Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is apparently done apologizing for being the kind of guy who doesn’t call animal control every time a reptile slithers across the driveway.
After the internet erupted this week over a viral clip showing Kennedy grabbing a pair of black racer snakes with his bare hands at Dr. Mehmet Oz’s Florida home, the environmental lawyer-turned-Cabinet secretary fired back the only way a Kennedy apparently knows how: by wrangling a venomous rattlesnake on camera.
And his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, was once again dragged into the chaos.
“In response to the many comments about venomous snakes, this video shows how Cheryl and I handled a recent rattlesnake rescue,” Kennedy wrote alongside the Instagram video, which quickly lit up social media Wednesday.
The clip opens with Kennedy casually sitting in his home office before someone alerts him to a snake outside. “Hold on, guys. I’ll be back in a flash,” he says, grabbing a bucket and net like this is just another Wednesday in America.
In response to the many comments about venomous snakes, this video shows how Cheryl and I handled a recent rattlesnake rescue. pic.twitter.com/3wRIXmQySV
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) May 27, 2026
Moments later, Kennedy is outside carefully scooping up a Western Diamondback rattlesnake while stunned onlookers watch the Cabinet secretary do what most suburban dads would leave to a guy charging $300 an hour with a pickup truck and a hook pole.
After securing the snake in a bucket, Kennedy lifts the reptile toward the camera and gives viewers an impromptu nature lesson.
“His fangs are in there. I don’t want to touch them,” Kennedy said. “This is a beautiful snake. This is a Western Diamondback. You can tell by these rings at the end of his tail.”
He then asks Hines to fetch a pillowcase so the snake can be relocated and released back into the wild instead of killed.
The rattlesnake video landed barely 24 hours after another Kennedy snake escapade exploded online. In that earlier clip, Kennedy spotted two black racer snakes on Dr. Oz’s patio and immediately went full Crocodile Dundee.
“Honey, honey … why?” Hines could be heard yelling as Kennedy cornered the snakes.
Undeterred, he lunged anyway — eventually hoisting both snakes by their tails while they repeatedly bit his hands.
Cheryl cheerleads the removal of a pair of Black Racers from Dr Oz’s patio. pic.twitter.com/A0iiRzOeIF
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) May 26, 2026
“Black snakes, they’re biting me,” Kennedy said with a grin that suggested he viewed the whole thing as somewhere between backyard pest control and family entertainment.
Meanwhile, Hines sounded like every exhausted spouse married to a man who still thinks “watch this” are famous last words.
“Bobby, please! Bobby, Bobby, please,” she pleaded before finally delivering the verdict many viewers online agreed with: “You are nuts.”
Kennedy later posted the footage himself, joking on X that “Cheryl cheerleads the removal of a pair of Black Racers from Dr Oz’s patio.”
For the record, black racer snakes are nonvenomous and considered largely harmless to humans, though wildlife experts note they will aggressively bite when threatened — something the snakes in Kennedy’s hands demonstrated repeatedly.
Critics online accused Kennedy of reckless behavior and setting a dangerous example. Supporters countered that Americans used to admire people willing to handle problems themselves instead of turning every backyard inconvenience into a government emergency.
Either way, Kennedy’s latest snake saga managed to do something rare in Washington: make a federal health secretary more entertaining than Congress.
