Robert F Kennedy Jr

The decision by Robert F Kennedy Jr to suspend his presidential campaign brings to an end one of the most bizarre campaigns of recent times.Kennedy, who introduced the general public to the concept of “leaky brain” and the idea that chemicals in water were making children transgender, initially ran for the Democratic nomination but launched an independent campaign in October 2023.His efforts failed to gain traction but left the public with some unusual, and some unsavory, memories.1. The bear cubIn early August, Kennedy had a problem. The New Yorker magazine had got hold of a story about his exploits with a dead bear cub 10 years earlier. Kennedy decided to get ahead of the New Yorker’s scoop, and tell the story himself in a video posted on Twitter.And what a story it was. It emerged that Kennedy had found a dead bear cub on the side of the road, loaded it in the back of his car, taken a photo with the corpse, left to do some falconing, had a steak dinner, then staged the decomposing bear’s death to look like a bicycle hit-and-run incident in a local park before heading to the airport.2. The sexual assault allegationsEliza Cooney, who worked for Kennedy and his then wife as a live-in nanny at the family’s home in Mount Kisco, New York, told Vanity Fair in July that Kennedy sexually assaulted her at the home in 1998. Cooney alleged that Kennedy touched her leg at a business meeting and later appeared shirtless in her bedroom before asking her to rub lotion on his back.A few months later, Kennedy “began groping” Cooney in the kitchen, Vanity Fair reported. Kennedy’s response was hardly an apology. Asked about the sexual assault allegation, Kennedy described the Vanity Fair article as “a lot of garbage”, before adding: “I am not a church boy.” Kennedy later said that he had texted Cooney to apologize.3. The brain wormIt emerged in April that Kennedy believed part of his brain had been eaten by a worm. The New York Times reported that Kennedy had made the claim during a deposition for his divorce in 2012. In the deposition Kennedy told lawyers: “I have cognitive problems, clearly. I have short-term memory loss, and I have longer-term memory loss that affects me.”Kennedy underwent brain scans of his head and subsequently discovered that the health issue “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died”.4. The dogAnother animal-related controversy. In July, Vanity Fair reported that in 2023 Kennedy sent a photograph of him “with the barbecued remains of what he suggested to the friend was a dog”. The picture showed an animal carcass, which had apparently been cooked on a spit. Kennedy said the carcass in the picture was a goat.The friend who received the text told Vanity Fair that Kennedy “sent me the picture with a recommendation to visit the best dog restaurant in Seoul, so he was certainly representing that this was a dog and not a goat. In any case, it’s grotesque.”5. The dubious claimsIn 2023, while still running as a Democrat, Kennedy appeared on the Joe Rogan podcast. There, Kennedy announced that wifi radiation caused something called “leaky brain”, which in turn causes cancer. Politifact spoke to scientific experts who disagreed, one of whom said there was no “clear evidence” for Kennedy’s claims.Another claim from Kennedy, in June 2023, that chemicals in drinking water were causing children to become transgender, appears to come from a study which showed certain chemicals could cause some male frogs to become female. CNN’s KFile spoke to an expert who pointed out that sex in frogs is based on environmental factors, including temperature, whereas the sex of humans is not. More

The controversy over Robert F Kennedy Jr’s exploits with a dead bear cub is just the latest bizarre twist to hit his presidential campaign and see him become a “laughingstock”, political experts said, but a laughingstock who, against all odds, could still have a serious impact on the election.Kennedy, the scion of the Democratic political family who is running as an independent candidate, was already known for unusual beliefs and actions before last week. His long-shot campaign for president had survived Kennedy’s claim that part of his brain was eaten by a worm, his longtime anti-vaccine activism, and his recent denials that he had eaten a dog.But the latest controversy to emerge around Kennedy might be the strange straw that broke the camel’s back. On 4 August it emerged that Kennedy had found a dead bear cub on the side of the road, loaded it in the back of his car, taken a photo with the corpse, gone to do some falconing, had a steak dinner, then staged the decomposing bear’s death to look like a bicycle hit-and-run incident in a local park before heading to the airport.