Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the scion of the country’s most famous Democratic clan, on Monday lashed out at the many conservative figures eagerly touting his long-term goal of challenging President Biden. Jumped into a hug.
Kennedy participated in an online voice chat with the platform on Twitter for more than two hours. CEO Elon Musk increasingly right-leaning. They had friendly exchanges with former Democratic congressman turned right-wing commentator Tulsi Gabbard and others. Top donor to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.and professional surfer He has become a prominent speaker for questioning the coronavirus vaccine.
Kennedy, who announced in April that he would run for president in 2024, is himself a leading vaccine skeptic and has promoted other conspiracy theories.Yet he consistently hovered around 20 percent Opinion polls for the Democratic primary show that otherwise the party would have given up the election to Mr. Biden.
On Monday, he appeared to be a much more comfortable candidate in the heated Republican presidential race.
He said he planned to go to the Mexican border this week to “develop a policy to permanently close the border” and urged the federal government to look at the war in Ukraine from a Russian perspective, arguing that pharmaceuticals were the cause of the war in Ukraine. said there is. A mass shooting erupts in America.
“Until the introduction of Prozac, there were very few incidents like this in our country, and never in the history of mankind have we seen people walk into a classroom with children or strangers and start shooting people. said Kennedy. He pointed out that both his father and uncle were shot.
Kennedy said there are now “about 50 people” working for the campaign. Unlike Marianne Williamson, who has been announced as another Democrat opponent to Biden, she is ideologically opposed to moderate presidents, or Democrats worried about Biden’s re-election. It doesn’t seem to be aimed at appealing to members. Instead, he has used his campaign platform and his famous name to spread misinformation and ideas that have little support within the party.
Kennedy spent nine uninterrupted minutes attacking Biden as a warmonger when David Sachs, a top DeSantis donor and close ally of Musk, asked during the debate, “What happened to the Democrats?” and argued that the Democrats were Democrats. It is under the control of the pharmaceutical industry.
“I think the Democrats have become the party of war,” Kennedy said. “I think it’s directly because of President Biden.” I believe it is a legitimate political tool,” he added.
The Democratic National Committee and the Biden campaign declined to comment on Kennedy.
At times, the event, with more than 60,000 listeners at its peak, felt as if Mr. Kennedy was interviewing Mr. Musk about Twitter’s management responsibilities, according to Twitter. Twitter is the platform that lost more than half of its advertising revenue after the war. Billionaire bought in October. Over half an hour into the event, presidential candidates questioned tech moguls about the disclosure of so-called Twitter files, self-driving cars and artificial intelligence.
“These are very interesting topics for people, but I think a lot of the public would like to know about your presidential campaign,” Musk told Kennedy.
Kennedy, 69, has been spreading and propagating unsubstantiated theories for years, beginning nearly two decades ago with skepticism about the results of the 2004 presidential election and pediatric vaccines in general. His audience for such misinformation skyrocketed during the coronavirus pandemic.
On Monday, Mr. Kennedy repeated a number of false statements, including:
-
Since the Affordable Care Act of 2010, he said, “Democrats get more money from drug companies than Republicans.”Ann analysis STAT News found that political action committees associated with pharmaceutical companies have given more money to Republicans than Democrats in 14 of 16 election years since 1990.
-
He claimed without evidence that “the novel coronavirus was clearly a bioweapon issue.” US intelligence agencies believe there is no evidence that this is the case.
-
He also blamed the use of psychiatric drugs for the rise in gun violence in the United States, arguing that gun ownership rates in the United States are similar to those in Switzerland. The United States has the highest civilian gun ownership rate in the world, with an estimated 120.5 guns per 100 people. According to the latest international small arms survey. This is more than double the second-highest country, Yemen, at 52.8, and well ahead of Switzerland at 27.6.
