Right-wing media have been embracing Robert Kennedy Jr.’s announced campaign for president because he would be riding his family as a spoiler to President Biden’s re-election campaign. CNSNews.com played along as well, with an April 6 article by managing editor Michael W. Chapman touting his campaign:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., son of the late U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy, filed papers with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) on Apr. 5 declaring his intention to run for president of the United States in 2024. RFK Jr. is a Democrat and likely would be challenging Joe Biden for the nomination.
In early March, Kennedy spoke at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire where he was asked if he planned to run for president. He said, “I’m thinking about it. I’ve passed the biggest hurdle, which is my wife has green-lighted it.”
In a March 10 tweet, Kenendy said that if he runs, his “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.”
Chapman then felt the need to downplay Kennedy’s anti-vaxx extremism:
Kennedy also is an outspoken critic of uncessary vaccines — not all vaccines — and has sharply criticized the COVID policies pushed by Dr. Anthony Fauci and the Biden administration.
Kennedy, an attorney, is the founder and chairman of Children’s Health Defense, a non-profit organization that seeks “to end childhood health epidemics by working aggressively to eliminate harmful exposures, hold those responsible accountable and establish safeguards to prevent future harm.”
Chapman did not explain which vaccines Kennedy purportedly approves of — despite the fact that it’s clear he opposes pretty much all of them. As Stat News summarized:
His outright disbelief in established science is demonstrated most vividly by his crusade against vaccines and vaccine science. He has produced and endorsed pseudo-documentaries that are chock-full of exaggerated, unsupported claims and then held screenings of them for legislators, though few showed up. He held rallies against vaccines on the steps of state capitol buildings and injected himself into discussions about licensing for doctors, keeping children healthy at schools, and Covid vaccines. He has amplified disinformation agents and even quacks who push false vaccine narratives. He has held fundraisers for politicians who reject public health protection.
That doesn’t sound there’s much leeway in Kennedy’s anti-vaxx crusade.
Chapman went on to hype some of Kennedy’s views, which include calling the U.S. support of Ukraine against Russia’s invasion a “Neocon project,” raging against the Federal Reserve for purportedly planning to issue a digital currency (which is actually just a payment system), ranting about the “exploding Autism epidemic far more devastating than COVID?” — which is actually part of his anti-vaxxer crusade — and declaring that liberal want to establish “a surveillance + security state to suppress dissent as billionaires gorge themselves on the bleached carcasses of our ruined middle class.”
That sounds much more like a fringe right-wing ranter than a Democratic candidate. But, again, Chapman wants to set Kennedy up as a spoiler, so he apparently had a mandate to treat Kennedy as a serious candidate.