The nominee to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is heading into two confirmation hearings that will likely focus heavily on the man’s personal life and controversial views about public health. One of his own family members only fanned the flames surrounding him on Tuesday by warning that Mr. Kennedy is a “predator” who likely has some responsibility for the deaths of her own family members and for unvaccinated children. 

Mr. Kennedy was chosen to lead the health department by President Trump after the Democrat-turned-independent presidential candidate dropped his own bid and agreed to support the now-47th president. Republicans have raised concerns about the nominee’s pro-abortion rights stance and his desire to cut subsidies and benefits for large agriculture and pharmaceutical companies, though those concerns seem to have subsided. 

His nomination as a pro-abortion rights Democrat and noted vaccine skeptic make him, arguably, the most unusual cabinet choice of the second Trump presidency, overshadowing even the Army veteran-turned-cable news host who now leads the Pentagon, Secretary Hegseth.

Mr. Hegseth’s nomination was confirmed only after Vice President Vance broke a tie in the Senate. The nominee was forced to answer questions about his own personal conduct, including allegations of abuse and alcoholism, though he was able to survive the grueling process by making assurances to Republican senators that he would be within the mainstream of conservative policy and foreign relations. 

The health and human services nominee may not be able to rely on the new Republican majority in the same way. Mr. Kennedy will sit before the Senate Finance Committee on Wednesday before heading to the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee on Thursday. 

A member of the Finance Committee, Senator Grassley — a lifelong Iowa corn farmer — told reporters early in the process that he wanted to meet with the nominee to discuss agricultural issues. Mr. Grassley told the New York Sun on Tuesday that his questions have been answered. “He alleviated those concerns for me. I think he satisfied me quite a bit,” the senator said. 

Senator Hawley, a member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, tells the Sun that he hasn’t made a decision about what he plans to ask Mr. Kennedy at the Thursday hearing. “I don’t see him until Thursday, so I’m gonna listen to tomorrow’s hearing and see,” the Missouri senator said. 

In a post on X several weeks ago, Mr. Hawley said that the nominee had assured him about barring public funds from being used for abortions and made clear that he wanted to see fewer abortions in America. 

It won’t just be Mr. Kennedy’s public health policy views under a microscope in the next 48 hours, but his own personal life as well. In the past, he has been fiercely criticized by family members for his personal indiscretions, including a yearslong drug addiction that allegedly impacted some of his relatives. 

On the eve of Mr. Kennedy’s confirmation hearing, his own cousin, Ambassador Caroline Kennedy — the sole surviving child of President John F. Kennedy — penned a letter to senators saying that the health and human services nominee was a “predator” who could not be trusted to lead the department. 

Mrs. Kennedy’s son, Jack Schlossberg, posted a video to X on Tuesday of his mother reading her letter to lawmakers urging them to reject her cousin’s cabinet bid. 

“I have never wanted to speak publicly about my family members and their challenges,” the former ambassador said, speaking directly to the camera. “But now that Bobby has been nominated … I feel an obligation to speak out.

“He lacks any relevant government, financial, management, or medical experience. His views on vaccines are dangerous and willfully misinformed. These facts alone should be disqualifying,” Mrs. Kennedy said. “But he has personal qualities related to this job, which for me pose even greater concern.

“It’s no surprise that he keeps birds of prey as pets, because Bobby himself is a predator,” she said. Mrs. Kennedy listed her cousin’s drug use, his encouragement of others to use drugs, and his decision to throw animals in a blender to feed to his hawks as examples of his predations. “It was often a perverse scene of despair and violence.”

She also suggested that her cousin may have played a role in a measles outbreak on Samoa that left more than 80 dead after Mr. Kennedy urged residents not to get vaccinated against the disease. “His constant denigration of our health care system and the conspiratorial half-truths he has told about vaccines, including in connection with Samoa’s deadly 2019 measles outbreak, have cost lives,” she said. 

She further blamed Mr. Kennedy for some of her other family members’ drug addiction problems, which in some cases led to death, all “while Bobby has gone on to misrepresent, lie, and cheat his way through life.”

Toward the end of her letter, Mrs. Kennedy said her cousin has cynically tried to invoke their most famous relatives for his own aggrandizement. “Unlike Bobby, I try not to speak for my father,” Mrs. Kennedy said. “I am certain that he, and my uncle Bobby — who gave their lives in public service to their country — and my uncle Teddy who devoted his long Senate career to the cause of improving healthcare, would be disgusted.”