Anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr raised as much as $3 million in just three days in late June, his presidential campaign has claimed.
Aides to the assassinated President JFK’s nephew said the prospective Democratic nominee raised the money June 28-30 before a key deadline for filing financial statements.
They said the former environmental lawyer has convinced donors to chip in just over $6 million since he launched his main challenge to Joe Biden in April.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr, who has faced criticism for his anti-vaccine views, will officially challenge President Joe Biden for the Democratic nomination.
RFK campaign manager Dennis Kucinich: ‘Mr. Kennedy is taking notice because the public is fed up with the media smears. People are responding to the attacks by opening their wallets.”
All White House hopefuls are required by law to tell US electoral authorities how they are financing their presidential candidacies.
The cash haul, if confirmed by the Federal Election Commission, could raise new concerns for the Biden campaign.
The New York Times reported Monday that a political action committee supporting Kennedy also raised $10.25 million.
The left-leaning newspaper also told the nonprofit organization American Values 2024, that the donations came from both Republicans and Democrats.
Hopeful RFK, who launched his presidential bid on April 19, garnered double-digit support in some recent polls of Democratic voters.
But party officials are known to be eager to prevent the current commander-in-chief from facing a major challenge.
His policies include ending “forever wars,” cleaning up the government, and restoring America’s middle class.
So far, only self-help author Marianne Williamson has also declared her intention to oppose Biden.
While RFK still trails Biden in the polls, the 80-year-old has faced many concerns from Democrats about his age and physical and mental stamina.
Concerns have been raised about Joe Biden’s fitness for office after the 80-year-old made a series of high-profile mistakes.
Kennedy’s scion has also faced controversy, as his own family publicly denounced him for his unsubstantiated claims about vaccine safety.
The 69-year-old has been vocal in his criticism of the COVID-19 vaccine and others, some of which he has linked to children developing autism, for years.
Among his other beliefs that were challenged in the interview were that AIDS patients can only develop the disease after first contracting HIV, and that 5G and Wi-Fi can be dangerous.
Social media campaigns by the former environmental lawyer’s anti-vaccine advocacy platform, Children’s Health Defense, were taken down by Instagram and Facebook last year.
Kennedy’s personal account had already been deleted in 2021 as part of a crackdown by parent company Meta over what it called “false and misleading” information about Covid.
His sister Kerry Kennedy, who runs Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the international rights group founded by their mother, Ethel, said her brother sometimes removed content at her request.
She told the Associated Press in a 2021 interview that her brother is “completely wrong on this issue and very dangerous.”
His anti-vaccine charity has thrived, with revenue more than doubling in 2020 to $6.8 million, according to documents filed with charity regulators.
RFK Jr. has also repeatedly accused the CIA of playing a role in the assassinations of his uncle, JFK, and his father, Bobby Kennedy.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is the son of Robert F. Kennedy (left), the late attorney general and US senator who was assassinated in 1968 during a presidential race. He is the nephew of President John F. Kennedy, assassinated in 1963.
He launched his campaign at Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel on April 19 with his wife Cheryl Hines, the Curb Your Enthusiasm actress.
Recently, he also suggested that there was an increase in school shootings because more young people were taking antidepressants like Prozac.
His presidential run could also put his colorful private life under a microscope.
The father of six married his third wife, Curb Your Enthusiasm star Cheryl Hines, in 2014.
He filed for divorce from his second wife Mary in 2012, the mother of four of his children: Conor, Finny, Kyra and Aidan.
Four days later, she was found hanged at her home in Mount Kisco, New York, allegedly convinced her ex-husband had been having an affair.
Kennedy is said to have proposed to Mary while still married to his first wife, Emily Black, whom he separated from in 1992 and divorced two years later.
In 2013, the New York Post managed to obtain a leaked copy of one of Kennedy’s 2001 diaries in which he described his battle with his “lust demons.”
The sleazy 398-page diary, which details his daily political activities, also includes a scorecard of more than two dozen sexual conquests racked up behind his second wife’s back.
They included the women’s names but had numbers from 1 to 10 next to each entry.
The codes corresponded to sexual acts, with 10 being full sexual intercourse.
Hines was introduced to RFK Jr by Curb Your Enthusiasm co-star Larry David in 2012.
In the entries, Kennedy repeatedly portrays himself as a victim who has been hopelessly seduced by a series of women.
I narrowly escaped being mugged by a double team of [two women]. He was tempting but I prayed, and God gave me the strength to say no’, he wrote on February 6 of that year.
On May 21, he writes about hosting Leonardo DiCaprio’s dinner party, taking the actor to town.
He then met another person in Manhattan, claiming they “mugged him on the way home”, taping a 10 with a woman’s name next to it.
“I have to do better,” he wrote at the time.
In another entry, Kennedy vows to “avoid the company of women.” You don’t have the strength to resist his charms’ and to ‘be humble like a monk’. Keep your hands on you. Look away.
The Kennedy scion began dating actress Hines in 2011 amid a bitter dispute with his ex-wife Mary over custody and finances that ended when she tragically took her own life.
