Since Robert F. Kennedy Jr. launched his campaign challenging President Biden for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination, he has given hours of interviews to podcasts, magazines and TV networks. He paints a dark, conspiratorial picture of the world, bristling with debunked theories, misleading claims and outright falsehoods.
Wi-Fi causes cancer and "leaky brain," Kennedy told podcaster Joe Rogan last month. Antidepressants are to blame for school shootings, he mused during an appearance with Twitter CEO Elon Musk. Chemicals in the water supply could turn children transgender, he told right-wing Canadian psychologist and podcaster Jordan Peterson, echoing a false assertion made by serial fabulist Alex Jones. AIDS may not be caused by HIV, he has suggested multiple times.
There's no credible evidence for any of these assertions or for Kennedy's longest-running false claims: that vaccines cause autism and are more harmful than the diseases they're designed to protect against.
Yet Kennedy is building a campaign for the highest office around these conspiracy theories and the idea that fact-checking or criticizing them amounts to censorship. His throughline is the bedrock conspiratorial premise that "they" (the government, pharmaceutical companies, the media) are lying to you — but that he is telling the truth.
"This is what happens when you censor somebody for 18 years," Kennedy told a cheering crowd at his April campaign kickoff in Boston. "They shouldn't have shut me up...
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