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Caroline Kennedy calls cousin RFK Jr. a ‘predator’ ahead of his confirmation hearings to be Trump’s health secretary

By Annie Grayer, CNN

(CNN) — Caroline Kennedy on Tuesday warned that her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a “predator” ahead of his high-profile confirmation hearings this week to be President Donald Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services secretary, urging senators to reject his nomination.

Kennedy, who said she felt obligated to speak out, read aloud the letter she sent to senators detailing the troubling behavior from her cousin that she witnessed over the years, accusing him of having hypocritical views on vaccines and being “addicted to attention and power.”

“I’ve known Bobby my whole life. It’s no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets because Bobby himself is a predator,” Kennedy said.

Recounting one disturbing episode, Kennedy recalled her cousin putting baby chickens and mice in a blender to feed to his birds years ago.

“I watched his younger brothers and cousins follow him down the path of drug addiction. His basement, his garage, his dorm room were always the center of the action where drugs were available and he enjoyed showing off how he put baby chickens and mice in a blender to feed to his hawks. It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence,” she said.

Although Kennedy acknowledged her cousin has been able to “pull himself out of illness and disease,” she accused him of living a double standard and financially benefitting from some of his vaccine skepticism.

“While he may encourage a younger generation to attend AA meetings, Bobby is addicted to attention and power. Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children, vaccinating his own kids while building a following hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs,” she said.

CNN has reached out to a spokesperson for RFK Jr.

Caroline Kennedy, the former ambassador to Australia, said it had not been easy remaining silent during her cousin’s failed presidential campaign but felt obligated to speak out because she feels he has misrepresented the assassinations of her father, John F. Kennedy, and uncle, Robert F. Kennedy.

“It also wasn’t easy to remain silent last year when Bobby expropriated my father’s image and distracted President Kennedy’s legacy to advance his own failed presidential campaign and then grovel to Donald Trump for a job,” she said.

“Bobby continues to grandstand off my father’s assassination and that of his own father. It’s incomprehensible to me that someone who is willing to exploit their own painful family tragedies for publicity would be put in charge of America’s life and death situations,” she continued.

Members of the storied Democratic family have before pushed back on RFK Jr.’s stances, with the broader Kennedy family mostly shunning his presidential campaign even as the then-candidate had sought to capitalize on his last name and family history.

On Tuesday, in urging the Senate to reject her cousin’s nomination, Kennedy said her father and uncle “would be disgusted” by his views.

It has been clear in recent days that RFK Jr. will have to win over uncertain Republicans in order to secure the job in Trump’s administration, with key GOP senators wanting public commitments on issues like abortion and vaccines before pledging their support.

Over the last month, he has met with senators on both sides of the aisle as he has tried to make his case directly to them behind closed doors.

Kennedy made false claims about vaccines, niece says

Emails from Kennedy during the Covid-19 pandemic repeated false claims about vaccines and incorrectly linked childhood immunizations to autism, according to Stat, which was provided exclusive access to emails between Kennedy and his niece, Dr. Kerry Kennedy Meltzer.

Meltzer, a primary-care physician at NYC Health + Hospitals, told Stat that she decided to share the emails to help spread understanding of her uncle’s beliefs ahead of his confirmation hearings this week.

Neither the White House nor HHS responded to CNN’s requests for comment on Stat’s report.

In one of the emails, Kennedy says Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine had a “100% injury rate” in Phase 1 trial participants, but Meltzer responds that the adverse events noted by the researchers were predominantly injection-site pain and fatigue and that, in the real world, the shots from Moderna and Pfizer caused only a handful of severe allergic reactions.

Kennedy also repeats his claim that vaccines are to blame for rising rates of autism in the US, saying Meltzer “grew up in the vaccine generation” and “has not been around autism” enough to understand the link.

Meltzer told Stat that Kennedy was “a fun, adventurous uncle” when she was younger. “It’s really sad what happened. This really shows the depth of his conspiracy theories and how embedded they are – against pharma companies, against childhood vaccines – and he’s dismissing my own experience.”

This story has been updated with additional information.

CNN’s Aaron Pellish, Michael Williams and Katherine Dillinger contributed to this report.

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