Robert F. Kennedy Jr. officially challenges President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.
Kennedy, 69, filed a statement of candidacy with the Federal Election Commission on Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.
He is the son of the late Attorney General and Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in California in 1968 while running for president. Kennedy is the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, who was assassinated in Dallas, Texas in 1963.
This Kennedy has made a name for himself as a prominent anti-vaccination figure.
He joins spiritual guru Marianne Williamson in the less-crowded field of the Democratic presidency.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. officially challenges President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the son of Robert F. Kennedy (left), the late Attorney General and US Senator who was assassinated in 1968 while running for president. He is the nephew of President John F. Kennedy who was assassinated in 1963
Biden has yet to officially announce a re-election campaign, but has indicated he plans to run for a second term.
This isn’t the first time someone from the Kennedy clan has challenged an incumbent Democratic president.
The late Senator Ted Kennedy ran before President Jimmy Carter for the Democratic nomination in 1980.
Carter was plagued by low approval ratings and a sluggish economy.
Biden has had to contend with his own lackluster registration numbers and rebuild the economy after it collapsed during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In March, Kennedy began teasing a presidential bid.
“If it looks like I can raise the money and mobilize enough people to win, I’ll jump in,” he tweeted at the time. “If I run, my top priority will be to end the corrupt merger between state and corporate power that has ruined our economy, crushed the middle class, polluted our landscapes and waterways, poisoned our children, and robbed us of our values and freedoms. ‘
But more than 15 years ago he became fixated on the belief that vaccines are not safe. He went on to become one of the leading voices in the anti-vaccine movement, and his work has been described as misleading and dangerous by public health experts and even members of his own family.
Kennedy has long been involved in the anti-vaccine movement, but efforts have intensified following the COVID-19 pandemic and the development of the COVID-19 vaccine.
His anti-vaccine charity, Children’s Health Defense, has thrived during the pandemic, with revenue more than doubling to $6.8 million in 2020, according to filings filed with charity regulators.
His organization has directed false claims against groups who may be more inclined to distrust the vaccine, including mothers and black Americans, experts say, which could have resulted in deaths during the pandemic.
Kennedy published a book, The Real Anthony Fauci, in 2021, in which he accused America’s top infectious disease doctor of helping “a historic coup d’etat against Western democracy” and promoted unproven COVID-19 treatments like ivermectin, which contribute to Treatment of parasites and the antimalarial drug hydroxychloroquine.
His push against the COVID-19 vaccine has at times linked him to anti-democracy figures and groups.
Kennedy has appeared at events where he spread the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and with people cheering or downplaying the January 6 riot in the US Capitol.
A photo posted to Instagram showed Kennedy backstage at a Reawaken America event in July 2021 with former President Donald Trump’s ally Roger Stone, former national security adviser Michael Flynn and anti-vaccination activist Charlene Bollinger.
All three have spread the lie that the 2020 election was stolen.
The photo was posted but later removed by Bollinger, who has appeared with Kennedy at multiple events.
She and her husband sponsored an anti-vaccine, pro-Trump rally Jan. 6 near the Capitol.
Bollinger celebrated the attack and her husband attempted to enter the Capitol.
Kennedy later appeared in a video for her Super PAC.
Kennedy has repeatedly invoked Nazis and the Holocaust when discussing measures aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19, such as mask requirements and vaccination requirements.
He has sometimes apologized for these comments, including when he implied that people in 2022 would be worse off than Anne Frank, the teenager who died in a Nazi concentration camp after spending two years living with her family in hidden in a back building in an Amsterdam house.
Kennedy has at times invoked his family legacy in his anti-vaccine work, including sometimes using images of President Kennedy.
His sister Kerry Kennedy, who directs Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the international human rights group founded by her mother Ethel, said her brother occasionally removed some content at her request.
She told the Associated Press in a 2021 interview that her brother was “completely wrong and very dangerous on this issue.”