedy said that in broad terms, he believes thatU.S. foreign relations should involve significantly reducing the military presence in other nations. He specifically said the country must "start unraveling the Empire" by closingU.S. bases in different locations worldwide.[356]
Kennedy believes that the administration of President Joe Biden, in large part, caused the 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia due to reckless and militant action; he has specifically cited the issue ofNATO expansion into Eastern Europe. At the same time, he has clarified that he refuses to connect this criticism with anything considered support of thegovernment of Russia under Putin, particularly given Kennedy'sethical opposition tothe regime's beliefs and politics. He has called Putin a "monster", a "thug", and a "gangster".[356] He also criticized the Trump and Biden administrations' "provocative policies" in regard toU.S. relations with China, saying that "China does not want a hot war" and calling for a reduction in tensions.[357]
In 2023, Kennedy said he was "arguably the leading environmentalist in the country".[305] He promotes populist andanti-establishment environmental policies, claiming that "Bill Gates and theWorld Economic Forum and the billionaire boys' club in Davos" have hijacked theclimate crisis.[305] In a 2015 interview, Kennedy said of politicians skeptical of global warming that he "wished there were a law you could punish them under".[358][359] He has said that environmentalists' priority should be to tackle the "carbon industry". He has called the current society and economy unsustainable and largely based on a "longtime deadly addiction to coal and oil" and contended that the economic system rewards pollution. In 2020, Kennedy said: "Right now, we have a market that is governed by rules that were written by the carbon incumbents to reward the dirtiest, filthiest, most poisonous, most toxic, most war-mongering fields from hell, rather than the cheap, clean, green, wholesome and patriotic fields from heaven."[360][361][362]
Kennedy has advocated for a global transition fromfossil fuels torenewable energy,[363][364] but has opposed hydropower from dams.[365][366][367][368][369][370] He has argued that switching to solar and wind energy reduces costs and greenhouse gases while improving air and water quality, citizens' health, and the number and quality of jobs.[371] Kennedy's fight to stopAppalachian mountaintop removal mining was the subject of the filmThe Last Mountain.[372]
In one of his first environmental cases, Kennedy suedMobil Oil for polluting the Hudson.[44] He had been an early supporter ofnatural gas as a viable bridge fuel to renewables and a cleaner alternative to coal,[373] but said he turned against this controversial extraction method after investigating its cost to public health, climate, and road infrastructure.[374] As a member of GovernorAndrew Cuomo'sfracking commission, Kennedy helped engineer a 2013 ban on fracking in New York State.[375]
In 2013, Kennedy assisted theChipewyan First Nation and theBeaver Lake Cree in fighting to protect their land fromtar sands production.[376] In February 2013, while protesting theKeystone XL Pipeline Kennedy, along with his son, Conor, was arrested for blocking a thoroughfare in front of the White House during a protest.[377]
In August 2016, Kennedy and Waterkeepers participated in protests to block the extension of theDakota Access pipeline across theStanding Rock Sioux Reservation's water supply.[378]
Kennedy has maintained that the oil industry remains competitive against renewables and electric cars only due to massive direct and indirect subsidies and political interventions on the oil industry's behalf. In a June 2017 interview onEnviroNews, he said of the oil industry: "That's what their strategy is: build as many miles of pipeline as possible. And what the industry is trying to do is to increase that level of infrastructure investment so our country won't be able to walk away from it".[379]Kennedy supportedAlexandria Ocasio-Cortez'sGreen New Deal resolution, saying in a 2020 interview, "I think the Green New Deal and all that stuff is important. We ought to be pursuing it. My approach is more market-based than kind of top-down dictates. You know, I believe that we should use market mechanisms like carbon taxes and the elimination of subsidies."[360]
Kennedy has spoken againstgeoengineering, saying that geoengineering solutions are an attempt by big business to profit from climate change.[380][381]
