Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s sister and nephew have urged the Health and Human Services secretary to resign, denouncing his anti-vaxxer views and the “decimation” of key public health institutions.
Kerry Kennedy, 65, and Joe Kennedy III, 44, issued separate statements after RFK Jr sparred with the Senate Finance Committee over his vaccine policies and ousted the top official at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
“Medical decisions belong in the hands of trained and licensed professionals, not incompetent and misguided leadership,” Kerry Kennedy, an attorney and one of U.S. Attorney General Robert F Kennedy’s 11 children, wrote on Friday. “The decimation of critical institutions, like the [National Institutes of Health] and the CDC, will lead to the loss of innocent lives.”
Kerry Kennedy, who said last year that her brother “set fire to my father’s memory” when he defected to the Republican Party, argued that Americans are “at risk now, like never before.”
“Enough is enough. Secretary Kennedy must resign. Now,” she concluded.
About an hour earlier, former Democratic Congressman Joe Kennedy III released a statement calling his uncle “a threat to the health and wellbeing of every American.”
He accused the DHS secretary of choosing “to dismiss science” and “sow confusion” during his congressional testimony.
“The challenge before us—from disease outbreaks to mental health crises—demand moral clarity, scientific expertise, and leadership rooted in fact,” he wrote. “Those values are not present in the Secretary’s office. He must resign.”
RFK Jr. has had a fraught relationship with his family, with several prominent members sharply criticizing his decision in August 2024 to abandon his independent presidential campaign and endorse President Donald Trump.
During RFK Jr.’s Senate hearing on Thursday, Jack Schlossberg, the grandson of former President John F. Kennedy, called his cousin a “LOSER” and claimed he was “choking so badly LIVE.”
A day later, Schlossberg shared Joe Kennedy III’s statement on X, writing that he “couldn’t agree more.”
“RFK LOSER IS A THREAT TO PUBLIC HEALTH and AMERICAN SCIENTIFIC LEADERSHIP,” he continued. “WHO PLEASURES HIMSELF by lying to Congress.”
Even Trump himself appeared to break from RFK Jr. on Friday and said he is supportive of vaccines.
“I think you have to be very careful when you say that some people don't have to be vaccinated,” the president said of his DHS Secretary’s vaccine mandate for children.
“They're just, pure and simple — they work,” he added. “They're not controversial at all. And I think those vaccines should be used.”
The president reaffirmed his support for RFK Jr. while keeping him at arm’s length over his anti-vaxxer claims.
After labeling the DHS secretary’s “tough stance” on vaccines, Trump added: “You have some vaccines that are so incredible, and I think that you have to be very careful when you say that some people don’t have to be vaccinated.”
