JFK heir Jack Schlossberg reveals sister said he ‘better win’ congressional race before her death

Jack Schlossberg revealed that his late older sister Tatiana told him that he ‘better win’ his congressional race before she died. 

Schlossberg, 33, said that his sister had been supportive of his endeavor to represent New York’s 12th Congressional District in the US House of Representatives and pushed him to win the race before she died. 

‘I can tell you now that she’s still rooting for us,’ he told CBS News on Sunday. 

‘The last thing that she said to me was, “You better win.” No one knew me better, and I knew no one better than her.’  

Tatiana had shared her acute myeloid leukemia diagnosis just six weeks before her death on December 30. The New York-born environmental journalist revealed in November that doctors diagnosed her in May 2024.

Writing in the New Yorker, Tatiana said she had no symptoms and was ‘one of the healthiest people I knew’ when the shock diagnosis came.

Doctors only found the disease through routine blood tests after she gave birth to her second child. She was the daughter of Caroline Kennedy, whose parents were John F Kennedy and Jackie Kennedy, and designer Edwin Schlossberg.

Schlossberg continued his campaign two weeks after his sister died. 

He told CBS on Sunday morning that, while grandson to the former president, he would be running his campaign through his own values and beliefs. 

‘People can think whatever they like. But I’m me. I’m Jack Schlossberg. And I’m proud of where I come from. but that’s not the only thing about me. I’m my own person, so you can count of me to think for myself,’ Schlossberg said. 

Schlossberg told The New York Times as he announced his candidacy on November 11: ‘I think that this district needs somebody who knows how to fight effectively in this new political era that we’re living in.’

He went on to argue that Democrats ‘need to specifically elect people who both get policy and know how to break through in new media, because it’s a toxic, polluted ecosystem, thanks to the president.’

However, the candidate has rocked social media with a series of videos that have amassed him some two million followers. 

‘You need to be aggressive right now to get your message through,’ he told CBS. 

Schlossberg also bashed President Trump and the current administration. 

He was asked if he thought he had crossed a line by posting a picture of Vice President JD Vance’s wife, Usha Vance, and photoshopped his face on one of her children.

‘I think what’s crossing a line is the propaganda that we see issued every single day by the White House and Vance,’ he responded. 

‘So, what are we gonna do – hold back? Hold back on our sense of humor and not tease them, make fun of them back?’

After he said he didn’t think anyone was ‘seriously thinking that I meant that we did actually have a love child,’ he added: ‘You can point at anything I posted, I will point you back at a president who shares pictures of himself bombing U.S. citizens with fecal matter. This is a new era we’re living in.’

As for his plan for New York, Schlossberg said it was time to take the gloves off, the outlet reported. 

‘You know what they’re doing to New York? They’re cutting off the funding that supports all the infrastructure for this city.

‘They’re making New York and other blue states pay more just because they don’t like us. And what, I’m not supposed to make fun of JD Vance and his family? Why?’

Schlossberg got into some hot water quickly after announcing his stake in the congressional race when his campaign manager stepped down.

Schlossberg’s campaign manager Annabel Lassally confirmed to Politico that she was walking away from her role in his campaign in December.  

A spokesperson for Schlossberg’s campaign, however, seemed undeterred.

‘We continue to grow post-launch as the only campaign focused on local issues and progressive policy,’ the spokesperson said.

‘We will be announcing our new campaign headquarters very soon,’ he added, declaring: ‘It’s all systems go!’

Schlossberg’s other staffers – including finance director Paige Phillips, an alum of Senator Kirsten Gillibrand’s campaign, and Eli Hinerfeld, a former deputy campaign manager for New York City Comptroller candidate Justin Brannan – stuck around on Schlossberg’s team.

They have touted the Kennedy heir’s social media acuity as a way for him to break through the crowd – and have even defended some of his ‘crazy’ antics.

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