Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. added another entry to his long résumé of wild-animal encounters this week, seizing a pair of black racer snakes with his bare hands on Dr. Mehmet Oz's patio while his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, watched in visible dismay and begged him to stop.
The 72-year-old Kennedy posted roughly 50 seconds of video to his X account on Tuesday, captioning a photo of himself proudly holding the writhing reptiles: "Cheryl cheerleads the removal of a pair of Black Racers from Dr Oz's patio." Anyone who watches the footage will notice that "cheerleads" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence.
The video, first reported by Fox News, shows Kennedy cornering the two reptiles, crouching low, and lunging at the frenzying snakes before grasping them by their tails. The snakes bit him repeatedly. Kennedy appeared unfazed, flashing a wry smile as he displayed the pair.
Hines, audible throughout the clip, offered a running commentary that was less "cheerleading" and more "hostage negotiation." Her pleas escalated quickly.
"Honey, honey... why?"
That was the warm-up. She followed with a blunt verdict, "you are nuts", before shifting into full alarm.
"Bobby, please! Bobby, Bobby, please."
The New York Post reported that Hines also warned Kennedy the snakes were dangerous and urged him to let them go, saying, "Those are dangerous. Honey, honey, let them go." The snakes, for their part, lunged at Kennedy repeatedly during the encounter.
Kennedy acknowledged the bites in real time: "Black snakes, they're biting me." He did not appear to sustain any serious injury.
Black North American racer snakes are non-venomous. They are, however, enthusiastic biters. The Florida Museum of Natural History describes the species as animals that "readily bite to defend themselves." The museum also notes, with what reads like dry understatement, that "virtually all bites occur when the snakes are intentionally molested."
Kennedy, in other words, knew what he was getting into, or at least should have.
The encounter took place on one of Dr. Oz's beachfront properties. The exact city and state were not specified in any available account. Oz, who serves as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, was not shown in the video and made no public comment about the uninvited guests on his patio.
Oz has been busy in his own right. The CMS administrator recently demanded all 50 governors take swift action on Medicaid fraud, a campaign that has kept him in headlines for policy reasons rather than reptile-related ones.
For most cabinet secretaries, a viral snake video would be a once-in-a-career oddity. For Kennedy, it barely cracks the top three.
In 2024, Kennedy admitted to dumping a bear carcass in Central Park, an episode that became one of the stranger footnotes of his presidential campaign. Before that, he allegedly cut the head off a dead whale on a Massachusetts beach, strapped it to the roof of his car, and drove it to his home in Mount Kisco, New York.
The whale and the bear drew mockery from political opponents and bewildered amusement from everyone else. Kennedy has never seemed particularly bothered by any of it. The snake episode suggests the pattern is less a phase and more a permanent feature.
Meanwhile, Kennedy's day job at HHS has generated its own share of headlines. He recently told Congress that Los Angeles hospice fraud may have cost taxpayers $5 billion, part of a broader push to root out waste in federal health spending. His tenure has also seen significant personnel turnover, including the departure of FDA Commissioner Marty Makary amid internal pressure.
What the clip ultimately captures is a 72-year-old man who runs the largest civilian department in the federal government choosing, without hesitation, to grab two angry snakes by the tail while his wife pleads with him to stop. He gets bitten. He smiles. He poses for a photo.
There is no stated reason for why Kennedy decided to handle the snakes rather than call, say, animal control. The video does not show what happened to the snakes after Kennedy removed them from the patio. Those details remain unknown.
Kennedy's caption framing his wife's reaction as "cheerleading" stands in open contrast to the audio, which features alarm, exasperation, and repeated pleas. It is the kind of deadpan spin that only works if you never actually watch the video, which, of course, millions of people now have.
Dr. Oz, whose patio hosted the encounter, has been focused on rooting out what he calls deliberate Medicaid fraud in blue states. Whether he has also called an exterminator is an open question.
Love him or find him baffling, Kennedy is not a man who delegates when wildlife shows up. Washington could use more of that instinct, applied to the right targets.
