Robert Francis Kennedy "RFK" Jr. (17 January 1954-) was an American environmental lawyer, anti-vaccine activist, conspiracy theorist, and the We the People Party candidate for President of the United States in 2024.
Biography[]
Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. was born in Washington DC in 1954, the son of Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and Senator Ted Kennedy. His father was assassinated in 1968, and the younger RFK followed in his political footsteps by becoming an assistant district attorney in New York City. He became involved with environmental nonprofits during the 1980s, working with Riverkeeper to set long-term environmental legal standards and winning legal battles against large corporate polluters. He became an adjunct professor of environmental law at Pace University in 1986, and he founded the school's Environmental Litigation Clinic in 1987. Starting in 2005, he promoted anti-vaccine disinformation including claiming a causal link between vaccines and autism. During the COVID-19 pandemic, he spread lies that Bill Gates and Anthony Fauci were trying to profit off a vaccine, that COVID-19 killed the 86-year-old baseball player Hank Aaron, and that Fauci was "a powerful technocrat who helped orchestrate and execute 2020s historic coup d'etat against Western democracy." In a book attacking Fauci, he also argued that there was no relationship between HIV and AIDS. His equation of public health measures with Nazi war crimes led to several family members distancing themselves from his political views.
Kenndy was a longtime Democrat, believing that the American government was dominated by corporate power and that the American middle-class was being hollowed out by American politicians who sought to make billionaires richer. He also accused Saudi Arabia of genocide in Yemen, opposed the military-industrial complex and foreign interventions, opposed American support for Ukraine against Russia, opposed Ukrainian membership in NATO (while supporting Russian membership), claimed that the 2014 Euromaidan revolution was an American-sponsored coup (while repeating false claims of "genocide" against Russian speakers in eastern Ukraine), and supported the closure of overseas US military base. He considered a 2000 run for the US Senate and a 2006 run for New York attorney general, but, on 19 April 2023, he announced his campaign for the presidency, initially as a Democrat. Self-identifying as a "classical liberal," he drew support from independents and youth, while targeting Black voters with his vaccine misinformation. On 9 October 2023, he decided to run as an independent candidate due to his inability to compete with the Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden, and Republican donors and Trump allies supported him due to his capacity to serve as a spoiler for Biden. On 26 March 2024, he announced Nicole Shanahan as his running mate, and he founded the We the People Party to acquire ballot access in several key states. He eventually dropped out of the election and endorsed Trump in exchange for being nominated for Secretary of Health and Human Services.