His 2024 presidential campaign requires Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to travel across the country delivering speeches, conducting interviews with the media, and appearing at town halls and other special events. Many voters who have never heard the environmental attorney and Children’s Health Defense founder speak, eventually ask about his voice.
When Kennedy was 42, in 1996, he learned he had a neurological condition that causes the muscles that power his voice to experience periods of spasm, making his voice tremble.
At the beginning of a town hall in Chicago on June 28, NewsNation moderator Elizabeth Vargas got straight to the point.
“Your voice is raspy,” she said to the candidate. “Why don’t you explain to our audience why?”
“[In the 1990s], I was making a lot of my income doing public speaking and I could speak to the large halls without any amplification,” Kennedy explained.
As his voice gradually started to change, he said, “At first, I didn’t know what was wrong.”
Then, Kennedy said, people who heard him speak wrote letters telling him about spasmodic dysphonia, and suggesting that he visit Dr. Andrew Blitzer, a physician known for treating that condition.
Blitzer, a Senior Attending Otolaryngologist and Director of the New York Center of Voice and Swallowing Disorders at Mount Sinai West, confirmed the diagnosis.
Used to Be ‘Much Worse’
“I think it makes it problematical at times for people to listen to me. I cannot listen to myself on TV. I will never listen to this broadcast. I feel sorry for you guys having to listen to me,” Kennedy told the audience with a grin.
“My throat was much worse, and I went to Japan about six months ago and had a novel surgery in Kyoto. It made my voice much better, which you probably won’t believe, but it was much worse than this before.”
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