Maxwell Kennedy Accuses Brother RFK Jr. of Betraying Their Father's Legacy Over SNAP and Health Cuts

Marking what would have been Robert F. Kennedy’s 100th birthday, Maxwell Taylor Kennedy published an op‑ed praising their father’s lifelong fight against poverty and sharply criticizing his brother, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., for supporting policies he says undermine that legacy.

Maxwell singled out recent threats to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), noting that a near‑suspension of benefits during a recent government shutdown nearly put assistance for 42 million Americans at risk. He also criticized provisions in the Republicans’ so‑called "One Big Beautiful Bill" that he says weaken access to food aid.

“I know, specifically, that [Robert F. Kennedy] would have been appalled by the cruelty the Trump administration has directed toward America’s neediest,” Maxwell wrote.

Maxwell called those policy moves "a betrayal of all that my father worked for," and explicitly faulted RFK Jr., who has served as Health and Human Services secretary since January, for supporting the administration’s agenda. He accused his brother of backing roughly $33 billion in cuts to health programs and of promoting the "Make America Healthy Again" campaign while supporting changes that, Maxwell argues, diminish safety nets.

The op‑ed also referenced controversial remarks RFK Jr. made in August suggesting SNAP recipients were being "poisoned" by sugar and sweetened beverages — a comment Maxwell used to underscore his broader disagreement with his brother's public health approach.

Maxwell, one of Robert F. Kennedy’s 11 children and a lawyer who campaigned for Barack Obama in 2008, recalled how a 1967 visit to the Mississippi Delta transformed their father’s outlook. After witnessing extreme poverty there, RFK pushed for relief programs that ultimately informed his public service until his assassination in June 1968.

“Today hunger remains an acute problem in America and those programs my father fought for are being dismembered or dismantled,” Maxwell wrote, warning that cuts to safety‑net programs have material consequences for vulnerable families.

He condemned what he called an "almost Dickensian cruelty" in policies that, in his view, transfer wealth upward while reducing aid for the poor. Maxwell described it as particularly troubling that his brother would align with those policies.

“Preventing hunger is the primary duty of every public health official,” Maxwell wrote. “You cannot Make America Healthy while denying food to our most vulnerable citizens.”

In closing, Maxwell urged his brother and others to remember the scenes that greeted their father’s funeral procession through Washington, D.C. — mourners who came "Black and white, weary and proud" — and to recall RFK’s own words:

“If we cannot prevent our fellow citizens from starving, we must ask ourselves what kind of country we really are.”

Maxwell wrote that those words remain as essential today as they were in his father’s time.