Kennedy has expressed support forregenerative farming, and in May 2023, he voiced support foragrarian movements, saying, "If we want to have democracy, we need a broad ownership of our land by a wide variety of yeoman farmers, each with a stake in our system."[305] In 1995, PremierRalph Klein of Alberta declared Kennedypersona non grata in the province due to his activism against Alberta's large-scale hog production facilities.[382] In 2002,Smithfield Foods sued Kennedy in Poland under a Polish law that makes criticizing a corporation illegal after he denounced the company in a debate with Smithfield's Polish director before the Polish parliament.[77][clarification needed]
Kennedy has opposed conventionalnuclear power, arguing that it is unsafe and not economically competitive.[383][384] In June 1981, he spoke at an anti-nuclear rally at theHollywood Bowl with the musiciansStephen Stills,Bonnie Raitt, andJackson Browne.[385] He believes nuclear energy is a profit-making venture promoted by corporate lobbyists rather than environmental activists, and has claimed insurance companies are unwilling to insure nuclear plants, saying in a 2023 interview, "It's not hippies in tie-dyed T-shirts who are saying it's dangerous; it's guys on Wall Street with suits and ties."[305]
Throughout thepresidency of George W. Bush, Kennedy was critical of Bush's environmental and energy policies, saying Bush was defunding and corrupting federal science projects.[386] Kennedy was also critical of Bush's 2003hydrogen car initiative,[387] arguing that, because of plans to extract the hydrogen from fossil fuels, it was a gift to the fossil fuel industry disguised as a green automobile.[388] In 2003, Kennedy wrote an article inRolling Stone about Bush's environmental record,[389] which he expanded into aNew York Times bestselling book.[390] His opposition to the Bush administration's environmental policies earned him recognition as one ofRolling Stone's "100 Agents of Change" on April 2, 2009.[391][392]
During an October 2012 interview withPolitico, Kennedy called on environmentalists to direct their dissatisfaction towardCongress rather than PresidentBarack Obama, reasoning that Obama "didn't deliver" due to having a partisan Congress "like we haven't seen before in American history".[393] He said politicians who do not act on climate change policy serve special interests and sell out public trust. He saidCharles andDavid Koch—the owners ofKoch Industries, Inc., the nation's largest privately owned oil company—subverted democracy and made "themselves billionaires by impoverishing the rest of us".[394]
Kennedy has spoken of the Koch brothers as leading "the apocalyptical forces of Ignorance and Greed".[395] During the2014 People's Climate March, he said: "The Koch brothers have all the money. They're putting $300 million this year into their efforts to stop the climate bill. And the only thing we have in our power is people power, and that's why we need to put this demonstration on the street."[396]
In a 2020 interview onYahoo Finance's "Influencers withAndy Serwer", Kennedy called President Trump'senvironmental policies a "cataclysm" and said Trump is "simply the radical step of a process that's been happening in our country and in the Republican Party from the past—really, since 1980—which is a growing hostility towards the environment, a growing orientation to representing the concentrated corporate power and power, particularly of the oil industry and the chemical industry and some of the other large polluting industries."[360]
Kennedy has said he intends to create "wellness farms" to rehabilitate illegal drug users, to be paid for from the revenue from taxing the sale oflegalized cannabis.[397] The farms' inmates would groworganic food, without access to computer technology.[398] He has suggested that the farms might be used to treat people onpsychiatric medications:[397] "I'm going to create these wellness farms where they can go to get off of illegal drugs, off of opiates, but also illegal drugs, other psychiatric drugs, if they want to, to get off of SSRIs, to get off of benzos, to get off of Adderall, and to spend time as much time as they need—three or four years if they need it—to learn to getreparented, to reconnect with communities."[398] Kennedy has said the farms would be compulsory only for illegal drug users.[399]
Kennedy has been critical of the integrity of the voting process. In June 2006, he published an article inRolling Stone purporting to show that GOP operatives stole the 2004 presidential election for President George W. Bush.[400] Most Democrats and Republicans regarded it as a conspiracy theory. The journalistFarhad Manjoo countered Kennedy's conclusions, writing: "If you do read Kennedy's article, be prepared to machete your way through numerous errors of interpretation and his deliberate omission of key bits of data."[401]
Kennedy has written about the ease of election hacking and the dangers of voter purges andvoter-identification laws. He wrote the introduction and a chapter inBillionaires and Ballot Bandits, a 2012 book on election hacking by the investigative journalistGreg Palast.[402]
.jpg)
