Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. demonstrated once again that he is unlike any Cabinet official this country has ever seen—calmly snatching two live, writhing snakes off a Florida patio with his bare hands while his wife pleaded with him in the background and Dr. Mehmet Oz looked on.
The clip, posted by Kennedy himself on his X account, shows the HHS Secretary approaching two black racer snakes sunning themselves on the patio of Oz’s Palm Beach-area beachfront home. Without hesitation, without gloves, and without shoes, Kennedy crouched down and grabbed both snakes simultaneously—all while flashing a grin at the camera.
“Cheryl cheerleads the removal of a pair of Black Racers from Dr. Oz’s patio,” Kennedy captioned the post with characteristic dry wit. For anyone who has seen his wife’s reaction in the video, the word “cheerleads” is doing considerable heavy lifting.
As Kennedy held the thrashing snakes aloft for the camera—the reptiles twisting, lunging, and appearing to bite at his hands—actress Cheryl Hines could be heard off-frame in a state of escalating alarm. “Bobby, why?” Hines can be heard saying. “Honey, let go.” Her appeals, it should be noted, went entirely unheeded.
At one point during the encounter, Dr. Oz—the celebrity physician and administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services—provided helpful context for the situation. “Well, they were having s–,” Oz is heard explaining in the clip, noting that the two snakes had apparently been in the middle of a very private moment before the Secretary of Health and Human Services intervened.
None of this appeared to give Kennedy the slightest pause. The man who runs the nation’s largest health agency held the agitated reptiles up for the camera with the relaxed confidence of someone who does this sort of thing regularly. He was barefoot. He was smiling. He was, by all appearances, having a wonderful time.
The video spread across social media at remarkable speed, racking up millions of views within hours of being posted. Reactions ranged from pure amusement to genuine disbelief and everything in between. Supporters of Kennedy praised his fearlessness and the refreshing authenticity of a Cabinet secretary who posts videos of himself wrangling snakes on a Tuesday afternoon.
According to the Florida Museum of Natural History, North American black racer snakes pose no danger to people or pets. They are, however, known to bite in self-defense—which the snakes in the video appeared to do with some enthusiasm. Kennedy, unfazed, held on.
It is worth noting that this is far from the most unusual wildlife encounter in Kennedy’s personal history. The HHS Secretary has become something of a legend for his relationship with the animal kingdom, a résumé that includes, but is not limited to, a well-documented 2014 incident in which he removed a deceased bear cub from the woods, stashed its carcass in Central Park, and posed for photographs with his hand in the dead animal’s mouth. It was, he later explained, all perfectly reasonable given the circumstances.
For his supporters, Tuesday’s snake video is simply more evidence of the genuine, unvarnished character of a man who has never been particularly interested in performing the polished, buttoned-up role of a traditional Washington official. Kennedy is a former environmental lawyer, lifelong outdoorsman, and outspoken advocate for living close to nature. Catching a pair of snakes barehanded at a colleague’s beach house is, in that context, barely newsworthy.
For the critics and pearl-clutchers of Washington’s political class, the video has provided yet another opportunity for the kind of breathless commentary that Kennedy himself appears thoroughly unbothered by. The left, which has spent years attempting to paint Kennedy as a fringe figure, found itself in the awkward position of writing think pieces about whether his barefoot snake-handling carries deeper symbolic meaning.
Dr. Oz, for his part, has not yet issued a formal statement on the state of his patio’s snake population—though it appears Secretary Kennedy has the situation well in hand.
In Washington, Cabinet secretaries attend briefings, hold press conferences, and navigate the grinding machinery of federal bureaucracy. Kennedy does all of that too — and then, apparently, drives down to Palm Beach on a Tuesday and removes reptiles from the CMS administrator’s beach house with his bare hands.
The snakes were released unharmed. Kennedy’s hands appear to have survived as well. Cheryl Hines, however, may need a moment.