“As soon as you start becoming a laughingstock in the public mind, you know you’re in trouble,” said Marjorie Hershey, professor emeritus of political science at Indiana University Bloomington. “And when the two most prominent things people think about when they think of RFK Jr is brain worms and dead bear cubs, you’re definitely in trouble.”Kennedy revealed the bear cub incident in an interview with Roseanne Barr, in an apparent attempt to get ahead of an article in the New Yorker. But it’s not clear his explanation of why he drove around with a dead bear in the trunk of his car helped his cause. Kennedy who was 60 years old at the time, told Barr that the bicycle accident aspect of the incident was done because he thought it would be “amusing”, but few seem to agree.It was especially unhelpful for Kennedy given his polls have been dropping for some time. Earlier in the year Kennedy was averaging about 10% of the national vote – currently he averages about half that. While Kennedy, as an independent candidate, was always very, very unlikely to win the election outright, he was hoping for a strong performance – something that now seems unlikely.Hershey said, however, that given the majority of Americans are not engaged in day-to-day politics, Kennedy’s early strong performance was always something of a mirage.“So I’m sure that there was a certain proportion of people who just heard the name Robert F Kennedy Jr, and attributed to him some of the qualities that they remembered in his father, or who just have a certain kind of shine to the Kennedy name,” she said.“And so virtually anything they hear about him is likely to tarnish that initial feeling as people get more information.”While the bear cub incident was unsavory, there have been weightier complaints against Kennedy. In July a former babysitter for Kennedy told Vanity Fair that Kennedy assaulted her at his home in 1998. Kennedy responded by stating: “I am not a church boy.”Last year he was forced to apologize after he claimed that Covid-19 was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people”, while Kennedy has claimed that wifi causes “leaky brain” and has linked antidepressants to school shootings. In 2023 he claimed that chemicals in water were making children transgender, while Kennedy has longstanding, and wrong, beliefs about apparently any and all vaccines.The video of Kennedy talking about how he hauled a bear carcass into the back of his car, then later staged a scene which attempted to make it look like the bear had been killed by a cyclist, might not actually be the most damaging footage of Kennedy to have emerged in the past month.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionA video posted online on 16 July showed a phone call between Trump and Kennedy where the former president appeared to offer an opportunity for the pair to work together in the future. The video came after reports – denied by Kennedy – that he might drop out and endorse Trump.“Part of perhaps why we’re seeing his numbers shrink is because of his credibility issues. This bizarre story about the bear, coupled with this video a few weeks ago speaks directly to the candidate’s credibility, and some voters may simply have a second look. His supporters may become disillusioned and decide not to participate at all,” said Emmitt Riley, a professor of politics and African and African American studies at Sewanee University and the chair of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists.Trump’s outreach suggests that he is fearful of Kennedy’s quixotic campaign. Kennedy’s aggressive attitude towards the border crisis, and promises to take on the Washington elite are reminiscent of some of Trump’s pledges, means they are fishing in at least parts of the same pool.“I see him more as a threat to Donald Trump, given that his supporters are looking for more of an ‘alternative’. I do not see voters who even at this stage would vote for RFK remotely even considering supporting Kamala Harris,” Riley said.But despite Kennedy’s past as an anti-vaccine campaigner who drove around with a dead animal in his car, and his present as an oddity, a punchline and someone sinking in the polls, Riley said he could still have an impact on the election – given how close the vote is expected to be in key swing states.“When we think about the margins that states like Michigan, Wisconsin, any of those midwestern states were decided in the last election, every single vote is going to count,” Riley said.“And so if it comes down to 30,000 votes, if it comes down to 5,000 votes, a small portion there [for Kennedy] would likely have a major impact on either Donald Trump’s ability to get to 270 or Kamala Harris’s ability to get to 270. And I think that that is what many people are concerned about.” More