Kennedy worked on his uncleSargent Shriver's1976 presidential campaign in Massachusetts,[403] and later was on the national staff and a state coordinator for his uncle Ted Kennedy's1980 presidential campaign.[404]
Kennedy endorsed and campaigned for Vice PresidentAl Gore during his2000 presidential campaign and openly opposedRalph Nader'sGreen Partypresidential campaign.[405]
In the2004 presidential election, Kennedy endorsedJohn Kerry, noting his strong environmental record.[406] After Kerry lost the election toGeorge W. Bush, Kennedy wrote an article forRolling Stone falsely claiming that the results were fraudulent and that the election was stolen from Kerry, basing his argument on discrepancies between exit polling and reported results in swing states such asOhio, as well as voter disenfranchisement.[407][408]
In late 2007, Kennedy and his sistersKerry and Kathleen endorsedHillary Clinton in the2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries.[409] After theDemocratic Convention, Kennedy campaigned for Obama across the country.[410] After the election, the Obama administration was reportedly considering Kennedy foradministrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, but felt his controversial statements and arrest for heroin possession in the 1980s made him unlikely to win Senate confirmation.[411][139]
In 2016, Kennedy called supporters of then-presidential candidateDonald Trump "belligerent idiots" and suggested that some were "outright Nazis". He also characterized Trump as a "bully" and a "threat to democracy",[412] comparing him toAdolf Hitler andGeorge Wallace.[413]
In 2024, Kennedy endorsed Trump for president at a Trump campaign rally in Arizona.[161]
Kennedy was a founding board member of theFood Allergy Initiative. His son hasanaphylacticpeanut allergies. Kennedy wrote the foreword toThe Peanut Allergy Epidemic, in which he and the authors falsely link increasing food allergies in children to certain vaccines that were approved beginning in 1989.[414][37]
In 2003, Kennedy published an article inThe Atlantic Monthly about the 1975murder of Martha Moxley inGreenwich, Connecticut, in which he insists that his cousinMichael Skakel's indictment "was triggered by an inflamed media, and that an innocent man is now in prison". Kennedy argues that evidence suggests that Kenneth Littleton, the Skakel family's live-in tutor, killed Moxley, and calls investigative journalistDominick Dunne the "driving force" behind Skakel's prosecution.[415] In 2016, Kennedy released the bookFramed: Why Michael Skakel Spent over a Decade in Prison for a Murder He Didn't Commit.[416] In 2017, the rights to the book were optioned byFX Productions to develop a multi-part television series.[417]
In 2018, Skakel's conviction wasvacated,[418] and in 2020, prosecutors decided not to seek a new trial.[419]
On the evening of January 11, 2013,Charlie Rose interviewed Kennedy and his sisterRory at theWinspear Opera House inDallas as a part of then Dallas mayorMike Rawlings's hand-chosen committee's year-long program of celebrating John F. Kennedy's life and presidency.[420] Of JFK'sassassination, RFK Jr. said his father was "fairly convinced"Lee Harvey Oswald had not acted alone and believed theWarren Commission report was a "shoddy piece of craftsmanship". RFK Jr. said, "The evidence at this point I think is very, very convincing that it was not a lone gunman."[421] He endorsed the 2013 edition ofJFK and the Unspeakable, saying it had moved him to visitDealey Plaza for the first time.[422]
In November 2023, RFK Jr. launched a petition on his presidential campaign website[423] for theBiden administration to release the estimated remaining 1% of documents related to the case. He said that finally releasing full and unredacted documents could help restore trust in the government.[424]
In an interview onLex Fridman's podcast, Kennedy said that the evidence that the CIA was involved in the assassination was "beyond any reasonable doubt".[425][non-primary source needed]
Kennedy does not believe thatSirhan Sirhan fired the shot thatkilled his father,Robert F. Kennedy. Based on the testimony of eyewitnesses, especiallyPaul Schrade, who was standing next to Kennedy and was shot himself, as well as the autopsy, he believes there was asecond gunman.[426] In December 2017, he visitedRichard J. Donovan Correctional Facility near San Diego to meet Sirhan. After meeting Sirhan, he gave his support for a reinvestigation of the assassination.[426]
