Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has filed papers to compete for President of the United States as a Democrat in 2024.
The 69-year-old is the assassinated Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s son and President John F. Kennedy’s nephew. John E Sullivan, the environmental lawyer’s campaign treasurer, verified the filing on Wednesday. According to the company, Kennedy is an outspoken anti-vaccine campaigner. In 2021, Instagram deactivated his account for “repeatedly sharing debunked claims.”
Both the Democratic and Republican parties conduct their own presidential nomination contests, known as primaries. Kennedy will be considered an outsider for the Democratic candidature. US President Joe Biden has indicated that he intends to run for re-election, though he has not officially declared his candidacy yet.
He was supposed to launch his campaign in early April, but top aides claim that has changed. According to CBS News, the BBC’s US partner, he is now likely to formally announce a run in early summer.
Marianne Williamson, another Democrat, entered the presidential contest last month. Kennedy announced on Twitter in March that he was contemplating running for president. At that time he said that If he run, his top priority will be to end the corrupt merger of state and corporate power that has ruined their economy, shattered the middle class, polluted their landscapes and waters, poisoned their children, and robbed them of our values and freedoms.
In March, Kennedy told a crowd in New Hampshire that he had “passed the biggest hurdle” – his wife’s approval for the run. Kennedy received praise as the co-founder of an environmental law firm for his work on problems such as clean water, including efforts to clean up the Hudson River in New York. However, his anti-vaccine beliefs date back years and have sparked a strong backlash, including from members of his own family. Kerry Kennedy, his sister, called him “very dangerous” on the subject in 2021.
