(Trends Wide) — Environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. filed papers with the Federal Election Commission to run for president in 2024 as a Democrat.
The information was confirmed this Wednesday by his campaign treasurer, John E. Sullivan.
The 69-year-old is the son of former New York senator, US Attorney General and presidential candidate assassinated in 1968, Robert F. Kennedy, and the nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy.
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Kennedy Jr. is a longtime vaccine skeptic. He has promoted discredited claims linking vaccines and autism and founded the anti-vaccine organization Children’s Health Defense. He has also criticized the coronavirus vaccine and criticized the federal government’s handling of the pandemic.
In 2019, three members of his family, his sister Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, his brother Joseph P. Kennedy II, and his niece Maeve Kennedy McKean, strongly denounced his anti-vaccine views in a Politico magazine op-ed, arguing that he was “part of a disinformation campaign that is having heartbreaking and deadly consequences.”
In 2022, Kennedy Jr. invoked Nazi Germany in an anti-vaccine speech at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington. The year before, Instagram removed his account “for repeatedly sharing discredited claims about the coronavirus or vaccines.”
Kennedy tweeted last month who was considering a presidential run.
“If it looks like I can raise the money and mobilize enough people to win, I’ll join the race,” he said.
His tweet also directed followers to his website: “Let Bobby know you want to see his leadership in the White House,” the site says as it asks for donations.
As an environmental lawyer, Kennedy worked with a group that led the Hudson River cleanup. He also worked for the Natural Resources Defense Council and co-founded an environmental law firm.
If he goes ahead with his presidential bid, Kennedy would be the last in a long line of family members to enter politics.
His sister Kathleen served as lieutenant governor of Maryland from 1995 to 2003. His brother Joseph was a Massachusetts congressman from 1987 to 1999. And more recently, his brother Chris Kennedy was an unsuccessful candidate for governor of Illinois in 2018.
The last Kennedy to hold elected office was his nephew, former Massachusetts Rep. Joe Kennedy III, who lost the 2020 Democratic Senate primary. (He is now the US special envoy for Northern Ireland.) Caroline Kennedy, daughter of former President Kennedy, is currently the US Ambassador to Australia.
The 2024 Democratic presidential race is only beginning to take shape, with President Joe Biden expected to announce his run for a second term. Writer Marianne Williamson launched an unlikely second campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination last month.
On the Republican side, former President Donald Trump launched the race for the party’s nomination by announcing his third run for the White House last year. Former United Nations ambassador Nikki Haley, former Arkansas Governor Asa Hutchinson and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy are also in the running, while other well-known contenders including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and former Vice President Mike Pence are weighing their own offers. .
