Jimmy Kimmel laid into Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s winded testimony before Senate committees, joking that the secretary of health and human services sounded like he was “dying.”
During Wednesday’s monologue for “Jimmy Kimmel Live!,” the comedian first stated RFK Jr. was cut into by senators, including Elizabeth Warren, “like a raccoon penis,” referencing the Trump loyalist’s scandal from last week.
Specifically, Kimmel roasted Kennedy for claiming Donald Trump “has a different way of calculating,” while defending the president’s claim that Trump RX has reduced prices by 600%.
“Who are you going to believe? Him or math?” Kimmel quipped. “Have you ever bankrupted a casino? I don’t think so.”
He continued: “Now, the actual math is 98%, not 600%, but let’s not get caught up in semantics. Let’s just be quiet and listen to Robert Kennedy breathe.”
At this moment, “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” editors aired a compilation of all the moments from Kennedy’s appearance before Senate committees where he appeared to take labored, loud breaths.
“You understand our secretary of health is dying before our eyes,” Kimmel sounded off, “and no one is doing anything about it!”
RFK Jr. often sounds like he’s struggling to speak due to a condition called spasmodic dysphonia (also known as laryngeal dystonia). In January, Kennedy shared that, while he couldn’t prove this to be true, he believed that a past flu vaccine possibly caused his spasmodic dysphonia.
“That’s why my voice is so screwed up,” Kennedy said to USA TODAY. “Do I know whether that was caused by my annual flu shot? I have no idea. It’s a possibility. It’s a potential culprit that I cannot rule out. I can’t prove it.”
While many have viewed Kennedy’s policies as being anti-vaccine, he defended at the time that this wasn’t the case, noting, “My concern is that we should properly safety-test vaccines so that people understand – and we are able to understand – the risks.”
Nonetheless, Kennedy testified before Senate committees regarding the rise in measles outbreaks amid his tenure as health secretary, even complaining at one point: “Every Democrat in this committee, all they wanted to do was talk about measles.”
You can watch Kimmel’s monologue in its entirety above.
“Jimmy Kimmel Live!” airs weeknights at 11:35 p.m. ET on ABC.
