Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, 74, said she will not try to reconcile the family after deep divisions emerged following her brother Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s contentious role in government. Townsend described how long‑standing family duties to promote fairness and justice have been strained by RFK Jr.’s policy moves, including changes at federal public‑health bodies. Several relatives — including Tatiana Schlossberg, Caroline Kennedy and Max Kennedy — have publicly criticized his actions. Historians say his positions diverge from traditional Kennedy political values.
Kennedy Rift Deepens: Kathleen Kennedy Townsend Says RFK Jr. Has Divided The Family
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Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, 74, the eldest of Robert F. and Ethel Kennedy's 11 children, told USA Today she is not seeking to repair widening rifts within the Kennedy family that have emerged after her younger brother’s controversial role in government.
Townsend — who served as Maryland’s first female lieutenant governor from 1995 to 2003 — described a family once bound by a shared sense of duty to advance fairness and justice. She said that unity has been strained by actions taken by Robert F. Kennedy Jr., 71, since his appointment to the federal government this year.
The last family photo of the Kennedys showed them together for Ethel Kennedy's 96th birthday in 2024. The wife of Robert F. Kennedy passed away later that year. / Joe Kennedy III/ X
What Townsend Said
“I would not say there’s a lot of peace in my family,” Townsend told USA Today, referring to the disputes that followed RFK Jr.'s appointment as U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services in February.
Townsend recalled a formative moment after the assassination of their uncle, President John F. Kennedy, in 1963: at age 12 she received a letter from her father urging her, as the oldest grandchild, to “be kind to others and work for your country.” That sense of obligation, she said, has long defined the family’s public life.
Policy Changes and Family Backlash
The article reports that RFK Jr. launched a policy initiative called Make America Healthy Again and took several actions at the Department of Health and Human Services that prompted public criticism from relatives and outside observers. According to the reporting, in June he dissolved the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s vaccine advisory committee and appointed members described by critics as vaccine skeptics. The CDC’s guidance on COVID-19 vaccination for children and pregnant people was also reported to have changed under his leadership, and the agency’s website was revised in ways that prompted further controversy.
Caroline Kennedy (far right) with her three children, including Tatiana (far left), who has been diagnosed with terminal cancer. / Clodagh Kilcoyne / Getty Images
Those moves prompted strong reactions from members of the Kennedy clan. Tatiana Schlossberg, 35, wrote in a personal essay about how the policy shifts affected her after revealing a terminal cancer diagnosis. “Bobby is a known skeptic of vaccines, and I was especially concerned that I wouldn’t be able to get mine again, leaving me to spend the rest of my life immunocompromised,” she wrote. Caroline Kennedy, 68, reportedly wrote to senators warning of RFK Jr.’s “dangerous views” and described him as a “predator.” On the 100th anniversary of their father’s birth, Max Kennedy called his brother’s actions a “betrayal” of their father’s legacy in a Boston Globe op‑ed.
Context And Commentary
Fredrik Logevall, a Harvard history professor and author of a forthcoming biography of John F. Kennedy, told USA Today that RFK Jr. “is out of step with what the Kennedy family has stood for politically and continues to stand for.”
The Kennedy scion was accused by his own brother of damaging the legacy of their assassinated father RFK, whose funeral train from New York to D.C. was mobbed by mourners. / Paul Fusco/Look Magazine/Library of Congress
Asked whether she serves as the family peacemaker, Townsend demurred. “I don’t know if this search for peace is really an appropriate way to live,” she said. “I think it’s more important to feel other people’s pain and your own pain.”
The Daily Beast has sought comment from RFK Jr.’s office.
