Cheryl Hines Clashes With The View Hosts in a Fiery RFK Jr. Debate That Stopped the Room Cold.NH

Curb Your Enthusiasm actress Cheryl Hines didn’t curb her defenses for husband Robert F. Kennedy Jr., during a tense interview with The View cohosts about her husband’s trajectory as the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services.

As Hines sat at the Hot Topics table to promote her new book, Unscripted, she exclaimed that her husband is “completely different from anyone I’ve met in my life,” to which Joy Behar quipped, “That’s for sure.”

That set the tone for the remainder of the discussion, as Hines then confronted the cohosts about their past criticisms of Kennedy, ranging from his “brain worm,” as Sunny Hostin calls it, to repeated concerns over his qualifications to hold such a high position in the U.S. government under Donald Trump.

“I know you ladies, I know you love to talk about him,” Hines said, rubbing her hands together before the conversation continued.Cheryl Hines argues with ‘The View’ cohosts over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Cheryl Hines argues with ‘The View’ cohosts over Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Hostin later grilled Hines about her husband’s presidential campaign, and the moment he eventually threw his support behind Trump after trading barbs with him on the election trail.

“By the way, that happens in a political campaign all the time,” Hines clarified, responding to Hostin’s eventual question about whether or not she shared concerns with her spouse over his support for a controversial figure like Trump.

“I always share all of my concerns with my husband. I have not been a political person. I haven’t posted anything on social media other than go out and vote. I never told people who they should vote for,” Hines said. “With Bobby, that was a very difficult decision to make with President Trump. It was a crazy year-and-a-half with Bobby running.”

She then praised Trump for working to lower prescription drug costs, but admitted to being “guarded about” her husband’s eventual support for the president.

“It was complicated, because it’s a big change politically. He starts out as a Democrat. When I first registered to vote, I registered as an independent, through the years, I changed to Democrat, now I’m back to independent,” added Hines. “So, for Bobby, in the course of a year-and-a-half, two years, to go from a Democrat to now working with President Trump, that’s a long, that’s a leap.”

Behar then observed that “it’s not fair to put” Hines “on the spot about this, because you’re his wife,” but still leaned into criticizing RFK Jr. for “casting doubt on the efficacy” of vaccines.

“Yes, to vaccines, yes they are important and an important part of our healthcare. Can we do better? Can we make them safer? Can we listen to parents who say my child got the vaccine and changed and stopped hitting markers, stopped developing the way they were developing?” Hines assessed.

Whoopi Goldberg then stepped in to raise her issues over RFK Jr.’s qualifications to lead a government agency on issues of health.

“I do want to say, you know he’s not a doctor and he’s not a professional? And oftentimes, when he’s speaking, he’s speaking not with the best information,” Goldberg said, later noting that “some of the things he’s suggested take it out of the hands of my doctor, and me and my OBGYN and me, and I wonder does it give you pause and are you able to say that might not actually be so, because I’ve got my experience and I’ve lived with this, and I’m still here. Are you able to have those conversations with him?”Cheryl Hines and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Los Angeles premiere of HBO’s ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’ in 2024.

Cheryl Hines confronts Sunny Hostin on ‘The View’.

Hines confirmed that she’s able to have such conversations with her husband, but then claimed that “90 percent of secretaries of the HHS have not been doctors,” without citing how she got that information. “But they’ve had a science background,” Hostin countered, prompting Hines to clap back that “one of Obama’s secretaries of HHS was an economist” in office.

“The problem, respectfully, is that your husband is the least-qualified Department of Health and Human Services head that we’ve had in history,” Hostin said. “I think that’s very dangerous.”

Hostin continued, alleging to Hines that RFK Jr. has “spread a lot of misinformation, a lot of chaos, a lot of confusion,” before Hines attempted to reply. In doing so, she was interrupted by Hostin, who alleged, “he’s connecting circumcisions to autism,” to which Hines tersely responded, “May I? May I finish?”

Goldberg could be heard urging Hostin to “please” let their guest continue, which she did.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cheryl Hines.

Cheryl Hines and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at the Los Angeles premiere of HBO’s ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’

“When people, Fauci, were saying when you get the vaccine, you cannot transmit COVID, it will stop COVID, that was disinformation,” Hines claimed, to which conservative panelist Alyssa Farah Griffin — who worked under Trump during the COVID pandemic — pushed back.

“We were also still learning about it, it was a novel virus we’d never encountered before. Because now the doctors will acknowledge” that you can still get it despite having a vaccine, she assessed.

Hostin added that “Dr. Fauci has a medical degree,” suggesting that she trusted him more as a result.

“Can we clear one thing before you go?” Behar said at the end of the interview, asking one final question to Hines about her spouse. “Does he or does he not have a brain worm?”

Hines smiled as she responded to the inquiry about RFK Jr.’s prior admission that doctors found a brain worm in his body: “It ate just a little bit of his brain and died, so don’t worry!”

When reached for comment, a representative for Hines tells Entertainment Weekly that Hines “wasn’t annoyed at all” and that “it was a great, balanced conversation” with the cohosts.US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and wife Cheryl Hines.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Cheryl Hines.

After Hines left the table and the show returned from a commercial break, Goldberg addressed the audience over the tone of the interview.

“We want people to come and give their views and everyone who comes here we try to be respectful and we ask tough questions because we’re otherwise speculating, so we can ask,” Goldberg said, with Behar and Hostin urging more Republicans to come on the show to do the same.

“We should have more Republicans on the show, but they don’t want to come on. They’re scared of us,” Behar said, while Hostin added, “I do think it’s important that Robert F. Kennedy come on this show.”

US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and wife Cheryl Hines.

The View airs weekdays at 11 a.m. ET/10 a.m. PT on ABC.