Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is testing the waters for a 2024 presidential run against President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary, having filed the necessary paperwork with the Federal Election Commission.
Plans for a formal launch are reportedly in the works for April 19 in Boston, according to Raw Story.
He is a vocal anti-vaxxer, very much at odds with President Biden during the Covid pandemic. According to Robert Costa of CBS News, Steve Bannon “had been encouraging this for months.”
Costa tweeted that the former adviser to Donald Trump “believes RFK Jr. could be both a useful chaos agent in 2024 race and a big name who could help stoke anti-vax sentiment around the country.”
He is hardly expected to mount a serious challenge to Biden.
Kennedy has taken his vaccine theories to Tucker Carlson‘s Fox Nation show to downplay the dangers of Covid.
“We have to love our freedom more than we fear a germ,” he told Carlson.
At a rally against vaccine mandates in Washington, D.C., Kennedy said, “The minute they
Kennedy has also pushed conspiracy theories linking vaccines to the onset of autism spectrum disorders.
That brand of zealotry is said to have dismayed the extended Kennedy family.
Kennedy posted on Twitter in March:
Help me decide whether to run for President. If it looks like I can raise the money and mobilize enough people to win, I’ll jump in the race. If I run, my top priority will be to end the corrupt merger between state and corporate power that has ruined our economy, shattered the middle class, polluted our landscapes and waters, poisoned our children, and robbed us of our values and freedoms. Together we can restore America’s democracy.