The US Health Secretary grabbed two mating wild snakes with his bare hands, got bitten, and sparked a debate over species identification, all while his wife pleaded for him to stop.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, uploaded a video to X on 26 May 2026 that swiftly went viral, not for its policy implications, but for its sheer spectacle: the 72-year-old cabinet member crouching barefoot on a beachside patio in West Palm Beach, Florida, seizing two large wild snakes in his bare hands as his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, begged him to let them go. The clip, filmed at the Florida mansion of Centres for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr Mehmet Oz, immediately prompted questions online about precisely what species Kennedy had grabbed, and just how dangerous they actually were.
