Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. revealed Sunday that took a dip in Washington, D.C.’s Rock Creek with his grandchildren, despite longstanding warnings that the Potomac River tributary isn’t safe because of high bacterial levels.
“Mother’s Day hike in Dumbarton Oaks Park with Amaryllis, Bobby, Kick, and Jackson, and a swim with my grandchildren, Bobcat and Cassius in Rock Creek,” Kennedy wrote in a post on the social media platform X along with multiple photos, including one of the shirtless 71-year-old Cabinet member submerged in the water.
According to the National Park Service (NPS), “swimming and wading are not allowed due to high bacteria levels.”
Swimming has been illegal in most of D.C.’s waterways since the 1970s, largely because of contamination from the district’s aging sewer system, though there have been recent efforts to roll back the five-decade prohibition and it is rarely enforced. Several signs posted along Rock Creek warn of the potential dangers, and the NPS advises pet owners to keep animals out of the water, as well.
HHS didn’t immediately respond to The Hill’s request for comment on Kennedy’s swim or concerns about the water’s contamination.
Kennedy, whom President Trump appointed to lead health policy in his second term, has drawn considerable attention for his unconventional positions on wellness issues. The Senate confirmed him for the HHS role in February despite hesitations from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
He described himself and his top allies at HHS as “renegades” and “juggernauts against convention” in a Fox News interview Thursday.
The former presidential candidate and promoter of the Make America Health Again, or “MAHA”, movement previously revealed in court documents that doctors told him in 2010 that a parasite had eaten part of his brain and he also experienced mercury poisoning, likely from eating fish.
