It’s been 55 years since a gunman fatally shot his father – a presidential candidate at the time − but Robert F. Kennedy Jr. can still vividly remember details of the tragedy.
“We would slow to a crawl as we went through those stations, and we could hear them singing the Battle Hymn of the Republic,” he said of the crowds lining the tracks and watching the train carrying his father’s body from New York City to Washington, D.C. Kennedy recalled the train ride during a town hall earlier this month in the Philadelphia suburb of Norristown that coincided with the anniversary of his father’s assassination.
Kennedy, then 14, remembers watching nuns wave handkerchiefs and rosaries, women hold up babies and little league players with their hands on their hearts during the nearly 8-hour train ride that normally takes closer to three.
An heir to the storied political family, Kennedy is now on his own political journey. The 69-year-old, who bears the Kennedy family resemblance, though with a weathered face and raspy voice, is vying for the White House.
And just like his famous father, he is challenging an incumbent president of his own party.
On the Norristown campaign stop, Kennedy condemned the “toxic polarization that is really destroying our country.” Like his father in the 1960s, he lauds a similar crusade, but is instead campaigning on his belief that current leaders in the Democratic Party amplify division and push lies.
The junior Kennedy has his family’s name, but lacks his ancestors’ popularity and is perceived differently in the public eye −in part for pushing anti-vaccine views that are at odds with what government agencies and prominent public health experts say. More diseases, like measles, can occur in communities with pockets of unvaccinated people, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Kennedy sees himself as the only candidate who can return the Democratic Party back to the ideals of his relatives. But skeptics say his platform crosses the political spectrum, ranging from those of a “Kennedy Democrat” to issues that resonate more with the right.
Former President Donald Trump, the current GOP frontrunner, recently called Kennedy a “very smart guy and a good guy” on a radio show.
Other Trump allies are also supporting him, including former Fox News host Tucker Carlson who dedicated an episode of his Twitter show to Kennedy. Steve Bannon, a former senior aide in Trump’s White House, promoted Kennedy on his War Room podcast in April.
The candidate has also found favor and airtime with other celebrities. Joe Rogan, a talk show host who has been critical of the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines, hosted Kennedy on his show to discuss vaccines. Rogan backed Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., in the 2020 presidential race and has been supportive of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican candidate, so far this year.
Kennedy has had to defend many of his own claims, specifically around his views that vaccines are linked to autism. Vaccines do not cause autism, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as well as the National Institutes of Health.
These views have led critics to question his stances− such as comments Kennedy made in a video recently circulating on social media where he falsely claims AIDS is caused not by HIV, but by a “gay lifestyle” and addiction to drugs historically used in the LGBTQ community.
But his candidacy resonates with some. A May 25 CNN poll found Kennedy polling at 20 percent in the Democratic field against President Joe Biden and self-help author Marianne Williamson.
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A Kennedy descendant
He is the fourth member of the family running for president with the Kennedy name.
The son of former U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who also served as a New York senator, and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, both Democrats assassinated in the 1960s, the junior Kennedy told USA TODAY having the family name behind him will help him in the race.
However, not all his relatives support him. Several family members in 2019 wrote a POLITICO op-ed condemning Kennedy for spreading misinformation about vaccines and saying his views on the issue are wrong, writing that Kennedy “spread dangerous misinformation” and ” is complicit in sowing distrust of the science behind vaccines.”
Others have publicly said in the media they will not vote for him in 2024.
But Kennedy said despite the disagreements, he has a great relationship with his family.
“We were raised to argue and dispute each other at the dinner table every night. My grandfather did this with his children. My father and mother did it with us to get us to take positions and to argue our case,” he told USA TODAY during a May interview.
A Harvard graduate, Kennedy worked at several environmental nonprofits serving as an environmental lawyer at the Natural Resources Defense Council and as president of the Waterkeeper Alliance for more than 20 years. His advocacy focused on clean water, the environment, energy and human rights.
He later started his own nonprofit, the Children’s Health Defense, which he formed with vaccine safety advocates. The organization focuses on anti-vaccine messaging, claiming its mission is to “end childhood health epidemics by working aggressively to eliminate harmful exposures.”
During COVID-19, Kennedy criticized the government’s handling of the pandemic and vaccines − even losing his Instagram account for spreading misinformation about the virus. He criticized the lockdowns, suggesting things were worse for Americans than they were for Anne Frank, the teenager who hid with her family during the Nazi persecution and died in a concentration camp.
Kennedy later apologized for the comments. It marked the second time he apologized for comparing Nazis and the Holocaust to public health measures. In 2015, he used the word “Holocaust” to describe children he believes were hurt by vaccines.
A campaign of controversy: ‘Show me where I’m wrong’
Kennedy defends his views on vaccines and his criticism for how the government handled the COVID-19 pandemic to those who say his views aren’t based on facts.
“It’s irrelevant,” he said in May. “There’s no Democratic version of the truth or Republican version of the truth. We should have evidence-based policy and I think everybody ultimately would like to support that.”
He added during the campaign event in Norristown, “If you can show me a study that is a well-founded study that challenges my position, I’ll just change my position.”
For some voters, the evidence is not convincing.
