Politics / January 29, 2025

RFK Jr.’s Family Dissents. I Hope the Democrats Do Too.

There are so many reasons to reject the HHS secretary nominee’s crackpot health science.

Joan Walsh

US Secretary of Health and Human Services nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifies during a Senate Finance Committee hearing on his nomination to be Health and Human Services Secretary.


(Alex Wroblewski / AFP)

“Are you supportive of these onesies?” Senator Bernie Sanders thundered at Robert F. Kennedy Jr. during his confirmation hearing as Health and Human Services secretary Wednesday.

We all needed a laugh, and I did laugh, but Sanders’s question was serious.

The onesies read: “Unvaxxed. Unafraid” and “No vax. No problem.” They sell for $26.

As other Democrats pointed out, Kennedy has made millions from organizations and lawsuits deriving from his opposition to vaccines, and one of the groups sells these idiotic anti-vaccine onesies.

Kennedy demurred. He no longer runs the group in question, he said. And he denied that the T-shirts meant what they obviously did.

Sanders was not amused.

Can you imagine Kennedy’s minions saying “no” if he called them and said, maybe those onesies might spread misinformation? Or maybe they’re in poor taste? Or maybe, just get rid of them? For a while? For me?

Bobby, as I’ve said before, is a congenital liar. He claimed, “I spent 30 years trying to get mercury out of the fish in this country and nobody ever called me anti-fish.” The mercury he’s crusaded against, in childhood vaccines, was already taken out of them when he continued to insist it was poisoning us. He can’t be believed, about anything, and I’d say at least 50 of the 53 Republican senators know that.

Yes, this is kinda personal.

But not really. Most of the world realizes he’s a fraud now. My front-row seat 20 years ago isn’t even that interesting. It just keeps me alert to his lies.

Bobby zigged and he zagged on Wednesday.

Stalwart Democrats tried to ask him “yes or no” questions about his horrible health stances over the years. He was often hard to pin down.

Did he link anti-depressants to school shootings?

Did he say many CDC workers belong in jail?

Did he support tying Medicaid to work requirements?

Did he compare the CDC to Nazi death camps?

Did he say Lyme disease is a highly likely militarily engineered bioweapon?

He did, did, did, did, and did.

But he did, did, did, and did try to slightly wiggle out from each. I don’t think it worked, but I’m not in his fan base.

Senator Elizabeth Warren made him sweat.

The Nation Weekly

Fridays. A weekly digest of the best of our coverage.
By signing up, you confirm that you are over the age of 16 and agree to receive occasional promotional offers for programs that support The Nation’s journalism. You may unsubscribe or adjust your preferences at any time. You can read our Privacy Policy here.

“You go online, you do commercials to encourage people to sign up with Wisner Baum [a giant LA law firm] to join lawsuits against vaccine makers,” she said. “And for everyone who signs up, you personally get paid. And if they win their case, you get 10 percent of what they win,” she added, noting that “if you bring in somebody who gets 10 million you walk away with a million dollars.”

Kennedy accused Warren of making him “sound like a shill” before saying that he wouldn’t take any fees from drug companies during his time as secretary. But she was asking about what he ultimately would do with those fees. Kennedy, the scion of a wealthy family, demurred.

If you knew nothing about Kennedy, you might have come away impressed by his opening statement lamenting the poor health and chronic disease suffered by Americans, even as we pay more per capita for healthcare. We all agree there.

But later he falsely claimed that Americans prefer private insurance to Medicare, Medicaid, or the (private) marketplace governed by the ACA. In fact, a December Gallup poll reported that 62 percent of Americans believe it’s the “government’s responsibility to ensure all Americans have healthcare coverage.”

At 71, RFK Jr. uses Medicare Advantage, which is the privatized program that starts out generous when you’re the “young [or wealthy] old” and gets worse every year. Pushing us all into Medicare Advantage, which subjects participants to more scrutiny the older they get, was in Project 2025, so that shouldn’t have been surprising.

But on balance, the whole thing was depressing. I’ve written often about my reluctant contempt for him, but I still haven’t wanted to believe that he’s gone MAGA. Wednesday’s hearing proved that he has gone MAGA, in every way, though he occasionally tried to trick Democratic senators into believing he was kinda sorta with them. They might buy it, but clearly he is Opportunist MAGA, with a dose of old-fashioned Marin County faux-health promotion.

I started the day reading his cousin Caroline Kennedy’s shredding denunciation of him.

