Caroline Kennedy warns senators of ‘predator’ RFK Jr. in searing letter

“I have known Bobby my whole life; we grew up together,” Caroline Kennedy wrote. “It’s no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets because he himself is a predator.”

“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. It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence.”

She commended Kennedy for “pulling himself out of illness and disease” but lamented the “siblings and cousins who Bobby encouraged down the path of substance abuse suffered addiction, illness, and death while Bobby has gone on to misrepresent, lie, and cheat his way through life.”

“I have never wanted to speak publicly about my family members and their challenges,” she wrote.

She did not criticize him during the presidential campaign, but at an event in November at the National Press Club in Canberra, the capital of Australia, she dismissed her cousin’s views on vaccines as “dangerous” and said they did not reflect the views of “most Americans” and the rest of the Kennedy family.

“I would say that our family is united in terms of our support for the public health sector and infrastructure and has the greatest admiration for the medical profession in our country, and Bobby Kennedy has got a different set of views,” Caroline Kennedy said at the time.

In Tuesday’s letter, she cited a New York Times report that her cousin would keep his financial stake in litigation against a manufacturer of a vaccine that protects against the human papillomavirus, or HPV. The vaccine, which is administered to adolescents, can prevent cervical cancer.

“In other words, he is willing to enrich himself by denying access to a vaccine that can prevent almost all forms of cervical cancer and which has been safely administered to millions of boys and girls,” Caroline Kennedy wrote. She also referenced her work in Australia working on the QUAD Cancer Moonshot, where she learned that cervical cancer is a top form of cancer among women in a majority of countries.

Kennedy is among Trump’s most vulnerable Cabinet nominees. Former vice president Mike Pence and his conservative advocacy group have raised concerns about his past support for abortion. Several Republican senators, including Bill Cassidy (Louisiana), who chairs the Senate’s Health Committee, have said that he has wrongly questioned the safety of vaccines. Sen Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky), a polio survivor, does not appear to have granted a meeting with Kennedy, raising questions about whether he will vote to confirm him, and other Republican senators have also not said where they stand on the nomination.

To win confirmation, Kennedy can lose only three Republican votes if all Democrats vote against him.

While Caroline Kennedy’s testimonial may not sway Republicans, it could shore up Democrats’ opposition to her cousin’s nomination. Many Democrats have said they will approach Kennedy’s confirmation with an open mind and are refusing to rule out voting for him, though they have cited deep concerns about his views on vaccines. Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pennsylvania) and some other senators have signaled that they are open to supporting Trump’s nominees and have agreed with some of Kennedy’s views on the health-care industry.

He has spent more than a month meeting with dozens of senators, seeking to sway them, although it is not clear whether those efforts secured additional votes or further antagonized his skeptics.

Sen. Patty Murray (D-Washington), a prominent Kennedy critic, told The Washington Post that it was the most troubling meeting that she has had with a Cabinet nominee in her entire career.

Some of Kennedy’s family members spoke out against his presidential campaign and endorsement of Trump, saying that he did not represent their family’s Democratic values, but had been largely silent on his nomination to run the nation’s health department.

Democratic lawmakers and advocacy groups, meanwhile, have heavily contested his nomination, warning that the longtime anti-vaccine activist is not fit to oversee agencies responsible for the nation’s vaccine supply, would restrict abortion access and would take other steps to weaken the nation’s public health infrastructure.

Protect Our Care, a Democrat-aligned advocacy group running a “Stop RFK” war room, has commissioned advertisements highlighting Kennedy’s visit to Samoa and meetings with anti-vaccine activists before an outbreak of measles, a vaccine-preventable disease, hit the island nation. 314 Action, another liberal advocacy group, unveiled new ads Monday that also focus on Kennedy’s rhetoric and Samoa’s outbreak.

Kennedy has maintained that he is not anti-vaccine and has denied any connection with Samoa’s measles outbreak.

Kennedy is also facing pressure from some conservatives who say they do not trust the longtime liberal and scion of a famous Democratic family to pursue the GOP’s priorities.

Advancing American Freedom, a conservative group backed by Pence, has commissioned its own ads featuring video of then-candidate Donald Trump deriding Kennedy last year as “more liberal” than any Democratic candidate for president. Pence and his group have also urged conservative Republicans to scrutinize Kennedy’s stance on abortion in the upcoming hearings.

Trump allies have tried to rally support for Kennedy’s nomination. The Heritage Foundation, a conservative advocacy organization, has touted Kennedy as a would-be reformer who can take on special interests that have harmed Americans’ health.

In her letter, Caroline Kennedy contrasted health-care researchers and scientists against her cousin’s record.

“They deserve a Secretary 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.”