In a June 2023 podcast interview withJordan Peterson, Kennedy posited that several issues in children, includinggender dysphoria, might be linked toatrazine contamination in the water supply. He cited a 2010 study by Hayes[427] that claims that acute atrazine exposure causeschemical castration andfeminization in frogs, leading some to becomehermaphrodites. Kennedy suggested that there was other evidence indicating potential effects on humans.[428][429]YouTube removed the interview under itsvaccine misinformation policy, a decision Peterson and Kennedy criticized as censorship.[430][428]Andrea Gore, a professor ofneuroendocrinology at theUniversity of Texas at Austin, said, "I don't think people should be making statements about the relationship between environmental chemicals and changes in sexuality when there's zero evidence."[431] Several scientists interviewed byAxios said the hypothesis lacked evidence.[429] Following media criticism, a spokesperson for Kennedy's 2024 presidential campaign toldCNN that he was being mischaracterized and that he was not claiming that endocrine disruptors were the sole cause of gender dysphoria, but rather proposing further research.[431]
Kennedy says he drinks onlyraw milk and believes it has health benefits. In October 2024, he accused the FDA of "aggressive suppression" of raw milk. Experts and the FDA say raw milk has disease risks and is not more nutritious.[432][433][434]
Kennedy is a licensed masterfalconer and has trained hawks since he was 11. He breeds hawks and falcons and is also licensed as a raptor propagator and a wildlife rehabilitator.[435] He holds permits for FederalGame Keeper,Bird Bander, and Scientific Collector. He was president of the New York State Falconry Association from 1988 to 1991. In 1987, while on GovernorMario Cuomo's New York State Falconry Advising Committee, Kennedy authored New York State's examination to qualify apprentice falconers. Later that year, he wrote theNew York State Apprentice Falconer's Manual, which was published by theNew York State Department of Environmental Conservation and remains in use.[436]
Kennedy is also awhitewater kayaker. His father introduced him and his siblings to whitewater kayaking during trips down theGreen andYampa Rivers in Utah and Colorado, theColumbia River, theMiddle Fork Salmon in Idaho, and theUpper Hudson Gorge. Between 1976 and 1981, Kennedy was a partner and guide at a whitewater company, Utopian, based inWest Forks, Maine. He organized and led several "first-descent" whitewater expeditions to Latin America, including three hitherto unexplored rivers: theApurimac, Peru, in 1975; theAtrato, Colombia, in 1979; and theCaroni, Venezuela, in 1982.[437] In 1993, he made an early descent of theGreat Whale River in northern Quebec, Canada.[438]
In 2015, Kennedy took two of his sons to theYukon to visitMount Kennedy and run theAlsek River, a whitewater river fed by theAlsek Glacier. Mount Kennedy was Canada's highest unclimbed peak when the Canadian government named it for John F. Kennedy in 1964.[439] In 1965, Kennedy's father became the first person to climb Mount Kennedy.[440]
On April 3, 1982, Kennedy married Emily Ruth Black, whom he met at theUniversity of Virginia School of Law.[441] Kennedy and Black separated in 1992 and divorced in 1994.[442]
On April 15, 1994, Kennedy married architect and designerMary Kathleen Richardson, a close friend of his sister Kerry, aboard a research vessel on theHudson River.[443][444] Kennedy has six children, two with Black and four with Richardson.[445]
During his marriage to Richardson, Kennedy was known among his friends for sending explicit nude photos of women that they presumed he had taken, according toVanity Fair.[29] He reportedly engaged in multiple affairs during the marriage.[446][29][447] His friends later called him a "lifelong philanderer".[448][449] On May 12, 2010, Kennedy filed for divorce from Richardson. On May 16, 2012, Richardson was found dead in a building on the grounds of her home inBedford, New York. The Westchester County Medical Examiner ruled the death asuicide due to asphyxiation from hanging.[450]
Before her death, Richardson had discovered Kennedy's personal journal from 2001, in which he recorded sexual encounters with 37 different women. According to Kennedy, Richardson passed the journal along "to her sisters with instructions that, if anything happened to her, [it should be] published in the press".[451][452] During their divorce, Richardson began exhibiting signs of drug and alcohol abuse and psychiatric distress.[444][453][454]
After her death, Kennedy won a court case against Richardson's siblings to have her buried alongside fellow Kennedy family members in St. Francis Xavier Cemetery inCenterville, Massachusetts, instead of closer to her siblings in New York. Shortly after her burial, Kennedy had her body disinterred and moved to an unmarked grave in an empty area of the cemetery. At the time, the Kennedy family was planning to purchase 50 plots in the same area due to overcrowding.[455] Kennedy's niece Saoirse Kennedy Hill was buried next to Richardson after her death from a drug overdose at age 22.[456]
