Name: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #639
Uploaded: 2026-02-12T17:05:24.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #639' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-02-12. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #639' from Theo Von on Comedy Buff. Published 2026-02-12. Transcript available.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. | This Past Weekend w/ Theo Von #639

Just wanted to let you know our episodes are now available in video on Spotify
as well.
Today's guest is the Secretary for Health and Human Services for the U.S.
government.
He's an attorney, he's an environmentalist, and he's my friend.
I'm so thankful that he is joining us.
Today's guest is Mr. Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Good to see you, bro.
Yes, good to see you.
Secretary.
Secretary now.
You can still call me Bobby.
Okay, cool.
You and I know each other from, can I say where we know each other?
Yeah, sure.
We've been in recovery together for years.
You for over 40 years, right?
Yeah, 43 years.
Wow.
That's wild.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's where we met each other.
Yeah, that's right.
At like 7 a.m. meetings above the bank over there.
They shut those down during COVID.
I know.
That was heartbreaking.
We still did live meetings every day during COVID.
We moved from the bank.
There was about 15 of us who moved from the bank, and we got into the Palisades
Playhouse,
which now is burned down during the fire, but it was kind of a pirate group.
And, you know, I mean, for me, you know what?
I said this when we came in, and I said, I don't care what happens.
I'm going to a meeting every day.
Yeah.
And I said, I'm not scared of a germ.
You know, I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats.
And I know this disease will kill me.
Right.
Like, if I don't treat it, which means, for me, going to meetings every day, it's
just bad for my life.
So, for me, it was survival.
And then, you know, the opportunity to help another alcoholic.
Oh, yeah.
That's the secret sauce of the meetings.
And that's what keeps us all sober and keeps us, you know, from self-will.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, you get reminded.
I mean, I go to meetings, and I get reminded that other people, like, I hate to
say exist,
but, like, just that other people are, just that I'm not alone, I think, you
know?
I get, like, I see faces.
I'm like, oh, yeah, I care about this person.
They care about me.
It's like, for some reason, in my addiction, it's like, there's a part of me
that forgets
that people care about me, and that I care about them.
And so, but when I go to meetings, it's like an immediate, it immediately fills
that whole
backlog in, you know?
But I have to go and kind of recharge that battery a lot.
You, welcome to Tennessee.
Thank you.
Yeah, I saw you were with Kid Rock.
Yeah.
Pretty cool, dude, that freaking, he used to say, he used to have cocaine and
oysters.
I'm like, that's a meal.
That's a meal, dude.
That's an aphrodisiac, I think.
I'm saving a seat for him, still.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, he's one of a kind, man.
His brother only has one leg, too.
You know that?
I met his brother, Bill.
I think he got the vaccine, but that's just me.
But anyway, he had two a few years ago.
That's all I'm saying.
But he lost his leg when he was a kid at around the same time my cousin Teddy
lost his leg.
And both of them became ski racers.
So they were the top, I think my cousin Teddy was the number two slalom skier
on one leg, and he was also very proficient.
So they became friends.
So that was interesting.
So he knows your cousin?
Yeah, he grew up with him.
And they were in, like, a special division or no, just normal division?
What are they called?
The Paralympics?
Paralympics.
I didn't know Billy was a Paralympian.
I know he's a great golfer.
I mean, they're just so, they're hilarious.
How does he golf?
Because he doesn't, his leg is cut off so high, he can't really use a prosthetic.
I mean, I don't know, they had it, I know a lawnmower, somebody hit him with a
lawnmower.
Look at that right there.
His father ran him over with a tractor.
Yeah.
And just put him in time out.
But yeah, he's phenomenal.
And he has the best sense of humor, you know.
I'm just joking.
I know both those guys super well.
And they've been great, like, neighbors in Nashville.
And Kid Rock, Bobby, he's done a lot of nice stuff for me over the years and
stuff.
Like that, and includes me in things.
And we were just texting the other day.
He's got a big heart, you know.
Yeah, well, he spoke very highly of you.
He's a nice guy.
I saw you were with Bill Lee, too, our governor.
Yeah.
Yeah, I met him at the, he did a fireside chat with me about a year ago at the
governor's conference.
And I really, we really bonded.
He's a good guy, and he works with both sides on the legislature.
He's got a great relationship.
I mean, he's done a bunch of good stuff in this state.
He's gotten, you know, he's on top of fluoride.
They got really good snap waivers.
So I think they've got probably one of the best snap waivers.
The snap waiver is the food stamp waiver.
So you can't spend food stamp dollars on sodas or candy.
But they also have sugar content, and they have corn syrup content.
Oh, here in Tennessee?
Yeah.
So I think they're the only state that has that now.
And they've also banned food dyes.
They banned a couple of them, and they're going to ban the rest of them now.
And what are we finding out with food dyes?
Well, the food dyes, we've now, you know, we've told the companies they've got
to get rid of all of them.
There's nine of them.
And the worst four we already banned.
The other five, I think by the end of this year, everybody should have stopped
using them.
And then we rapid approved four new vegetable dyes so that they can replace
them with, you know, something healthy.
So we did that through FDA.
We're working with the industry to make sure that they can do it.
But they've been very, very cooperative.
Most of them, about 40% of the industry, you know, came to us, including the
entire ice cream industry,
came to us and said, we want to do this, but, you know, help us.
So we're working very closely with them, and they're all getting rid of it.
I mean, we should have gotten rid of it a long time ago.
The Europeans don't allow it.
