A Well-Known Recovering Drug Addict Admits to Having Used Drugs

Historically pure Washington D.C. is aghast. Hilarity ensues.

If you felt the Earth tilt just a little bit on its axis this weekend, it’s probably because Robert F. Kennedy Jr. did something politicians are absolutely never, under any circumstances, supposed to do: he told the truth.

In an interview with his friend, podcaster Theo Von, RFK Jr. laid out government fraud and blasted bureaucratic rot. He waxed poetic about cleaning house, described going from outsider to agency head, and detailed how—shockingly—billions of federal dollars tend to wander off when no one’s looking. It was borderline explosive.

Of course, reality-allergic progressives didn’t hear a word of it. Because straight out of the gate, while Kennedy and Von were reminiscing about how they’d originally connected (in Alcoholics Anonymous), the HHS secretary mentioned that he had continued to attend AA meetings during Covid lockdowns.

“I’m not scared of a germ,” Kennedy quipped. “I used to snort cocaine off of toilet seats.”

He was being real—and funny. He was explaining how he was able to manage his drug addiction during an insane time when people were literally hiding in their homes and bleaching their mail before bringing it inside. It was twenty seconds of an hour-and-twelve-minute interview that covered everything from medical journal capture and Roundup causing cancer to how the new food pyramid was developed, and included sordid details about a Somali-run hotel in California that was reportedly offering “nursing care” out of a bunch of P.O. boxes and then siphoning billions of dollars overseas to fund terrorist groups.

But cocaine off of a toilet seat! I mean, the horror!

If Kennedy had been in a congressional hearing, for example, and cited “doing lines on a filthy lavatory lid” as one of his most notable accomplishments, I could understand the uproar. But he was with Theo Von, for crying out loud—a guy he met through a recovery support group and who admitted on his own podcast to thinking his first erection was “a poop that got lost in his body.” I’m just saying, the setting matters.

Apparently the media didn’t think so. Rather than taking a split second to step back and consider the context, the press pool tumbled headfirst onto its worn metaphorical fainting couch.

Not over the fraud, mind you. Not over the missing billions. Not over the funding of terrorists. The toilet seat. That’s the news here.

The Hill dedicated the entirety of their coverage to the single comment, adding lamely, “The two moved on to discuss Kennedy’s work at the HHS, and he reflected on his time working as a lawyer.” USA Today went even deeper down RFK Jr.’s drug past without even acknowledging that his conversation with Von touched on any other topics.

“Social media users were unimpressed by Kennedy’s candidness over his prior experiences with using drugs in bathrooms,” The Independent was more than pleased to report. Their glowing example: A tweet from the official X account of New York Governor Kathy Hochul, who wrote simply, “It shows.”

Presumably, seeing as RFK is openly in recovery, the press was aware of the fact that Kennedy has indulged in nose candy. So the outrage, the race to report, the unfit-for-officeness, is the… toilet seat? If he’d said, “I used to snort cocaine off of my keyboard,” or “I once got high in a Banana Republic fitting room,” would I be writing about something else entirely right now?

OFFENDING YOU is not wrong.

Within hours, outlets were solemnly reporting that a “prominent healthcare advocacy group” had called for Kennedy’s resignation. The group? Protect Our Care. “Prominent” here appears to mean “a Democratic-aligned health policy advocacy organization that regularly issues statements opposing Republican health officials.”

POC is well-funded, politically active, and deeply committed to the idea that RFK Jr. should not exist in public office. Whether that qualifies as “prominent” or “predictable” depends on your definition. Their president promptly issued a statement:

That’s it. One word. That’s the entire statement. (If I were Bobby, I’d have had my PR team issue a one-word reply: “Nope.”)

RFK Jr.’s past is not new. It’s not hidden. It’s certainly not news. The man has spoken publicly about heroin addiction since the 1980s. It is literally part of his biography. He didn’t confess to current or recent drug use. He didn’t glamorize it. He didn’t encourage it. He made a crass joke to illustrate that he is not personally worried about microbes because he has survived far worse—namely himself in the 1970s.

And somehow this is framed as evidence he is “the most dangerous person ever” to lead HHS. More dangerous than the ones who presided over opioid approval disasters? More dangerous than agencies that missed overlooked perpetuated billions in PPP fraud? More dangerous than the bureaucrats who permanently destroyed public trust during the pandemic? More dangerous than… this?

The biggest threat the left can imagine is a man with forty-three years of sobriety and four decades of protecting public health under his belt speaking candidly about choices he made under the Carter administration. It must be nice to be so swaddled.

Kennedy laid bare the country’s chronic disease epidemic and how it directly fueled our abysmal Covid outcomes. He addressed the chemical swamp we call a food supply. He explained how HHS is using AI to detect Medicaid fraud—a move that will save American taxpayers tens of billions of dollars this year alone.

THE MEDIA: Historic government corruption exposed and reversed? Yawn.

ALSO THE MEDIA: Toilet seat cocaine? Clear the front page!

Protect Our Care called Kennedy’s comment proof that he is unfit to lead. Can we just walk through this for a sec? We live in a country where we’ll pay junkies for their used syringes (“It keeps streets cleaner!”) and where giving out clean heroin needles is hailed as “compassionate care.” But a man confessing that he occasionally used poor judgment when deciding where to get high in the context of his sobriety journey makes him unemployable?

Seems to me Kennedy’s real offense was admitting—freely and repeatedly—to having made mistakes in his past. In fairness to the media, that’s about as common in D.C. as a bipartisan standing ovation. I can see why they’d treat it like breaking news.

Here’s the problem, if you’re a member of the so-called press: Kennedy is openly talking about regulatory capture, institutional complacency, and reform inside HHS. He’s exposing the fraud that’s running rampant within federal programs. That’s messy stuff. It’s destabilizing. It requires follow-up reporting and document review and uncomfortable cross-party accountability. It’s much easier to write “Health Secretary Brags About Doing Blow in Bathrooms.” Done. Filed. Outrage cycle complete. Fire up the click-counter.

If RFK had said, “Trump officials ran a fraud ring,” we’d get a CNN chyron marathon and a congressional hearing. But when he says, “We found fraud that proliferated under previous administrations,” the hysteria needs a new landing pad.

If anything, the toilet-seat line was the most honest thing a federal official has said in years. And that was clearly the real mistake here. Because in Washington, you can engage in all the self-destructive, sordid, depraved activities you’d like—as long as you never, ever admit to it.

Well? Is this scandal… or candor? I need to know!

P.S. If you missed Saturday’s Subscriber Spotlight, Tim Pallies’ delightful eBook is FREE today through Tuesday. Grab it now—and don’t forget to leave a glowing review! :)

P.P.S. I have a dear friend in the publishing world looking for an extremely politically conservative publicist (a client’s specific request). Like, if this person isn’t wearing a MAGA hat in their LinkedIn profile pic, it’s probably not a fit (only a very slight exaggeration). If that describes you or someone you know, shoot me an email or DM me here and I’ll pass the info along.

You buy it, I sign it. Nothing illicit whatsoever.