STATEMENT: Donald Trump Claims Ownership of RFK Jr.’s Baggage at ABC Debate Arrow

Today, RFK Jr. will appear in the spin room on behalf of Donald Trump at the ABC debate in Philadelphia, PA. By aligning himself with RFK Jr. and making him a campaign surrogate, Donald Trump claims ownership of his extreme, fringe views - such as promoting conspiracy theories about 9/11 and vaccines - and his personal baggage - including sexual assault allegations, pulling erratic stunts like staging a bike accident with a dead bear cub in Central Park, and attempting to frame innocent men of color for murder.

In response, DNC Spokesperson Matt Corridoni released the following statement:

"When RFK Jr. walks into the spin room tonight he'll be bringing decades of baggage with him. Normal candidates would run from a surrogate who has pushed 9/11 conspiracy theories, advocated disinformation that led to a deadly measles outbreak, and had a worm eat part of his brain. Donald Trump is leaning in. RFK Jr. being asked to spin this evening should tell you everything you need to know about the type of unserious, dangerous, and extreme cast of characters Trump plans to surround himself with if re-elected."

RFK Jr. Has Repeatedly Promoted Conspiracy Theories About The September 11 Attacks

NBC: "Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posted on social media Friday that it's 'hard to tell what is a conspiracy theory and what isn't' when it comes to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."

Rolling Stone: "In a new interview on the podcast In the Room With Peter Bergen, produced by Fresh Produce Media for Audible, Kennedy told Bergen he didn't know whether or not he believes the official government explanation about 9/11, including whether al-Qaeda was responsible for the attack, asserting 'strange things happened.'"

Austin American Statesman:"The post was an apparent reference to Kennedy saying on a podcast last year that he had doubts about the official account of the deadly Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York's World Trade Center and the Pentagon, including whether al-Qaida bore responsibility. In the podcast, Kennedy said he was not a 9/11 expert, nor perhaps the best person to comment on the attacks. But, he added, 'I don't always accept official explanations.'"

RFK Jr. Has Said That He Would Sign A National Abortion Ban

Politico: "Speaking to NBC from the Iowa State Fair, Kennedy said, 'I believe a decision to abort a child should be up to the women during the first three months of life,' but added: 'Once a child is viable, outside the womb, I think then the state has an interest in protecting the child.' He said he would sign a federal ban on abortion after 15 weeks or 21 weeks of pregnancy if he were elected president."

NBC: "A leading conservative anti-abortion group, Susan B. Anthony List, praised Kennedy's position in a statement, calling it 'a stark contrast to the Democratic Party's radical stance of abortion on demand. … Kennedy is one of the few prominent Democrats aligned with the consensus of the people today. Every candidate should be asked, 'Where do you draw the line?'"

RFK Jr. Has Said That There Is No Vaccine That Is Safe And Effective And Has Indicated That He Opposes Requirements For Vaccines Including Polio And MMR

Mother Jones: "In July 2023, at the invitation of House Republicans, he appeared at a congressional hearing and declared, 'I have never been anti-vax. I have never told the public to avoid vaccination.' Yet that same month, during a podcast interview, he asserted, 'There's no vaccine that is safe and effective.'"

Washington Post: "He has an unenviable history of anti-vaccine advocacy, including peddling debunked claims linking vaccines to autism and leading an anti-vaccine group. He claims he is not opposed to vaccines, though that's hard to square with his recent comments that 'there's no vaccine that is safe and effective' and 'I see somebody on a hiking trail carrying a little baby, and I say to him, better not get them vaccinated.'"

The Young Turks: UYGUR: "So, but sometimes you do have to make things mandatory. I'm not saying every time, right, and that's a tough judgment call. So for example on some vaccines, polio, smallpox, others, you might have to make it mandatory. […] If the scientists and the and the doctors come in and say, Bobby, this one has to be mandatory, here's the reasons why, here's all the data, etc., are you going to listen to them?" RFK Jr.: "Uh, listen, under some extreme circumstance, I may look at that and say, this is so obvious, but the problem is you have a medical cartel that is tied inextricably, inextricably, the pharmaceutical industry, and is more concerned with promoting the mercantile interests, the pharmaceutical companies and in public health. And they've shown that again and again and again. Oh, I you know, listen, if you have a product that clearly works and there's a disease with a high infection rate, people are going to line up to take that product. I would leave it to the individual. I wouldn't say that, um, that the government should ever be mandating a medical product to, you know, that you're going to do to your body."

