Kennedy is the son of Robert F. Kennedy, a US senator who was assassinated in 1968, and Ethel Kennedy, a human-rights advocate who received a Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Barack Obama in 2014. He is the third of the couple's 11 children, according to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

Kennedy is also former President John F. Kennedy's nephew.

Kennedy attended Harvard and studied at the London School of Economics. He received his law degree from the University of Virginia Law School and earned a master's in environmental law from Pace University School of Law.

He founded the environmental nonprofit Waterkeeper Alliance in 1999, according to the organization's official website. His primary achievement was forcing the closure of the Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant.

Kennedy has long espoused anti-vaccine views, suggesting a flu vaccine may have caused his voice disorder (he has spasmodic dysphonia, a rare neurological disorder).

In 2005, he wrote an article published in Salon claiming that the mercury-based thimerosal compound in vaccines causes autism. After issuing multiple corrections, Salon eventually retracted the piece. Kennedy later founded the anti-vaccine group Children's Health Defense, originally named the World Mercury Project, in 2011.

Kennedy rose to prominence during the pandemic for his opposition to COVID-19 vaccines.

At a press event held at a New York City restaurant in July 2023, Kennedy told the crowd that COVID-19 may have been "ethnically targeted" to attack certain groups of people.

"COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people," he said. "The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese."

"We don't know whether it was deliberately targeted or not, but there are papers out there that show the racial and ethnic differential and impact," he continued.

The Anti-Defamation League called Kennedy's remarks "deeply offensive," saying they fed into the "sinophobic and antisemitic conspiracy theories about COVID-19 that we have seen evolve over the last three years."

At Kennedy's Senate confirmation hearing on Wednesday, he said some of his earlier comments had not been accurately represented.

"I'm not anti-vaccine," Kennedy said during his opening statement.

He said he would not limit access to vaccines if he were to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

"I support the measles vaccine," he said. "I support the polio vaccine. I will do nothing, as HHS secretary, to make it difficult or discourage people from taking it."

When asked about his statements about COVID-19, Kennedy said he did not say it "deliberately targeted" some people, and that he had been referencing a published study in his remarks.

In a June 2023 Twitter Spaces conversation hosted by Elon Musk, Kennedy likened Musk's purchase of Twitter, now known as X, to patriots who died fighting the American Revolution. He also attributed increased numbers of mass shootings to pharmaceutical companies for marketing antidepressants.

Later that month, in an appearance on "The Joe Rogan Experience," Kennedy claimed that "WiFi radiation does all kind of bad things, including causing cancer."

Kennedy also told CNN in July 2023 that environmental "endocrine disruptors" were causing "sexual confusion" and "gender confusion" in children, misconstruing studies that have shown these chemicals can cause some male frogs to become female and produce eggs.

A Kennedy campaign spokesperson told CNN that his remarks were "mischaracterized" and that he was "merely suggesting that, given copious research on the effects on other vertebrates, this possibility deserves further research."

Kennedy married fellow University of Virginia Law School student Emily Black in 1982 and had two children, Robert Francis "Bobby" Kennedy III and Kathleen, known as "Kick." They divorced in 1994.

That same year, he married interior designer Mary Richardson. The couple had four children: Conor, Kyra, Finn, and Aidan. Kennedy filed for divorce in 2010.

Kennedy is now married to "Curb Your Enthusiasm" actor Cheryl Hines, whom he wed in 2014.

On Wednesday, Hines appeared at Kennedy's confirmation hearing for health secretary.

Kennedy announced his 2024 presidential campaign in April 2023 at Boston's Park Plaza Hotel.

"My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign and throughout my presidency will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism in our country," he said in his speech.

Kennedy acknowledged that some of his family members did not support his presidential bid but harbored "no ill will or any kind of disappointment" toward them.

One of Kennedy's sisters, Kerry Kennedy, released a statement condemning his "deplorable and untruthful remarks" after he claimed COVID-19 was "ethnically targeted" to certain races.

In a statement to Business Insider's Alia Shoaib, Kerry Kennedy also said she would not support his campaign.

"I love my brother Bobby, but I do not share or endorse his opinions on many issues, including the COVID pandemic, vaccinations, and the role of social media platforms in policing false information," she said.

Former Rep. Joe Kennedy III of Massachusetts also posted on X that his uncle's comments were "hurtful and wrong."

In October 2023, Kennedy announced that he was no longer running for president as a democrat.

"I must declare my own independence," he said at a campaign event in Philadelphia. "Independence from the Democratic Party. And from all other political parties."

In March 2024, he named California attorney Nicole Shanahan as his vice presidential running mate.

She founded the patent technology company ClearAccessIP in 2013 and the Bia-Echo Foundation in 2019 to fund programs dedicated to criminal justice reform, reproductive research, and addressing the climate crisis.

Shanahan had previously donated to Democratic candidates such as Pete Buttigieg and Marianne Williamson but told Newsweek she planned to leave the Democratic party.

"I want somebody who will look out for young people and not treat them as if they're invisible," Kennedy told Newsweek of his decision to choose Shanahan as his running mate. "She's just 38 years old; she comes from technology and understands social media."