In 2012, Kennedy began dating the actressCheryl Hines. They married on August 2, 2014, at theKennedy Compound. The couple were introduced byLarry David, Hines's co-star onHBO'sCurb Your Enthusiasm.[457][458] Kennedy and Hines reside inLos Angeles[459] andCape Cod, Massachusetts.[460]
In September 2024,Olivia Nuzzi, a reporter forNew York magazine who had been covering his presidential campaign, told her editors that she had been in a relationship with Kennedy, which she described as personal but not physical.[461][462][463][464]
During Kennedy's college years, he began having heart problems, which he has said were caused bycaffeine,stress, andsleep deprivation.[465]
In his 40s, Kennedy developed adductorspasmodic dysphonia, an organic voice disorder that causes his voice to quaver and makes speech difficult. It is a form of involuntary movement affecting thelarynx, related todystonia.[37][40][466] Kennedy said he traveled toKyoto, Japan, for a procedure where a titanium bridge was inserted between his vocal cords to try to relieve the disorder.[465]
Kennedy began experiencing severe short- and long-term memory loss andmental fog in 2010. In a 2012 divorce court deposition, he attributed neurological issues to "a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died", in addition tomercury poisoning from eating large quantities of tuna.[465][467] In October 2025, his wife Cheryl Hines confirmed that a worm ate "a little bit of his brain and then died."[468]
The Washington Post reported that Kennedy's campaign "has not released his medical records that could verify his account, and Kennedy has previously spread health misinformation, including about mercury in vaccines".[469]
Kennedy is aRoman Catholic.[470] In 2005, journalistMichael Paulson called him "a deeply devout Catholic who attends daily Mass".[471] Kennedy considersFrancis of Assisi his patron saint and a role model.[470] In a 2005 interview withThe Boston Globe, he said he was deeply inspired by Francis's devotion tosocial justice,helping the poor,animal welfare, andenvironmentalism; Francis is apatron saint ofecology.[471]
In 2004, Kennedy published a biography,Saint Francis of Assisi: A Life of Joy.[471] He said Catholicism was a vehicle of his environmentalism, adding, "environmental work is spiritual work".[471] Despite identifying aspro-life,[471] Kennedy also identifies withliberal Catholicism.[305] He criticized the church's argument thatJohn Kerry should have been denied communion because of his support for abortion rights.[471]
In a 2018 interview withVatican News, Kennedy expressed his admiration forPope John XXIII, who is best known for his modernization of the church in the 1960s. Kennedy said, "the Church should be an instrument of justice and kindness around the world."[472]
In July 2024,Vanity Fair reported that in the late 1990s, when he was in his 40s, Kennedy engaged insexual misconduct with Eliza Cooney, a 23-year-old part-time babysitter for his children.[473] Cooney alleges that Kennedy groped her and touched her inappropriately on multiple occasions and asked her to rub lotion on his back when the two were alone in a bedroom.[29]
Kennedy called thisVanity Fair piece a "lot of garbage". When asked specifically about Cooney's allegation, he responded, "I am not a church boy. I had a very, very rambunctious youth. I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world." When pressed further, he said he had no comment.[473]
After theVanity Fair piece was published, Cooney said that Kennedy texted her: "I have no memory of this incident, but I apologize sincerely for anything I ever did that made you feel uncomfortable or anything I did or said that offended you or hurt your feelings. I never intended you any harm. If I hurt you, it was inadvertent. I feel badly for doing so."[474] Cooney said, "I don't know if it's an apology if you say 'I don't remember' ... In the context of all his public appearances, it seemed a little bit—it didn't match. It was like a throwaway."[474]
In August 2025,Ghislaine Maxwell said Kennedy was among those who traveled withJeffrey Epstein, a claim backed by travel logs released during Maxwell's 2021 trial, though she said she "never saw anything inappropriate" from him during that time.[475] Kennedy personally disclosed in 2023 that he had traveled on Epstein's private jet multiple times.[476]
In July 2024, an image of Kennedy holding a charred animal carcass captured in 2010 surfaced in aVanity Fair story, which alleged that the carcass belonged to a dog and that Kennedy ate it.[29] Kennedy denied that he atedog meat, and said the animal carcass in the picture was a goat.[477] According toSnopes, the carcass in the photo is lamb.[478] Kennedy had eaten dog,horse, andguinea pig meat before 2001.[479]
