Caroline Kennedy to Senators: Don't Confirm 'Predator' RFK Jr.

She says her cousin is a hypocrite 'addicted to attention and power'
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 28, 2025 1:24 PM CST
Caroline Kennedy to Senators: Don't Confirm My Cousin
Caroline Kennedy, then-Ambassador of the United States to Australia, addresses an audience during John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award ceremonies, Sunday, Oct. 29, 2023.   (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

Caroline Kennedy has urged senators to vote against her "predator" cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his "irresponsible beliefs" in this week's confirmation hearings. In a letter to senators and a video statement, the former ambassador to Australia warned against putting RFK Jr. "in charge of the health of the American people" as health secretary.

  • "I have known Bobby my whole life; we grew up together," Kennedy said. "It's no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets because he himself is a predator." She said other family members had followed him down the path of drug addiction. "His basement, his garage, his dorm room were the centers of the action where drugs were available, and he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in the blender to feed his hawks," she said. "It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence."

  • Kennedy accused her cousin of being "addicted to attention and power" and said he had gotten rich from his "crusade against vaccination," the New York Times reports. "Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children—vaccinating his own children while building a following by hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs," she said.
  • "Even before he fills this job, his constant denigration of our health care system and the conspiratorial half-truths he has told about vaccines, including in connection with Samoa's deadly 2019 measles outbreak, have cost lives," Kennedy said.
  • Kennedy accused her cousin of "grandstanding" off the assassination of her father, John F. Kennedy, as well as that of his own father. Both men, she said, would be "disgusted" by his behavior.

  • Health care researchers, Kennedy said, are "committed to advancing cutting-edge medicine to save lives, not rejecting the advances we have already made. They deserve a stable, moral, and ethical person at the helm of this crucial agency," she wrote. "They deserve better than Bobby Kennedy—and so do the rest of us."
  • Confirmation hearings will be held Wednesday and Thursday and it's not clear how many senators will vote, the Washington Post reports. Some Republicans have criticized RFK Jr.'s views on vaccines, while some Democrats, including Sen. John Fetterman, haven't ruled out voting for him.
(More Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stories.)