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

If RFK Jr. doesn’t get confirmed, there will be many reasons. But that creepy image of the baby chicks and mice in his blender should be one of them. I watch hawks and owls all the time in Central Park. It’s not pretty. But they acquire their prey the old fashioned way—they work for it.

The sad Kennedy scion can’t relate. He’s had his life prepared for him since childhood. Unfortunately, that didn’t turn him into an upstanding citizen, as his disappointed siblings would attest. It turned him into a vicious, conspiracy peddling nut, trying to put our minds into a blender.

Disobey authoritarians, support The Nation

Over the past year you’ve read Nation writers like Elie Mystal, Kaveh Akbar, John Nichols, Joan Walsh, Bryce Covert, Dave Zirin, Jeet Heer, Michael T. Klare, Katha Pollitt, Amy Littlefield, Gregg Gonsalves, and Sasha Abramsky take on the Trump family’s corruption, set the record straight about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s catastrophic Make America Healthy Again movement, survey the fallout and human cost of the DOGE wrecking ball, anticipate the Supreme Court’s dangerous antidemocratic rulings, and amplify successful tactics of resistance on the streets and in Congress.

We publish these stories because when members of our communities are being abducted, household debt is climbing, and AI data centers are causing water and electricity shortages, we have a duty as journalists to do all we can to inform the public.

In 2026, our aim is to do more than ever before—but we need your support to make that happen. 

Through December 31, a generous donor will match all donations up to $75,000. That means that your contribution will be doubled, dollar for dollar. If we hit the full match, we’ll be starting 2026 with $150,000 to invest in the stories that impact real people’s lives—the kinds of stories that billionaire-owned, corporate-backed outlets aren’t covering. 

With your support, our team will publish major stories that the president and his allies won’t want you to read. We’ll cover the emerging military-tech industrial complex and matters of war, peace, and surveillance, as well as the affordability crisis, hunger, housing, healthcare, the environment, attacks on reproductive rights, and much more. At the same time, we’ll imagine alternatives to Trumpian rule and uplift efforts to create a better world, here and now. 

While your gift has twice the impact, I’m asking you to support The Nation with a donation today. You’ll empower the journalists, editors, and fact-checkers best equipped to hold this authoritarian administration to account. 

I hope you won’t miss this moment—donate to The Nation today.

Onward,

Katrina vanden Heuvel 

Editor and publisher, The Nation

Joan Walsh

Joan Walsh, a national affairs correspondent for The Nation, is a coproducer of The Sit-In: Harry Belafonte Hosts The Tonight Show and the author of What’s the Matter With White People? Finding Our Way in the Next America. Her new book (with Nick Hanauer and Donald Cohen) is Corporate Bullsh*t: Exposing the Lies and Half-Truths That Protect Profit, Power and Wealth In America.

More from The Nation

Donald’s

Donald’s Donald’s

Millions killed.

OppArt / Mark Kaplan

Zohran Mamdani speaks to members of the media at a Brooklyn library to make a transition announcement for his administration on December 17, 2025

Zohran Mamdani on FDR, LaGuardia—and Trump Zohran Mamdani on FDR, LaGuardia—and Trump

In an exclusive interview with The Nation, the mayor-elect goes behind the scenes of his meeting with the president and talks about some of his political heroes.

John Nichols

Susie Wiles and Donald Trump in the Oval Office on February 4, 2025.

The Shocking Confessions of Susie Wiles The Shocking Confessions of Susie Wiles

Trump’s chief of staff admits he’s lying about Venezuela—and a lot of other things.

Jeet Heer

The King of Deportations

The King of Deportations The King of Deportations

ICE’s illegal tactics and extreme force put immigrants in danger.

OppArt / Felipe Galindo

Rob Reiner attends the Human Rights Campaign's 2025 LA Dinner at the Fairmont Century Plaza in Los Angeles, March 22, 2025.

How Rob Reiner Tipped the Balance Against Donald Trump How Rob Reiner Tipped the Balance Against Donald Trump

Trump’s crude disdain for the slain filmmaker was undoubtedly rooted in the fact that Reiner so ably used his talents to help dethrone him in 2020.

John Nichols

Donald Trump in the Oval Office on December 15, 2025.

The Economy Is Flatlining—and So Is Trump The Economy Is Flatlining—and So Is Trump

The president’s usual tricks are no match for a weakening jobs market and persistent inflation.

Chris Lehmann