Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is once again going viral for an animal encounter — this time getting bitten repeatedly by snakes at the home of his subordinate, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz, as his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, pleaded with him to stop.
Kennedy posted the video to his X account Monday morning with a casual caption: "Cheryl cheerleads the removal of a pair of Black Racers from Dr. Oz's patio."
The clip shows Kennedy picking up the two snakes — which appear to be in the middle of mating — and walking around with them as they bite him repeatedly. Hines can be heard begging her husband to let them go.
"Moccasins. Those are dangerous!" Hines shouts in the video.
"No, they're not moccasins," Kennedy calmly replies — correctly, as Black Racers are non-venomous — even as the snakes clamp down on him.
"Are they biting?" Oz asks.
"Yeah," Kennedy says.
The exchange only escalates from there.
"Jesus, their mouths are huge," Kennedy remarks as Hines dissolves into panic.
"Bobby! Bobby! Please!" she cries.
The video drew an avalanche of mockery and disbelief online — including from some of Washington's most prominent journalists.
"My word," posted Wall Street Journal reporter and two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Josh Dawsey.
CNN senior White House reporter Betsy Klein was more direct: "I have to know what happened next."
"Babe wake up. A new RFK animal encounter just dropped," wrote Bulwark reporter Joe Perticone — a nod to Kennedy's well-documented history of unusual wildlife run-ins.
"Why is he like this?" posted Aaron Fritschner, deputy chief of staff to Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA).
Not everyone was appalled. Rebel News founder Ezra Levant called it "Every day an adventure. Just amazing."
It is not the first time Kennedy's relationship with animals has raised eyebrows. The nation's top health official has previously admitted to dumping a dead bear cub in Central Park, been accused of decapitating a whale carcass and strapping it to his car for a five-hour drive, and was reported to have cut the genitals off a road-killed raccoon while his kids waited in the car.
