Key Points
- Caroline Kennedy has urged the US Senate to reject her cousin Robert F Kennedy Jr's health secretary nomination.
- Caroline has labelled her cousin a 'predator' who is addicted to power.
- She says his views on vaccines are disqualifying.
Calling Robert F Kennedy Jr a "predator" who is addicted to power, Caroline Kennedy has urged the United States Senate in a letter to reject the nomination of her cousin to be President Donald Trump's health secretary.
In a letter on Tuesday to senators, Kennedy — who previously served as a US ambassador to Australia and Japan and is the daughter of former US president John F Kennedy — etched a damning sketch of her cousin, the latest condemnation Kennedy Jr has received from members of his own, prominent Democratic family.
Several denounced her cousin's in 2024. The letter, obtained by the Associated Press, was first reported by The Washington Post.
Kennedy said in the letter that her cousin's disqualify him from the role. She offered senators personal details from their lives growing up together that she said pose an even greater concern.
She described her cousin's basement, garage and dorm as being an epicentre for drug use, where he would also put baby chickens and mice in blenders to feed to his hawks.
"It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence," she wrote. She also read the letter in a video recording, sharing it on social media. Attempts to reach Kennedy Jr for comment were not immediately successful.
Kennedy Jr has openly talked about his heroin use, and he pleaded guilty to bringing it on a plane in 1984.
Kennedy Jr now "preys on the desperation of parents of sick children", Kennedy told senators, noting that he has vaccinated his own children while discouraging others from vaccinating theirs.
She also pointed out that Kennedy Jr plans to still profit off a lawsuit against pharmaceutical company Merck over its human papillomavirus vaccine that prevents cervical cancer. In 2024, he made over US$850,000 ($1.4 million) from the arrangement.
Former US ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy says her cousin is a 'predator'. Source: AAP / Lukas Coch
Her father was assassinated in 1963 when she was a young girl. Kennedy Jr's father was assassinated in 1968 during his presidential campaign event.
"Unlike Bobby, I try not to speak for my father — but I am certain that he and my uncle Bobby, who gave their lives in public services, and my uncle Teddy, who devoted his Senate career to improving health care, would be disgusted," Kennedy wrote.
LISTEN TO
US Ambassador to Australia Caroline Kennedy talks to SBS
SBS News
12/08/202311:21
Kennedy Jr will appear before the Senate finance committee on Wednesday in his bid to become Trump's health secretary.
Another hearing for his nomination will be held on Wednesday in front of the Senate committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pension — the committee his uncle, Ted Kennedy, once chaired.