Los Angeles Times: "Children's Health Defense, the anti-vaccine organization Kennedy founded and chairs, last week platformed a fatuously inaccurate 2013 book claiming that polio isn't caused by a virus and that the polio vaccine 'doesn't work.' The book was conclusively debunked long ago. But last Tuesday, the organization published an interview with its co-author Suzanne Humphries, in which she repeated her claim that polio is caused by toxins, not the virus."

FactCheck.org:"At the time, Fridman pushed Kennedy on the issue, noting that those were 'big words' - and asked about the polio vaccine. Kennedy then misleadingly suggested that the polio vaccines given to his generation caused cancer - despite a lack of evidence that this is true."

NPR:"Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the political scion with the famous last name who's running as an independent for president, is also infamous for his stances against vaccines. Vaccines are safe and effective and have been credited with stopping the spread of diseases like measles, mumps and rubella, polio and global pandemics. Despite the solid evidence, people like RFK Jr. - with no expertise and who refuse to listen to experts - have spread disinformation about them, playing on false conspiracy theories."

NBC:"Asked if he would recommend that parents give their children the MMR vaccine amid an uptick in measles in the U.S., Kennedy declined to answer. 'I'm not gonna-,' he said, and walked away."

Via His Actions In Samoa, RFK Jr. Played A Part In One Of The Deadliest Measles Outbreaks In Recent History

Philadelphia Inquirer:"In 2019, Kennedy flew to Samoa, met with government officials and, along with other like-minded advocates, 'flooded the area with misinformation' about vaccines, according to FactCheck.org. Vaccinations were temporarily halted, 5,600 people contracted measles, and 83 children died. FactCheck.org concluded: 'Kennedy … played a part in one of the worst measles outbreaks in recent memory.'"

The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board:"But the fearmongering on social media landed a hook in Samoan parents, who now had an example of real risk to their children that seemed to outweigh the abstract threat of a disease that had virtually been eradicated from the developed world over the last generation. […] This is a stark and sad illustration of what can happen when the agents of fear and misinformation (Robert F. Kennedy Jr., we are looking at you) convince caring parents to shun childhood vaccinations."

RFK Jr. Has Engaged In Reckless And Erratic Behavior, Including Staging A Bike Accident With A Dead Bear Cub That He Dumped In A Highly-Trafficked Area Of Central Park

Associated Press: "Independent Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Once Retrieved A Bear That Was Killed By A Motorist And Left It In New York's Central Park With A Bicycle On Top, Sparking A Mystery That Consumed The City A Decade Ago."

Politico: "Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he dumped a dead bear in New York City's Central Park a decade ago, in a video he released on social media Sunday afternoon. In the video, Kennedy tells actress Roseanne Barr that he did not kill the bear, but put it in his car with plans to skin it after it was killed by another driver. He also suggests he is telling the story to get ahead of a pending story in the New Yorker, which inquired about the incident. The story lines up with an incident that occurred nearly a decade ago: The New York Times reported in October 2014 a dead bear was found in Central Park near an abandoned bicycle."

New York Post:"James Periconi, an environmental lawyer, said that while Kennedy did many wrong things, none appeared illegal. 'The short answer is that I don't see any violations of the New York environmental conservation law that Mr. Kennedy may have committed,' Periconi said, though he noted Kennedy's actions are outside his specialty. 'He certainly violated a number of recommended procedures for the handling of dead carcasses of wildlife, for example, by leaving the dead animal in Central Park, an area that is of course accessible to children and other people or domestic animals,' Periconi continued. 'That he posed himself with and next to and touching the dead carcass and its apparently bloody face or other body part was extremely reckless on his part, because of the potential for infection from a rabid animal,' the lawyer said - referring to a disturbing picture that emerged Monday of Kennedy posing with the animal in the back of his car."

RFK Jr. Has Refused To Disclose Basic Medical Information And Left Voters To Learn Via The Press That He Had A Parasitic Brain Worm And Other Serious Cognitive Issues

The New York Times: "About the same time he learned of the parasite, he said, he was also diagnosed with mercury poisoning, most likely from ingesting too much fish containing the dangerous heavy metal, which can cause serious neurological issues […] Mr. Kennedy said he was then subsisting on a diet heavy on predatory fish, notably tuna and perch, both known to have elevated mercury levels. In the interview with The Times, he said that he had experienced 'severe brain fog' and had trouble retrieving words. Mr. Kennedy, an environmental lawyer who has railed against the dangers of mercury contamination in fish from coal-fired power plants, had his blood tested […] He also underwent chelation therapy, a treatment that binds to metals in the body so they can be expelled."