In August, Kennedy said he met with Trump and was "surprised to discover that we are aligned on many key issues."

"In those meetings, he suggested that we join forces as a unity party," Kennedy said.

Kennedy also said that he was making an effort to remove his name from ballots in 10 swing states.

"Our polling consistently showed that by staying on the ballot in the battleground states, I would likely hand the election over to the Democrats, with whom I disagree on the most existential issues," he said.

Upon receiving his endorsement, Trump added Kennedy to his transition team along with former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.

"I am thrilled to announce Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as The United States Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS)," Trump wrote on Truth Social in November. "For too long, Americans have been crushed by the industrial food complex and drug companies who have engaged in deception, misinformation, and disinformation when it comes to Public Health."

Kennedy vowed to "make America healthy again" by proposing abolishing vaccine mandates, promoting alternative medicine, and lobbying against fluoride in drinking water.

The position of HHS Secretary requires Senate approval. Kennedy's cousin, Caroline Kennedy, urged lawmakers not to confirm him in a letter she sent to the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions and posted on X.

"Bobby is addicted to attention and power," Caroline Kennedy wrote of her cousin. "Bobby preys on the desperation of parents of sick children — vaccinating his own kids while building a following by hypocritically discouraging other parents from vaccinating theirs."

During a 2012 deposition during his divorce from Mary Richardson Kennedy, Kennedy said that he'd seen neurologists in an effort to diagnose memory issues, The New York Times reported in May 2024.

"I have cognitive problems, clearly," he said in the deposition. "I have short-term memory loss, and I have longer-term memory loss that affects me."

Kennedy said that one doctor suggested that he had a worm in his brain based on a dark spot in a scan that could have been "caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died."

Kennedy told the Times the memory issues he experienced have since been resolved.

"He said he had recovered from the memory loss and fogginess and had no aftereffects from the parasite, which he said had not required treatment," The Times reported.

The health issues were in contrast to how he had portrayed himself in his presidential run, depicting himself as healthier, mentally and physically, than his then-rivals Trump and Biden.

In July, Kennedy denied a Vanity Fair report that he had once eaten a barbecued dog in Korea. The story included a photo of Kennedy holding a charred animal carcass. A veterinarian told the publication that it looked like the animal was a dog based on the number of ribs.

In a post on X, Kennedy said the image showed a goat in Patagonia, not a dog in Seoul.

In August, Kennedy revealed that he was behind the bear carcass that was found in Central Park in 2014. In a video on X, Kennedy said he'd planned to skin the animal after finding it dead on the side of the road but had to catch a flight, so he disposed of it in Central Park.

Kennedy explained he wanted to share the bear story ahead of a forthcoming New Yorker profile mentioning the incident. In the profile, Kennedy said he may have gotten his brain worm from the dead bear.

Also in August, a 2012 Town & Country interview with his daughter Kick resurfaced in which she said her father had decapitated a dead whale they'd found on a beach near the Kennedy home in Hyannis Port when she was 6. Kick said he strapped the whale head to the roof of their minivan before their drive back to New York, prompting "whale juice" to "pour into the windows of the car."

In response to reporters' questions about the incident, Kennedy said, "I'm not interested in feeding that feature of the mainstream media."

Kick Kennedy did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.

"Earlier this year, the nature of some communication between myself and a former reporting subject turned personal," Nuzzi said in a statement to Darcy. "During that time, I did not directly report on the subject nor use them as a source. The relationship was never physical but should have been disclosed to prevent the appearance of a conflict. I deeply regret not doing so immediately and apologize to those I've disappointed, especially my colleagues at New York."

Nuzzi was placed on leave from New York magazine, and editor in chief David Haskell hired a law firm to investigate the matter and conduct a review of her reporting.

A representative for Kennedy denied the relationship, telling The New York Times, "Mr. Kennedy only met Olivia Nuzzi once in his life for an interview she requested, which yielded a hit piece." However, The Daily Beast reported that Kennedy had bragged about the relationship, making it something of an open secret in some circles.

In October, Nuzzi accused her ex-fiancé, Politico reporter Ryan Lizza, of blackmail. In a court filing, Nuzzi said that Lizza "threatened to make public personal information about me to destroy my life, career, and reputation — a threat he has since carried out."

Lizza denied the claims.

"I am saddened that my ex-fiancée would resort to making a series of false accusations against me as a way to divert attention from her own personal and professional failings," he said in a statement. "I emphatically deny these allegations and I will defend myself against them vigorously and successfully."

In November, Nuzzi withdrew her case against Lizza.

In a statement shared with Business Insider, Lizza said: "Olivia shamelessly used litigation with false and defamatory allegations as a public relations strategy."

"When required to do so, she refused to defend her claims in court last month. She then sought to hide my response to her claims from the public by seeking to seal the proceedings that she began," he wrote. "Now, on the eve of a hearing at which she knew her lies would be exposed, she has taken the only course available to her and withdrawn her fabricated claims."