Julie Centafont left Kennedy’s town hall in Norristown feeling that some of his positions “are a little bit out there for me.”
“He needs to hone his message,” Centafont, who identifies as center-left on the political spectrum, said. “If he’s going to make claims, he has to be clear in what the claims are and then support them.”
A ‘topsy turvy’ party definition
Kennedy struggles to label himself when asked where he falls on the political spectrum.
“I think the party definitions are so topsy turvy right now, I wouldn’t know how to describe myself,” he told USA TODAY. “I would describe myself as a liberal Democrat which means I’m for civil liberties, I’m against war, I’m against corporate domination, I’m against censorship.”
“But I don’t know now, those are kind of Republican issues now, strangely,” he added.
On issues like gun control, Kennedy says he leans right and said in Norristown he has no plans to take away anyone’s guns. On abortion, he feels the government should not be telling people what to do with their bodies and it should be up to the woman during the first three months of pregnancy.
“I feel like there is a hunger for a different direction,” he told USA TODAY. “People do not like the direction our country is going and they don’t particularly think that President Trump or President Biden are going to do a course correction.”
A derailment of the Democratic Party
Kennedy told USA TODAY his motivation for the campaign stems from feeling the country is headed down the wrong path.
“My political party, the Democratic Party, seemed to just have derailed and was just a slow-motion train wreck,” he said.
He feels the Democratic Party is departing from the values he witnessed growing up. Now, Kennedy says Democrats are the party of censorship, war, Wall Street, and Neocons − a word he uses to describe those who “believe the collapse of Soviet Union meant that the United States had to earn the ability to rule the world.”
The middle class has been abandoned by the Democratic Party, he said, and are now migrating to “demagogues like Donald Trump.”
He says his strategy to reboot the country is simple: Tell the truth.
“I think that’s where it all begins,” he said.
The messaging resonates with Bren Logan, a registered independent who lives in the greater Philadelphia area. She plans on never voting for a Democratic candidate again, unless Kennedy is the nominee.
“He’s the only Democrat I will vote for probably for the rest of my life,” she said. “Unless he restores the Democratic Party to what it once was trying to be.”
Logan said she felt “pure elation” when he launched his campaign.
“I don’t think people are really being given a fair chance to hear who he truly is, what platforms he’s truly running on − to tell the truth and heal the divide and reinstitute common sense,” she said.
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An effort to garner support
Kennedy has also garnered other big-name endorsers: Comedian Rob Schneider; football quarterback Aaron Rodgers; actress Alicia Silverstone; former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey and the far-right InfoWars host Alex Jones.
The presidential candidate said part of his campaign strategy is to reach all supporters— even those registered to the opposite party.
“I’ll talk to anybody who will talk to me,” he said. “The only people I’m not talking to are Steve Bannon and Alex Jones, and personally if it were up to me, I would talk to them, but my wife would probably leave me if I did that.”
Kennedy recently participated with Elon Musk in a Twitter space, the same platform where Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis announced his presidential campaign. Kennedy praised alternative media platforms like the Twitter space for giving him a “vector for reaching Americans without going through the corporate media.”
“That’s my only path to victory,” he told USA TODAY.
The presidential candidate spoke for more than two hours with guests including Musk and Tulsi Gabbard, a former Democratic House representative who left the party and registered as an independent.
“Twitter was always kind of the last refuge for those of us who were trying to talk about issues that departed from the official orthodoxies and were being censored on the other platforms,” he said during the Twitter space, calling Musk’s arrival at the social media company a “breath of fresh air for our country.”
He told USA TODAY that alternative media including social media and podcasts provide him with the format to give detailed responses or two-hour speeches that aren’t 30-second television hits.
“I think that podcasting is a good media for me because my weakest thing is these short media, five minutes on air because it takes about five-to-ten minutes for my voice to warm up,” he said. Kennedy has spasmodic dysphonia, a neurological disorder that affects his speech.
Sean Rad, who is the co-founder and former CEO of the dating app Tinder, is helping run Kennedy’s digital campaign using platforms like TikTok. Kennedy’s Instagram was recently reinstated in June after the company removed it for COVID-19 misinformation.
A campaign ‘largely misunderstood’
Kennedy claims his campaign is “largely misunderstood” in the media with most coverage including misstatements about his beliefs or taking his words out of context.
“Listen to what I say rather than what people say that I said,” he advised voters. “Make up your mind based on what I said rather than a mischaracterization or somebody else’s characterization of what I said.”
James Taulbee, a retired veteran and small business owner from York County, Pennsylvania, does just that.
“I love that Bobby brings the receipts,” he said. The 43-year-old sported a “Kennedy for president” T-shirt at the Norristown town hall.
Jamal Heacock, an information technology manager who also heard Kennedy speak in Norristown, described the presidential candidate as “an absolutely fascinating blend of passionate intelligence and crazy.”
Having the Kennedy name has always been a leg up in the political sphere, but a mixed response from voters coupled with running against an incumbent president make the odds of winning the Democratic primary seem long for the junior Kennedy.
“My only strategy is to tell the truth to the people,” Kennedy said. “If there’s an appetite for that, then I’ll be president in 2025.”
