RFK Jr. Takes Grandkids for a Swim in Poisonous Sludge

This weekend, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., America’s new well being czar, as soon as once more demonstrated his common lack of {qualifications} for the job by taking his grandchildren swimming in a poisonous Washington D.C. waterway.

Kennedy, who’s Trump’s new director of the Division of Well being and Human Companies, inscrutably determined to take his grandkids for a dip in Rock Creek, a tributary close to the nation’s capital that has been formally deemed not appropriate for human exercise.

“Mom’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 posted on X, over the weekend.

Mom’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. pic.twitter.com/TXowaSMTFY

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) May 11, 2025

This pastoral scene is likely to be endearingly folksy, have been it not for the truth that Rock Creek is the unfortunate dumping ground for the area’s sewage discharge. As such, the federal government has formally banned space residents from swimming, and even wading, within the creek.

“Swimming and wading will not be allowed as a result of excessive micro organism ranges,” the Nationwide Park Service has said, of the creek. “Rock Creek has excessive ranges of micro organism and different infectious pathogens that make swimming, wading, and different contact with the water a hazard to human (and pet) well being. Please shield your self and your pooches by staying on trails and out of the creek. All District waterways are topic to a swim ban – this implies wading, too!”

Within the pictures shared on-line by Kennedy, the HHS director will be seen dunking his grandson into the bacteria-laden water. Gizmodo reached out to the HHS for extra details about this photo-op.

The HHS director fortunately dunking his head in a poop-polluted creek looks like an apt visible metaphor for nationwide well being coverage proper now. Certainly, Kennedy and the remainder of the Trump administration appear to be doing all the pieces of their energy to make extra areas of America like Rock Creek—that’s, polluted and uninhabitable by people. Over the previous few months, the Trump administration has sought to drastically cut environmental regulations throughout the board—together with for water and air security. On the similar time, the HHS, beneath Kennedy, has attacked vaccine programs and laid off thousands of federal workers on the Meals and Security Administration and different elements of the federal well being workforce. On the similar time, Kennedy has leaned more and more into unproven conspiracy theory rhetoric, signaling a willingness to spend federal cash and assets on his personal private preoccupations and fringe science.