Robert F. Kennedy Jr. invokes his father’s Democratic legacy during a heated Capitol Hill hearing on Trump administration health policy reforms. (Getty Images)
Thursday's brief moment when Kennedy invoked his father, who was shot and killed while serving as a U.S. senator in 1968, would not be the first time the Kennedy family has been invoked in the health secretary's approach to governing. In the lead-up to President Donald Trump's 2024 election victory, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s sister, Kerry Kennedy, slammed him for supporting Trump and "desecrat[ing] and trampl[ing] and set[ting] fire" to their dad's memory.
The quote from RFK Jr.'s father comes from a speech he made to the United States Conference of Mayors in Chicago in 1963. The remarks came while he was serving as attorney general under former Democratic Party president Lyndon B. Johnson.
Kennedy's speech in Chicago discussed contemporary economic stresses and poverty in the early 1960s, noting they had resulted in an "unwanted stockpile of idle youth," according to a copy of the speech shared by the Department of Justice (DOJ). The then-attorney general suggested the issue was exacerbated by a lack of equal access to education, vocation training and poor housing that was occurring at the time.
Health and Human Services Department (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy defended the mass firings at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) during the Senate Finance Committee hearing on Sept. 4, 2025. (Wi McNamee/Getty Images)
Amid the CDC shakeup being spearheaded by RFK Jr., over 1,000 current and former federal health officials penned a letter this week calling for the HHS secretary's resignation, arguing he is "endanger[ing] the nation's health." Following Monarez's ouster, several other top CDC officials resigned in protest of the Trump administration's policies on public health.
Meanwhile, Kennedy penned an op-ed earlier this week in the Wall Street Journal echoing his Thursday remarks on Capitol Hill that the changes coming to the CDC are restoring confidence in an agency that lost the public's trust due to its response to the COVID-19 virus.
PREVIOUS CDC DIRECTORS ACCUSE RFK JR. OF ENDANGERING ALL AMERICANS IN NY TIMES ESSAY
"Most CDC rank-and-file staff are honest public servants," the health secretary wrote. "Under this renewed mission, they can do their jobs as scientists without bowing to politics."
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