Tatiana Schlossberg, the 35-year-old daughter of Caroline Kennedy and Edwin Schlossberg, publicly criticized her cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in a deeply personal essay for The New Yorker on Saturday, Nov. 22, linking his controversial agenda as secretary of health and human services to her experience with a terminal cancer diagnosis.
Schlossberg revealed she has been diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia, receiving the official diagnosis shortly after the birth of her second child with husband George Moran in May 2024. She has been undergoing treatment since that time.
In her essay, Schlossberg directly confronted her cousin’s record, highlighting his anti-vaccine positions and decisions to cut funding for critical medical research. She described the impact these policies could have on patients like herself, whose care relies on advances in medicine supported by decades of government funding.
“During the CAR-T treatment, a method developed over many decades with millions of dollars of government funding, my cousin, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., was in the process of being nominated and confirmed as the secretary of health and human services,” Schlossberg wrote. “Throughout my treatment, he had been on the national stage: previously a Democrat, he was running for President as an Independent, but mostly as an embarrassment to me and the rest of my immediate family.”She detailed the political turmoil surrounding his confirmation, noting that in August 2024, RFK Jr., 71, suspended his presidential campaign and endorsed Donald Trump, who publicly stated he would “let Bobby go wild” on health matters.