Robert F. Kennedy Jr. erupted in anger on Monday after a New York Times profile alleged he had effectively 'checked out' as secretary of Health and Human Services during the Ebola outbreak in Africa, accusing him of spending his days disengaged, scrolling on his phone and neglecting key parts of his brief in Washington, D.C.
The Times piece by veteran health and politics reporter Sheryl Gay Stolberg, published on Sunday, painted a picture of RFK Jr. as a Cabinet secretary far more invested in his long-running campaign against vaccines and his personal 'Make America Healthy Again' agenda than in the day‑to‑day management of a sprawling federal department. Citing unnamed current and former staff, Stolberg argued that while Ebola raged abroad and public health infrastructure strained at home, Kennedy allegedly remained aloof, mistrustful of career officials and fixated on proving his controversial theories about vaccines, pesticides and nutrition.
RFK Jr. rips NYT for publishing 'hit piece' sourced by 'disgruntled' ex- employees: 'Propagandists' https://t.co/Dsq1kd9pkD pic.twitter.com/ztN0TEc59G
— New York Post (@nypost) June 12, 2026
RFK Jr. Slams New York Times Profile of His HHS Role
RFK Jr. published an 870‑word tirade on X directly targeting Stolberg and her editors, accusing the Times of stacking the deck against him. In a post that read less like the polished rebuttal of a senior official and more like a late‑night broadside, he claimed the article was 'unfair, inimical, and inaccurate' and built on testimony from 'anonymous employees, some of whom I fired or who quit to avoid being fired.'
'You had a preconceived thesis, and you set out to prove it,' Kennedy wrote, insisting that Stolberg went hunting for quotes to match an already‑written narrative of his supposed disengagement.
Stolberg's reporting, by contrast, leaned heavily on colleagues who said the secretary rarely immersed himself in the complex machinery of health policy. 'Mr. Kennedy has shown little interest in managing the details of work in his department, according to multiple colleagues,' she wrote. 'Instead, they say, he is single‑mindedly focused on his top priorities, including food recommendations and pesticide exposures, and hunting for evidence to support his long‑held beliefs that vaccines are harmful.'
That line cut close to the core of Kennedy's public identity. Long before he took over at Health and Human Services, he was best known as a vaccine sceptic, a stance that has made him a hero to some and a menace to others. To see that same single‑mindedness recast as negligence inside government was always going to provoke a reaction.
Sheryl. Your article exemplifies the biased reporting we have come to expect from you and @nytimes. It was unfair, inimical, and inaccurate. All one needs to refute your argument is to glance at my publicly available calendar and to review my unprecedented list of accomplishments… https://t.co/IhD2qDRCo7
— Secretary Kennedy (@SecKennedy) June 10, 2026
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Denies 'Checked Out' Claim Amid Ebola Scrutiny
The most damaging allegation, politically, is not about his phone habits but about Ebola. Critics cited in the Times report argued that as the virus spread in parts of Africa, RFK Jr. remained curiously hands‑off, more preoccupied with his preferred issues than with orchestrating a full‑spectrum response from HHS. In a department that oversees everything from the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention to hospital preparedness, the implication that the man at the top had 'checked out' is not a small charge.
The profile went further, sketching in unflattering routine detail. Stolberg wrote that RFK Jr. typically arrived at HHS headquarters in Washington, D.C., at about 10 a.m., then left for the gym around 4 p.m., spending much of the intervening time 'disengaged' and 'scrolling on his phone.' It is anecdotal, but in politics, those vignettes stick.
RFK Jr. flatly rejected that portrayal. 'When I took this job, the building was empty. About 90% of the employees were not coming to work. I changed that, but your newspaper never covers my reforms,' he wrote on X, holding up his push to get staff physically back into the office as evidence of hands‑on leadership rather than absenteeism. He also deflected by pointing back to his predecessor, claiming, 'Nor did you cover the fact that my predecessor almost never showed up for work here during his four years in office.'
That counter‑attack is telling. Kennedy did not just say the Times was wrong; he argued that the paper had wilfully ignored what he sees as genuine achievements while cherry‑picking and anonymising his internal critics. None of those critics are named in Stolberg's article, which is standard practice for sensitive workplace accounts but always gives the accused room to cry foul.
The Times also highlighted Kennedy's deep mistrust of the civil service he nominally leads. Stolberg wrote that he has 'remained isolated from much of the department's top staff,' preferring to surround himself with loyalists while 'major posts have sat vacant and a wave of veteran health experts and scientists have departed.' Again, those claims are sourced to unnamed officials rather than documents, so readers are being asked to trust the reporter's gatekeeping.
One concrete example the article did offer was Kennedy's limited contact with the CDC. Stolberg noted that he has made only one known visit to the agency's headquarters, and that trip came after a gunman opened fire and killed a police officer. On its face, a single visit over an extended period looks thin for a secretary overseeing the nation's main public health agency during an era of overlapping crises.
Neither the Department of Health and Human Services nor the New York Times is quoted in the original piece as offering further comment on Kennedy's X outburst, and there is, at this stage, no independent documentation made public to verify detailed claims about his daily schedule or internal decision‑making. Nothing is confirmed beyond the competing accounts put forward, so the more granular allegations and counter‑allegations should be taken with a grain of salt.
🚨 HUGE. A leaked call between Trump and RFK Jr. is making waves — and it could be a game changer.
— Commentary 🇺🇸 Tom Homan (@HomanNews) June 12, 2026
Trump is heard discussing concerns about vaccines and saying:
“Something is wrong with that whole system.”
Read that again.
WRONG with the system.
He also reportedly reached… pic.twitter.com/7kwC9j2f8t
What is clear is that RFK Jr. is treating the article not as a routine bit of critical reporting, but as a direct threat to his credibility at a moment when public trust in health leadership is already fragile.
