President Donald Trump joked that Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has a bizarre habit of running over roadkill [1].
The comments occurred during a roast-style speech at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, highlighting the unconventional dynamic between the president and his cabinet member.
Speaking on Friday night, July 24, 2024 [1], Trump targeted several public figures for comedic effect. During the set, the president made specific references to Kennedy's history with dead animals. While some reports described the joke as involving raccoon roadkill [1], other accounts said Trump said Kennedy "ran over the cow" [2].
Trump said the HHS Secretary was "a piece of work" during the event [3]. The dinner, held at the White House, served as a venue for the president to deliver a series of jabs at his own administration and other political figures [4].
Beyond the jokes regarding Kennedy, Trump also touched upon his own political future. He joked that he might run for president in 2028 [5].
The event was marked by the president's willingness to mock his own appointees. The references to roadkill appeared to be a central point of the humor directed at Kennedy, though the exact animal mentioned varied across different summaries of the speech [1, 2].
“"He ran over the cow."”
The use of roast-style humor toward a sitting cabinet member reflects a departure from traditional presidential decorum. By publicly mocking Secretary Kennedy's personal eccentricities, Trump signals a relationship based more on personal loyalty and shared disruptive branding than on the formal, rigid hierarchies typically seen in U.S. executive branch dynamics.
