Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Monday he was shifting his 2024 Presidential campaign to run as an independent, ending his effort to defeat President Biden in the Democratic primaries.
“I’m here to declare myself an independent candidate for president of the United States,” Kennedy said in remarks in Philadelphia on Monday.
In July during a GOP-led House hearing, RFK Jr. defended himself against accusations that he traffics in racist, antisemitic and anti-vaccine conspiracy theories. Decrying his critics, he testified, “This is an attempt to censor a censorship hearing,” adding, “The First Amendment was not written for easy speech. It was a speech that nobody likes you for.”
Just days ahead of his appearance before Congress, several members of Kennedy’s own family publicly rebuked him for pushing theories that Covid-19 was targeted to hit certain ethnic groups while sparing at Jewish and Chinese people.
And amid his announcement to run as an independent on Monday his sister, Kerry Kennedy, posted on social media, “Bobby might share the same name as our father, but he does not share the same values, vision or judgment. Today’s announcement is deeply saddening for us. We denounce his candidacy and believe it to be perilous for our country,” adding a statement she signed along with siblings Rory Kennedy, Joe Kennedy and Kathleen Kennedy Townsend.
They’re the children of assassinated Senator and Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Sr. and heirs to the most prominent Democratic political dynasty.
Running as an independent positions 69-year-old RFK Jr. to challenge President Biden and former President Trump, the current front-runner for the 2024 Republican nomination, while leaning on his anti-establishment platform and bypassing both parties’ primary rules.
