Overview
- The short video, posted Tuesday on X by Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., shows him on Mehmet Oz’s Palm Beach terrace picking up two black racers with his bare hands and flinching after an apparent bite.
- The clip went viral, attracting nearly eight million views within hours and a wave of social‑media reaction mixing concern, ridicule and praise.
- Florida Fish and Wildlife and herpetology experts urged people not to handle snakes, noting that non‑venomous species can still bite and that amateur handling can injure animals.
- No serious injury or official medical follow‑up for Kennedy has been reported in coverage so far, and the video did not show what happened to the snakes after the encounter.
- Commentators tied the episode to Kennedy’s past unusual animal incidents and said the optics matter because the footage was shot on the property of Mehmet Oz, the head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.