Robert Kennedy Jr., a noted vaccine skeptic, files to run for president

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the political activist known most recently for his campaign to discredit coronavirus vaccines, filed paperwork on Wednesday to run for president as a Democrat, offering a potential long-shot challenge to President Joe Biden.

Kennedy, the son and namesake of Robert F. Kennedy, who was assassinated while running for president in 1968, has not made a formal announcement. However, he teased a run at a political gathering in New Hampshire last month, telling a crowd: “I’ve passed the biggest hurdle, which is, my wife has greenlighted it.”

He has set up a website to solicit donations and volunteers for a potential run, and a tweet pinned to his Twitter account says he will run if “I can raise the money and mobilize enough people to win.”

Kennedy, 69, was once a top environmental lawyer, but his interests veered away from the Democratic mainstream into conspiracy theories, for which he has earned the public rebuke of some members of his prominent family. A longtime vaccine skeptic, he linked childhood vaccinations to autism, a claim thoroughly rebuked by medical experts.

In a recent book, he claimed that Dr. Anthony Fauci, who was Biden’s top medical adviser for the coronavirus pandemic, and Bill Gates, the co-founder of Microsoft, conspired with drug companies to profit from vaccines. Instagram blocked Kennedy’s account for spreading vaccine misinformation in 2021.

If he becomes a candidate, Kennedy wrote on Twitter, his top priority will be to “end the corrupt merger between state and corporate power.”

While many Democrats express concerns about Biden as a candidate in 2024, when he would be 81 on Election Day, no major party leaders are actively exploring a primary challenge. The only well-known announced challenger to date is author Marianne Williamson, who also ran in 2020.