"Olivia lied to me for almost a year. She lied to her editors. She lied to her readers. She lied to her colleagues. She lied to reporters. And she lied to the judge in this case," Lizza said. "I said I would defend myself against her lies vigorously and successfully and I am fully prepared to do so. But for now, I'm pleased this matter is closed."

Nuzzi's attorney, Ari Wilkenfeld, previously told BI: "Ms. Nuzzi has no interest in fighting a public relations battle. For insight into her decision, you can refer to the statements in her motion."

Gaetz's father, Don Gaetz, served in the Florida State Senate from 2006 to 2016, including a stint as its president from 2012 to 2014. In November, he was reelected to his old seat representing Florida Senate District 1.

Gaetz's grandfather, Jerry Gaetz, served in the North Dakota Senate and as the mayor of Rugby, North Dakota.

Gaetz earned a bachelor's degree in interdisciplinary sciences from Florida State University and his law degree from William & Mary Law School.

Gaetz represented Florida's 4th district in the Florida House of Representatives from 2010 to 2016.

Gaetz and Luckey met at Mar-a-Lago in 2020 and wed a year later.

Her brother, Palmer Luckey, founded the virtual reality company Oculus and is a billionaire Republican donor.

Gaetz was elected to represent Florida's 1st district in the House of Representatives in 2016.

A month after becoming a member of Congress in 2017, Gaetz introduced a bill to abolish the Environmental Protection Agency.

In 2018, he invited Charles C. Johnson, an alt-right figure who has denied the Holocaust, to the State of the Union. Gaetz told The Daily Beast that he gave Johnson a ticket after he "showed up at my office" on the day of the speech but that the two did not know each other.

In 2019, he barged into a deposition of a former National Security Council official connected to Trump's impeachment inquiry. A meeting transcript showed that Intelligence Committee chairman Rep. Adam Schiff swiftly kicked him out of the room, telling the lawmaker, "Mr. Gaetz, take your statement to the press. They do you no good here. So please, absent yourself."

During a 2020 vote to approve $8.3 billion in emergency funding for coronavirus aid, Gaetz wore a gas mask on the House floor.

In 2021, he went on an "America First" tour with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene in which the two lawmakers repeated Trump's false claim that the 2020 election was "stolen."

Gaetz is also known for insulting his Democratic and Republican colleagues alike, calling Sen. Mitch McConnell "McFailure," deriding Utah Senator-elect John Curtis as "Mitt Romney without good hair," and calling abortion rights activists "ugly" and "overweight."

In April 2021, The New York Times reported that the Justice Department was investigating whether Gaetz had sex with a 17-year-old girl and paid for her to travel with him using campaign funds, which would violate federal sex-trafficking laws.

The House Ethics Committee then announced that it would launch its own investigation into Gaetz's conduct. Gaetz denied the allegations.

In February 2023, the Justice Department ended its sex-trafficking investigation without bringing criminal charges against Gaetz, prompting the House Ethics Committee to reopen its own inquiry.

When Republicans retook control of the House of Representatives in the 2022 midterms, McCarthy was elected Speaker of the House in a tumultuous process that lasted several days and nearly came to blows on the House floor.

McCarthy made concessions to secure votes from Gaetz and other far-right GOP lawmakers, including allowing any House member to file a "motion to vacate" the House Speaker role.

Dissatisfied with McCarthy's leadership, Gaetz introduced a motion to vacate against him months later. The House voted McCarthy out in October 2023.

McCarthy appeared to reference Gaetz while speaking at Georgetown University in April, saying that he lost his job as House Speaker because "one person wanted me to stop an ethics complaint because he slept with a 17-year-old," Politico reported. In response, Gaetz called McCarthy a "liar."

"Matt will root out the systemic corruption at DOJ and return the Department to its true mission of fighting Crime and upholding our Democracy and Constitution," Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social announcing Gaetz's nomination.

The appointment, which requires Senate confirmation, would have put Gaetz in charge of the Department of Justice, the same organizational body that once investigated sex-trafficking allegations against him.

While Republicans have a majority in the Senate, some Republican lawmakers expressed skepticism about Gaetz's chances of being confirmed.

Lisa Murkowski of Arkansas told MSNBC that she didn't think Gaetz was "a serious nomination for the attorney general."

GOP Rep. Max Miller told CNN, "I don't think Matt cares if he gets confirmed or not. Everybody's talking about him, and that's what he likes the most."

Gaetz resigned two days before the House Ethics Committee was scheduled to vote on releasing the report from its investigation. His replacement in Congress will be chosen through a special election.

Although the House Ethics Committee no longer has jurisdiction over former members and did not reach an agreement in that meeting, it could still vote to release the report.

In a post announcing his withdrawal on X, Gaetz wrote, "While the momentum was strong, it is clear that my confirmation was unfairly becoming a distraction to the critical work of the Trump/Vance Transition."

Trump echoed Gaetz's reasoning in a post on Truth Social, writing that Gaetz "was doing very well but, at the same time, did not want to be a distraction for the Administration, for which he has much respect."

Trump's post continued: "Matt has a wonderful future, and I look forward to watching all of the great things he will do!"