The Weirdest Moments of RFK Jr.’s Historically Weird Presidential Campaign – Rolling Stone
By Naomi LaChance
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s extremely colorful run for office has come to an end, but it will not be forgotten. Since his campaign began last April, the anti-vaxxer told us about his brain worm, his uncertainty around 9/11, and the time that he left a dead bear cub in Central Park. Democrats have made hay calling Donald Trump, J.D. Vance, and Republicans “weird,” but Kennedy exists on a plane of strangeness inaccessible to anyone operating within the two-party system. As the cash-strapped Independent reportedly prepares to drop out of the race and endorse Trump, here are some of the most bizarre moments from his failed — but memorable — campaign.
In May, The New York Times reported that in a 2012 deposition Kennedy said doctors found a dead worm in his brain, which contributed to memory loss and mental fog. He explained that what doctors found in scans “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died.”
RFK responded by posting on X: “I offer to eat 5 more brain worms and still beat President Trump and President Biden in a debate.”
Kennedy posted a video in early August in an attempt to get ahead of a New Yorker profile that included a story about how in 2014 he left a dead bear in Central Park. In the video, Kennedy explains that he was in the Hudson Valley when he says he saw a woman hit a bear cub with her car. He says planned to skin the bear and “put the meat in my refrigerator.” He took the bear carcass and spent the day doing falconry, drove back to New York for dinner, then had to get on a plane. He needed to do something with the bear, though, so he decided it would be funny to dump it in Central Park and create the impression that a cyclist hit it. He did so, and the next day the dead bear was a major local news story. No one knew how the bear got into the park — until now.
Looking forward to seeing how you spin this one, @NewYorker… pic.twitter.com/G13taEGzba
Kennedy later told the New York Post that he has been picking up roadkill all of his life. At one point, he said, he had a “freezer full of it.” He continued that he had a “thousand cubic foot freezer full of roadkill.”
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In July, Vanity Fair published a story on Kennedy’s dark past that included an accusation that he sexually assaulted a family babysitter. Eliza Cooney alleged that in 1998, when she was 23, Kennedy came up behind her in the kitchen pantry and groped her breasts. On another occasion, a shirtless Kennedy allegedly asked her to rub lotion on his back.
The crazy part is that Kennedy did not deny the allegations. “Listen,” he responsed on a podcast, “I’ve said this from the beginning. I’m not a church boy. I am not running like that. I had a very, very rambunctious youth.”
“I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world,” he added.
The bear story is not the only time Kennedy has appeared to be an adventurous eater. The Vanity Fair story on Kennedy’s past included an image of Kennedy making like he was eating what was speculated to be a dog. He said that he was actually eating a goat in Patagonia.
He expanded on his culinary morals in an interview with NewsNation: “I’ll eat virtually anything. There’s two things I wouldn’t eat. Well, three. I wouldn’t eat a human, I wouldn’t eat a monkey, and I wouldn’t eat a dog. I think I’d eat anything else, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do those things, so it is a goat and you are what you eat.”
Thank you for sharing!
Kennedy held a sweepstakes to win a day of falconry with him on his campaign’s website. “Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. discovered hawking when he was 9 years old and has been involved in the sport ever since. It’s one of the great joys of his life. And now, he’d like to share his love of hawking with you.”
I started doing hawking when I was 9 years old and there's not been any time in my life since then that I haven't had birds and haven't been involved in the sport. It's one of the great joys of my life. pic.twitter.com/y7h2WGS0tE
Kennedy also has two pet ravens, and he claims they can talk “like a parrot.” At one point, he had a pet emu that would attack his wife.
RFK Jr. apologized last month after his son leaked a video of him talking on the phone with Donald Trump about vaccine conspiracy theories. “When you feed a baby, Bobby,” Trump apparently said, “a vaccination that is like 38 different vaccines, and it looks like it’s meant for a horse, not a, you know, 10 pound or 20 pound baby.”
Trump seemingly offered Kennedy an administration spot in the phone call. The Washington Post later reported that the two have discussed an administration position, contingent on Kennedy dropping out and endorsing Trump.
Last year, video surfaced that showed Kennedy saying: “Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese. We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted that or not.”
He said the story was “mistaken,” but also mentioned a study that “shows that COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races.”
This year, a TV station in Maine gave Kennedy another opportunity to respond. “All I was doing,” he said, “was quoting an NIH [National Institutes of Health] funded paper that anybody can look up … that was funded by the United States government … that showed that certain races were more susceptible.”
He continued: “The races that it was least compatible with were people from Finland. The second most was Ashkenazi Jews. The third most was Chinese nationals. It was most compatible with Blacks, with people from Africa, and with Caucasians.” Kennedy attempted to clarify: “There are ethnically targeted bio-weapons. I never said that Covid was one of those.”
RFK Jr. apologized in February after his super PAC ran a Super Bowl ad that recreated a famous ad for former President John F. Kennedy, his uncle, but with pictures of himself. This was after JFK’s grandson called the campaign “an embarrassment.”
Bobby Shriver, RFK’s cousin, posted on X that the ad “used our uncle’s faces — and my Mother’s. She would be appalled by his deadly health care views.”
“I’m so sorry if the Super Bowl advertisement caused anyone in my family pain,” Kennedy responded on X. “The ad was created and aired by the American Values Super PAC without any involvement or approval from my campaign. FEC rules prohibit Super PACs from consulting with me or my staff. I love you all. God bless you.”
Last year, Kennedy told Elon Musk in a long-winded X interview that he blames school shootings on anti-depressants. “I also am going to look very closely at the role of psychiatric drugs in these events,” Kennedy promised. “And there are no good studies right now. That should have been done years ago on this issue, because there’s a tremendous circumstantial evidence [that] SSRIs and benzos and other drugs are doing this.”
He added: “Prior to the introduction of Prozac, we had almost none of these events in our country.”
In June, CNN excluded Kennedy from the presidential debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden because he didn’t meet certain criteria. Kennedy’s solution was to hold his own debate — by himself. Kennedy stood behind a podium and watched the CNN debate, which he would pause and offer his own responses to the questions.
In July, Kennedy said he was unsure of his take on 9/11. He posted on X: “My take on 9/11: It’s hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn’t. But conspiracy theories flourish when the government routinely lies to the public.”
He continued: “As President I won’t take sides on 9/11 or any of the other debates. But I can promise is that I will open the files and usher in a new era of transparency.” He said that he was referring to a CBS 60 Minutes segment on possible involvement by Saudi Arabia. He promised transparency on the matter should he become president.
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