RFK Jr. says he’s not anti-vaccine. His record shows the opposite. It’s one of many inconsistencies

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. rose to prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic because of his strident opposition to vaccines. Yet, he insists he’s not anti-vaccine. He has associated with influential people on the far right – including Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon and Michael Flynn – to raise his profile. Yet, he portrays himself as a true Democrat inheriting the mantle of the Kennedy family.

As he challenges President Joe Biden, the stories he tells on the campaign trail about himself, his life’s work and what he stands for are often the opposite of what his record actually shows.

Though Kennedy’s primary challenge to a sitting president is widely considered a longshot, he’s been sucking up media attention due to his famous name and the possibility that his run could weaken Biden ahead of what is expected to be a close general election in 2024. He’s drawn praise from Republican presidential candidates like Donald Trump and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. Meanwhile, Trump supporters, including his longtime ally Roger Stone, have ginned up interest by floating a Trump-Kennedy unity ticket.

Debra Duvall, 62, who lives in Fort Myers, Florida, and said she serves on the Lee County GOP executive committee, described herself as a longtime Trump supporter, but said she’s torn for 2024.

“I’ll take Trump or RFK. Either one,” she said, explaining that she was drawn to both because she believes they can’t be bought.

That kind of support has demonstrated some of the contradictions in Kennedy’s candidacy. He has said he wants to “reclaim” the Democratic Party, while aligning himself with far right figures who have worked to subvert American democracy. He touts his credentials as an environmentalist, yet pushes bitcoin — a cryptocurrency that requires massive amounts of electricity from supercomputers to generate new coins, prompting most environmental advocates to loudly oppose it.

And though he peppers his speeches, podcast appearances and campaign materials with invocations of the Democratic Party legacies of his uncle President John F. Kennedy and his father, Robert F. Kennedy, his relatives have distanced themselves from him and even denounced him.

“He’s trading in on Camelot, celebrity, conspiracy theories and conflict for personal gain and fame,” Jack Schlossberg, President Kennedy’s grandson, said of his cousin in an Instagram video in July. “I’ve listened to him. I know him. I have no idea why anyone thinks he should be president. What I do know is, his candidacy is an embarrassment.”

Kennedy’s recent comments that COVID-19 could have been “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people — which he denies were antisemitic but concedes he should have worded more carefully — also drew a condemnation from his sister Kerry Kennedy.

The contradictions between what Kennedy says and his track record were nowhere more apparent than when he testified before a congressional committee in July at the invitation of Republican members.

Anti-vaccine activists, some who work for Kennedy’s nonprofit group Children’s Health Defense, sat in the rows behind him, watching as he insisted “I have never been anti-vaxx. I have never told the public to avoid vaccination.”

But that’s not true. Again and again, Kennedy has made his opposition to vaccines clear. In July, Kennedy said in a podcast interview that “There’s no vaccine that is safe and effective” and told FOX News that he still believes in the long-ago debunked idea that vaccines can cause autism. In a 2021 podcast he urged people to “resist” CDC guidelines on when kids should get vaccines.

“I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby and I say to him, better not get them vaccinated,” Kennedy said.

That same year, in a video promoting an anti-vaccine sticker campaign by his nonprofit, Kennedy appeared onscreen next to one sticker that declared “IF YOU’RE NOT AN ANTI-VAXXER YOU AREN’T PAYING ATTENTION.”

A close examination of Kennedy’s campaign finance filings shows that the anti-vaccine movement lies at the heart of his campaign.

Several of his campaign staff and consultants have worked for his anti-vaccine group Children’s Health Defense, including Mary Holland, the group’s president on leave, campaign spokeswoman Stefanie Spear, and Zen Honeycutt, who hosted a show for the group’s TV channel, CHD TV.