In August 2024, Kennedy released a video on Twitter, acknowledging that in October 2014 he placed a dead six-month-old bear inCentral Park after initially planning to skin it formeat.[480] Kennedy said that the bear had beenhit by a car in front of him and that he ultimately abandoned the carcass for fear that it would spoil before he could preserve it, deliberately positioning the body to give the impression that it had been struck by a cyclist in Central Park.[481] He released the video in advance of a story inThe New Yorker that detailed the incident.[482] At the time of the incident, the spectacle of a dead bear in a New York City park made the local news. A resultingnecropsy by theNew York State Department of Environmental Conservation found that the death was caused by "blunt force injuries consistent with a motor vehicle collision".[483]
In a 2012Town & Country magazine profile of Kennedy's daughter Kathleen ("Kick"), she recounted a story about how her father—who, she said, liked to study animal skulls and skeletons—used a chainsaw to sever the head of a deadbeached whale inHyannis Port, Massachusetts, then strapped the whale's head to the top of their minivan with bungee cords for the five-hour drive home, saying, "every time we accelerated on the highway, whale juice would pour into the windows of the car" and they "had plastic bags over our heads with mouth holes cut out, and people on the highway were giving us the finger, but that was just normal day-to-day stuff for us".[484][485] In September 2024, theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Office of Law Enforcement announced that it was investigating the incident.[486]
Kennedy has written books on subjects such as the environment, vaccinations, biography, and American heroes. Two of his books,The Real Anthony Fauci andVax-Unvax: Let the Science Speak areNew York Times Bestsellers.[487][488]
During a speech at the rally, Kennedy, a conspiracy theorist and prominent anti-vaxxer, warned of a massive surveillance network created with satellites in space and 5G mobile networks collecting data.
Cheryl Hines has publicly condemned a statement made by her husband Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a rally on Sunday, in which the environmental lawyer and conspiracy theorist likened COVID regulations to the Holocaust.
The younger Kennedy has campaigned on environmental issues but is also a leading vaccines conspiracy theorist and activist against shots including those approved to combat Covid-19, which has killed more than 805,000 in the US and more than 5.3 million worldwide.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental lawyer, is a leading vaccine skeptic and purveyor of conspiracy theories who has leaned heavily on misinformation as he mounts his long-shot 2024 campaign for the Democratic nomination.
In March 2023, Kennedy hosted chemtrail activist Dane Wigington on his podcast. The episode was titled "Are Chemtrails Real?" At one point he [Kennedy] speculated as to whether chemtrails are causing "accumulations of aluminum, even in places in very, very remote parts of the earth". Kennedy said that it was "kind of frightening to think that somebody may be putting large amounts of bioavailable aluminum into the environment, spraying it in microscopic particulates from airplanes".;
But long before all that, in the 1980s, the medical and scientific community made a breakthrough: discovering that HIV caused AIDS. Yet that's a fact that's come under the microscope recently, in part thanks to Kennedy, who has repeatedly made false claims that a recreational drug popular among the gay community, "poppers" (amyl nitrite), was the culprit.
The outbreak devastated the Pacific island nation in 2019, killing 83 people in a population of 200,000. Vaccination rates were historically low because of poor public health management and the 2018 deaths of two babies whose vaccines were incorrectly prepared, prompting fears that the MMR immunization was unsafe before the nature of the error was discovered. The government suspended vaccinations for 10 months before the outbreak—the period when Kennedy visited. His trip was organized by a Samoan anti-vaccine influencer, according to a 2021 blog post by Kennedy.
... Virginia and Cape Cod (Massachusetts) homes of my youth
in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, where he was raised
Is the Encyclopedia Brittanica actually more accurate than Wikipedia? Is Wikipedia's reliance on the collective wisdom of the internet more reliable than the specialized knowledge of Encyclopedia Brittanica's army of paid fact checkers? How do we prove anything? What is the truth?
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., second oldest son of the late senator read the Entrance Antiphon: "Lord, grant that he may have eternal rest forever in the radiance of your light."
Kennedy appeared for two confirmation hearings, but only the Finance Committee will vote on whether to advance him.
