(ReclaimingAmerica.net) – Anti-vaccine advocate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has officially challenged President Joe Biden for the 2024 nomination of the Democratic Party.
The 69-year-old environmental lawyer formally launched his 2024 presidential campaign at an event at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston on Wednesday, The New York Post reported.
Kennedy, who in recent years made headlines as an outspoken critic of COVID-19 vaccines, is the nephew of President John F. Kennedy and the son of former US Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated while running in the 1968 presidential election.
Ahead of his formal campaign announcement, Robert Kennedy Jr. was introduced on stage by his wife, actress Cheryl Hines.
“My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign, and throughout my presidency, will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that is threatening now to impose a new kind of corporate feudalism on our country,” the anti-vaccine advocate declared.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has thus become the third official candidate in the 2024 race for the presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.
President Joe Biden announced last Friday that he would seek reelection, though he has yet to launch his campaign.
Self-help author and leftist activist Marianne Williamson has also announced she is running but hasn’t launched her campaign formally.
She also ran for president in 2020 when she dropped out early and endorsed Bernie Sanders.
Pundits have described Williamson and Robert Kennedy Jr.’s nomination bids as “long shots.”
Before the coronavirus pandemic, the latter was best known as an environmental lawyer working on issues such as clean water.
Kennedy Jr. emerged as a critic of vaccines even before the pandemic, but his anti-vax rhetoric grew more robust, especially as the shots against COVID-19 were being developed.
The New York Post points out that members of the Kennedy family have been against his political aspirations, with the family’s biographer Laurence Leamer saying they were “disgusted with his attitude.”
“They still care about him, but he’s an embarrassment,” Leamer commented earlier this month after Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he was mulling a 2024 presidential nomination candidacy.
“If it looks like I can raise the money and mobilize enough people to win, I’ll jump in the race,” Kennedy Jr. wrote on Twitter at the time.
“If I run, my top priority will be to end the corrupt merger between state and corporate power that has ruined our economy, shattered the middle class, polluted our landscapes and waters, poisoned our children, and robbed us of our values and freedoms. Together we can restore America’s democracy,” he elaborated.
Robert Kennedy Jr. announces Democratic 2024 presidential bid https://t.co/iVVEZntBQm pic.twitter.com/3WD0ElRsUM
— New York Post (@nypost) April 19, 2023