Canada doesn't allow it.
Other countries don't allow it.
You can buy Froot Loops in this country that are just loaded with chemicals,
and you can buy, same company makes Froot Loops for Canada and Mexico that don't
have the chemicals.
Yeah.
Well, yeah, there was a kid on TikTok, and he was eating Froot Loops, and then
his poop was glowing in the dark.
You see that?
I'm like, dang, that thing will swim upstream.
That's crazy.
I mean, but, yeah, some of it definitely seems bonkers.
And what did you say about fluoride?
Tennessee has a law that has to, where the water district has to inform the
public about it.
And fluoride is crazy because we know it reduces IQ.
There's no question.
The National Toxicology Program has done a meta-analysis, and they can, you
know, it's dose-related.
So every milligram of fluoride that you had reduced your IQ more.
And it doesn't work systemically.
You know, it was put in in the 40s because it does help with tooth decay, but
the effect is all topical.
And back then, they didn't have fluoride toothpaste.
They didn't have fluoride mouthwash.
Now we do.
The parents can get the fluoride for their kids, and they don't – when you
put it in systematically, it destroys your bone mass.
It destroys your thyroid.
So it's horrible for us.
It's horrible.
And it destroys IQ.
So, I mean, if you have kids, would you rather have cavities or lower IQ?
Yeah, I'd rather have them have cavities.
I'd rather have holes in their teeth than holes in their ideas or whatever.
Right.
But the European nation's abandoned, and there has been no increase in cavities.
So, you know, it doesn't make any sense for us to be putting it in.
And, yeah, this is the bill known as the Tennessee Fluoride-Free Water Act
prohibits public water systems in Tennessee from adding fluoride or any fluoride
containing compounds of drinking water intended for human consumption and bans
the sale of bottled water with added fluoride.
So we don't have fluoride in our water here?
Well, there is natural fluoride in a lot of water.
It's just – it comes from the geology.
But we're not adding more.
Right.
We're not adding it.
Nice, dude.
Yeah, because – yeah, what if you're trying to think of something and you
have two sips of water and then you're like, God, I can't even – I'm screwed.
Your parents send you to take a test, and they give you a bottle of water, and
you're like, God, I don't have a chance now.
But thank you.
Thank you for leading the charge on a lot of these things.
Thank you for caring about a lot of these things.
I think I just want to say that.
I know that you do care about so many of these things.
I did see – there's a Tennessee Farm Bill, and there's a lot of stuff you
want to talk about, too, and we'll get into some of it for sure.
But this is what I was talking about here.
This bill, it's the – yeah, Farm Bill 809.
The bill is sponsored by Representative Rusty Grills.
Would limit lawsuits if a user gets sick from a pesticide.
Under the proposed legislation, as long as a product's label was approved by
the Environmental Protection Agency, a person wouldn't be allowed to sue over
the labeling.
So, actually, Sean Ryan, the podcaster, and John Rich, the musician, they
shared this online on the day that it was going up for vote, I believe.
Yeah, right here.
Tennessee state politicians side with foreign pesticide companies over people
dying of cancer.
Ryan posted on X alongside a video speaking out against the bill.
As did musician John Rich.
After the pushback, Representative Grills took the bill off notice, which at
least delayed the vote.
It's unclear why that decision was made or whether Grills has plans to bring
the bill back to this legislative session.
And bring up a – just so we know who's doing this, bring up a picture of Mr.
Grills.
Oh, there you go.
Well, I mean, look, if you're a farmer and you get sick from using a pesticide
that you didn't know would make you sick, that you wouldn't have recourse
against a pesticide company that did know that they caused illness.
Because these companies knew that these caused illnesses.
Well, yeah.
Yeah, evidence from lawsuits, internal documents, and independent reports
indicates that Monsanto had information suggesting potential risk to human
health from some of its pesticides, yet worked for years to downplay or obscure
those risks in public and regulatory arenas.
I mean, that's just wild.
The reason they're doing this is because of my lawsuits against Monsanto.
Right.
I remember you had that huge settlement against them a long time ago, right?
Yeah.
I think it was 20 – maybe 2019 we finally settled it.
But I did three of the trials in San Francisco, and the first one we won, I
think, $289 million for, you know, people who've gotten non-Hodgkin's lymphoma
from using Roundup.
And then the second one we won $89 million.
The third one we asked for a billion dollars from the jury was a couple that
had both got it simultaneously.
They were home gardeners.
And their dog also got it at the same time.
They had a Labrador retriever, and the dog died.
Both the couples were sick.
We asked the jury for a billion dollars, and they gave us $2.2 billion.
And they did that because we were able to show them documents that showed Monsanto
knew of the danger and then worked with corrupt officials,
a guy called Jess Rowland, inside of EPA, who was the head of the Pesticide
Division.
And that they had deliberately concealed the science, fixed the science.
And now the big study that they used to prove safety has now been retracted.
Yeah.
Yeah, I think I saw an article about that.
Like, they'd found emails that they were, like, that it was kind of ghostwritten
or something from the science.
It was ghostwritten, and also the head of the Pesticide Division, they asked
him, the Monsanto asked him secretly,
and now we have these emails, to kill a study by another agency called ATSDR.
And he said, I can't kill it.
That's not my agency.
I can kill them in EPA, but not outside.
And they said, you've got to do it.
We can't have this study go forward.
And he said, okay, I'm going to do it, but if I succeed, you've got to give me
a gold medal.
And we had all of