Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Senate testimony Thursday was eclipsed by his raspy delivery, drawing comparisons to a Star Wars villain.
Kennedy, who suffers from a neurological disorder that makes his voice sound strained, could be heard breathing heavily into his microphone while Texas Sen. John Corynyn asked him a question about health care spending.
The breathing was so loud that the journalist Aaron Rupar shared a video of the clip on X and wrote, “I can’t focus on what senators are saying over RFK Jr.’s breathing and wheezing. Sorry folks.”
Another user who re-shared the video wrote, “He sounds like Darth f---ing Vader.”
They weren’t alone in thinking that the health secretary’s heavy exhales evoked memories of the iconic villain.
Emily Singer, a reporter at the Daily Kos, wrote on X that Kennedy was “lecturing everyone on their health as he sounds like Darth Vader struggling to breathe. The noises are horrific.”
Andrew Feinberg, the White House correspondent for The Independent, piled on by writing that Kennedy sounded like “Darth Vader testifying before the Imperial Senate.”
Kennedy breathed heavily into the microphone throughout the hearing, including while Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden criticized him for not treating the COVID-19 vaccine more like the RSV vaccine, which Kennedy endorsed and expanded access to in July.
The RSV vaccine helps parents with a “wheezing kid, gasping for air,” Wyden said, as Kennedy heaved into the microphone.
At one point late in the hearing, two of Kennedy’s aides could be seen whispering to each other behind the secretary. One of the aides leaned over to him, seeming to tell the secretary to mute his microphone.
Kennedy Jr. reached out toward his microphone as Colorado Sen. Senator Michael Bennett tried to regain his attention.
“She just got the text from the trump administration,” joked one commenter about the aide who whispered into Kennedy’s ear.
When he wasn’t attracting attention for his role leading Galactic Empire, Kennedy spent most of the hearing being lambasted by Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee and even some Republicans.
New Hampshire Sen. Maggie Hassan said that Kennedy was “making stuff up” in a line of questioning focused on Covid-19. The secretary said that the initial response to the virus, lead by his future boss President Trump, was “the worst in the world.”
When Kennedy couldn’t answer a question about how many people died during the pandemic, Virginia Sen. Mark Warner asked him, “How can you be that ignorant?”
Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso, the second-highest ranking Republican in the Senate, told the longtime vaccine skeptic that he was “deeply concerned” with his leadership and that “Americans don’t know who to rely on.”
Kennedy Jr. also struggled to answer basic questions about Medicare coverage, denied making past claims that he made on camera, and said that the CDC director he sacked last month is lying about the circumstances of her firing.
In the wake of such intense backlash, Kennedy might be wishing that he shared Darth Vader’s mastery of the Force, apart from just his breathing.
The Daily Beast has contacted HHS for comment.
