The hosts and panelists of MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” could not hide their disgust over another “bizarre” story about Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reportedly cutting the penis off a dead raccoon on the side of the road while his children were still in his car, calling the Trump appointee “deeply unwell.”
The incident is detailed in “RFK Jr.: The Fall and Rise,” a new biography about the HHS secretary written by Isabel Vincent, which draws upon entries from some of Kennedy’s personal diaries to create a portrait of his life. In one notable diary entry included in the book, Kennedy apparently writes about cutting off the penis of a raccoon that was dead on the road and then taking it back to his car.
After describing the situation live on air, “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough concluded, “Some would [describe] the actions in this and several other fronts [as] deeply unwell.” Meanwhile, all co-host Mika Brzezinski could do at first was ask, “Wait, why? Why did he do that to the raccoon?”
Fellow co-anchor Jonathan Lemire was quick to note that this is one of several strange stories about Kennedy and dead animals that have come out over the years. Others include cutting the head off a whale carcass he found on the beach and then driving it back home strapped to the hood of his family’s minivan and dumping the body of a bear cub in Central Park in New York. With all of that in mind, Lemire wryly said of Kennedy, “This is a man of science.”
“You thought that the dumping of the body of a bear in Central Park would be the most bizarre story linking Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a dead mammal?” he noted. “Let’s also remember, of course, he has a worm in his brain.”
Lemire continued to dryly mock Kennedy while pointing out the grotesque nature of these stories. “I assume a man of science like this would just carry the tools with him at any time in case he encounters a dead animal [with] which he needs to sever its penis,” he offered.
Brzezinski, for her part, could not move on from her concern about Kennedy’s mental health. “What’s wrong with this man? I mean, there’s something really wrong with him,” she said. “I don’t even know what to say. I just know that there is a serious side to this, and the family storyline is really deeply troubling. This is a deeply troubled person.”
“You’re asking the question that family members and close friends have been asking literally for decades now,” Scarborough told her. “They used to ask that question. Now all of America gets to ask the question.”
