Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a scion of one of the country’s most famous Democratic families, dove Monday into the full embrace of a host of conservative figures eagerly promoting his long-running primary challenge to President Biden.
For more than two hours, Mr. Kennedy engaged in an online audio chat on Twitter with the platform’s increasingly right-leaning CEO, Elon Musk. They went back and forth amicably with the likes of Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic congressman turned right-wing commentator; a top donor from Florida Governor Ron DeSantis; and a professional surfer who became a prominent voice casting doubt on coronavirus vaccines.
Mr. Kennedy, who announced his 2024 presidential campaign in April, is himself a leading vaccine skeptic and has promoted other conspiracy theories. Yet he has consistently hovered around 20 percent in Democratic primary polls, which the party has otherwise ceded to Mr Biden.
On Monday, he sounded like a candidate much more comfortable in the burgeoning Republican presidential battle.
He said he planned to travel to the Mexican border this week to “try to formulate a policy that will permanently close the border,” called on the federal government to look at the war in Ukraine from the perspective of the Russians and said pharmaceutical drugs were responsible for the rise of mass shootings in America.
“Before the introduction of Prozac, we had almost none of these events in our country and we have never seen them in the history of mankind where people walk into a classroom with children or strangers and start shooting people,” said Mr. Kennedy, who noted that both his father and uncle were killed by gunfire.
Mr Kennedy said he now had “about 50 people” working on his campaign. Unlike Marianne Williamson, Mr. Biden’s other heralded Democratic challenger, he does not seem keen to appeal to Democrats who are ideologically opposed to the moderate president or otherwise uncomfortable with renominating him. Instead, he has used his campaign platform – and his famous name – to promote disinformation and ideas that have little traction in his party.
During the discussion, David Sacks, a top DeSantis donor who is also close to Mr. Musk, was asked what happened to the Democratic Party. under the control of the pharmaceutical industry.
“I think the Democratic Party has become the party of the war,” Kennedy said. “I attribute that directly to President Biden.” He added, “He has always supported a very belligerent, belligerent and aggressive foreign policy, and he believes that violence is a legitimate political tool for furthering America’s objectives abroad.”
The Democratic National Committee and Mr. Biden’s campaign declined to comment on Mr. Kennedy.
The event, which had more than 60,000 listeners at its peak, according to Twitter, at times felt like Mr. Kennedy was interviewing Mr. Musk about his stewardship of Twitter, a platform that has lost more than half of its ad revenue since the billionaire bought it. in October. At the start of the event, the presidential candidate questioned the tech magnate for more than 30 minutes about the release of the so-called Twitter files, self-driving cars and artificial intelligence.
“These are really interesting topics for people, but I think a lot of the public would like to hear about your presidential run,” Musk told Kennedy.
Mr. Kennedy, 69, has long been an amplifier and propagator of baseless theories, beginning almost two decades ago with his skepticism about the outcome of the 2004 presidential election and common vaccines for children. His audience for such misinformation soared during the coronavirus pandemic.
On Monday, Mr. Kennedy repeated a host of false statements, including:
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He said that after the Affordable Care Act of 2010, “Democrats got more money from pharma than Republicans.” An analysis by STAT News found that political action committees associated with drug companies gave more money to Republicans than to Democrats in 14 of the 16 election years since 1990.
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He claimed, without evidence, that “Covid was clearly a biological weapons problem.” US intelligence agencies do not believe there is any evidence that this is the case.
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And while he blamed psychiatric drug use for the increase in gun violence in the United States, he argued that gun ownership in the US was similar to that in Switzerland. According to the latest international Small Arms Survey, the United States had the highest rate of civilian gun ownership in the world, estimated at 120.5 firearms per 100 people. That was more than double the second highest country, Yemen at 52.8, and much higher than Switzerland’s 27.6.