For more than a decade, Kennedy has promoted anti-vaccine propaganda completely unconnected to reality.
The video – the newest in a series of anti-vaccine propaganda films produced or promoted by Kennedy – was distributed through Kennedy's organization, Children's Health Defense,
Dr. Richard Allen Williams, a cardiologist, professor of medicine at UCLA and founder of the Minority Health Institute, said Kennedy is leading 'a propaganda movement'
He's long been a purveyor of the fiction that vaccines cause autism, and one of his key points of evidence is that the percentage of people with autism has increased. But the percentage of people diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder has gone up mainly because of expanded definitions and better detection. There is no blood test for autism, so a diagnosis is based on observations of a person's behavior. Indeed, while autism diagnoses have increased, those of intellectual disability have decreased, indicating that previously, children may have been misdiagnosed with other conditions.
[RFK Jr.] In any just society, we would be building statues to Andy Wakefield.
The digitalized economy? We get rid of cash and coins. We give you a chip. We put all your money in your chip. If you refuse a vaccine, we turn off the chip and you starve!
Hank Aaron's tragic death is part of a wave of suspicious deaths among elderly closely following administration of COVID vaccines. He received the Moderna vaccine on Jan. 5 to inspire other Black Americans to get the vaccine.
These posts include claims that 5G damages human DNA, causes cancer and is being installed in order to carry out mass surveillance. It's easy to see a motivation behind his sudden interest: 5G-related posts have garnered him more than 400,000 likes or other interactions.
YouTube said on Wednesday that it was banning the accounts of several prominent anti-vaccine activists from its platform, including those of Joseph Mercola and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., as part of an effort to remove all content that falsely claims that approved vaccines are dangerous.
On the eve of his Senate confirmation hearing, Ms. Kennedy described Mr. Kennedy as not just unqualified to run the Department of Health and Human Services, the position that President Trump has nominated him to fill, but also a "predator" and a hypocrite. She not only wrote this in a letter to senators; she also posted a video of her reading it, coolly and methodically. The fact that the public rarely sees her speaking made it all the more devastating.
Right now, we have a market that is governed by rules that were written by the carbon incumbents to reward the dirtiest, filthiest, most poisonous, most toxic, most war-mongering fields from hell, rather than the cheap, clean, green, wholesome, and patriotic fields from heaven. We need to rationalize our marketplace so that it does the things that market is supposed to do, which is to create a society that we're all proud of and that will sustain our children.
In 2023, RFK Jr boasted that he only drinks raw milk, claiming health benefits.
I've eaten all kinds of insects and nematodes, caterpillars, snakes, frogs, alligators,terrapins, sea urchins, octopus, birds eggs, a mouse (by mistake), wild game including armadillo,wildebeest, warthog, coons and capybara, and some domestic animals including horse, dog and guinea pig. I have eatenroad kill and I'm fond of viscera;tripe, tongue, brain andoffal andsweet meats and pate,kidney pie, sheep's eyes and evenairline food.
Media from Commons
Quotations from Wikiquote
Texts from Wikisource| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by | United States Secretary of Health and Human Services 2025–present | Incumbent |
| Order of precedence | ||
| Preceded byas United States Secretary of Labor | Order of precedence of the United States as United States Secretary of Health and Human Services | Succeeded byas United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development |
| U.S. presidential line of succession | ||
| Preceded byas United States Secretary of Labor | Twelfth in line as United States Secretary of Health and Human Services | Succeeded byas United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development |
26thUnited States Secretary of Health and Human Services (2025–present) | ||
| Founded |  | |
| Writings |
| |
| Documentary work | ||
| Radio | ||
| Electoral | ||
| Related |
| |
| Kennedy family (family tree) |
| |
Members of theCabinet of the United States | ||
|---|---|---|
| Cabinet members |  | |
| Cabinet-level members | ||
| Health, education, and welfare |   | |
|---|---|---|
| Health and human services | ||
Fraudulentpseudo-medicine | |
|---|---|
| Deceptively named front groups | |
| Promoters of discredited treatments | |
November 20, 1925 – June 6, 1968 | ||
| Life |  | |
| Electoral | ||
| Speeches |
| |
| Books |
| |
| Assassination | ||
| Legacy and memorials |
| |
| Popular culture |
| |
| Family, family tree |
| |
.jpg)