Fox News: "Kennedy Cover-Up: Failing To Disclose A Brain-Eating Worm And Other Problems."

RFK Jr. Refused To Deny Credible Allegations Of Sexual Assault, Saying That He Was "Not A Church Boy" And Acknowledging That More Women May Come Forward

Rolling Stone: "Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded to an accusation that he sexually assaulted a family babysitter at his home by brushing off the incident, asserting that he is not a 'church boy' and had a 'very rambunctious youth.'"

Boston Globe: "A devastating and detailed report by Vanity Fair last week - including a credible allegation of sexual assault against Kennedy - provided a fresh setback to the already ailing campaign. Asked if other women might come forward with similar allegations he said, 'I don't know. We'll see what happens.'"

Recent Allegations Against RFK Jr. Were Preceded By Decades of Accounts of His Serial Adultery and Reckless Behavior Around Women

Los Angeles Times: "Kennedy, 70, has spoken about his addictive personality many times over the years. […] But the redemption stories were preceded by years of darker media accounts about his reckless behavior - his serial adultery during his second marriage and claims that he helped lead his younger brother David into what became a fatal heroin addiction."

New York Post: "Kennedy writes near the end of his jail sentence that he has a 'three-point plan' for 'fixing my greatest defect . . . my lust demons.' He doesn't write down the plan, leaving the subsequent days of the diary blank. An entry five days later reads 'Drove to Cape with Mary and all the kids.' By mid-August, he again records women's names in the back of his journal."

New York Post: "Kennedy holds back on any detailed description of his conquests and bizarrely portrays himself as a kind of victim. He uses the word 'mugged' as shorthand for being seduced. 'I narrowly escaped being mugged by a double team of [two women]. It was tempting but I prayed and God gave me the strength to say no,' he writes on Feb. 6. A few days later, on Valentine's Day, he gives his pregnant wife orchids, he notes."

New York Post: "'Bobby seemingly was able to bring his drug addiction under control after his arrest for heroin possession back in the early 1980s,' said Oppenheimer. 'It's clear that he has not been able to control his compulsive and reckless obsession with sex, which has ruined two of his marriages.'"

The Daily Mail: "That kind of behavior continued, according to a trusted friend of Mary's. 'He would be at the dinner table and his hands would go all up their legs or skirts and they just laughed. The Kennedy aura kept them from saying, "You're an a**hole."'

The Daily Mail: "There was other 'inappropriate behavior' on the Kennedy scion's part, such as when, on at least one occasion, he strutted around the family home with a towel wrapped around his waist, then was said to have dropped it, exposing his genitals, and embarrassing Mary and a friend of hers who was present."

New York Post: "A copy of the 398 pages, reviewed by The Post, details RFK Jr.'s daily activities, speeches, political activism and the lives of his six children in the year 2001. But they also record the names of women - with numbers from 1 to 10 next to each entry. The codes corresponded to sexual acts, with 10 meaning intercourse, Mary told a confidant. There are 37 women named in the ledger, 16 of whom get 10s."

RFK Jr. Has Spent Years Attempting To Frame Two Innocent Men Of Color For Murder In Order To Absolve His Privileged White Cousin

The New York Times:"Now, as Connecticut's highest court decides whether to reinstate the conviction, comes yet another book about the case - this one by Mr. Skakel's cousin Robert F. Kennedy Jr. A former prosecutor and environmental lawyer, Mr. Kennedy this week released 'Framed: Why Michael Skakel Spent Over a Decade in Prison for a Murder He Didn't Commit.'"

RFK Jr. Used Racist Language And Innuendo As He Attempted To Frame These Two Men For the Murder

Air Mail: "In Framed, Kennedy took a complex and unfamiliar subject for most readers-here, a decades-old murder-and presented a tendentious and misleading version of the facts, tailored to his own preconceptions. Worse yet, Kennedy relied on an ugly racial stereotype-about 'big, muscular, and tall' nonwhite men-to attempt to pin the murder on two innocent people. Kennedy followed a similar approach in his later books about vaccines and the coronavirus pandemic: using cherry-picked details and bogus insinuations to make a case that his readers, as non-specialists, lacked the expertise to refute."

PBS: : RFK JR.: "I contacted him, he put me in touch with another classmate, a man named Tony Bryant, who's a cousin of the basketball great Kobe Bryant, who had been at Brunswick School for two years with Michael. They had not been friends, but they had been in the same class. He was a very popular kid and he was a sports star. And then he had transferred to a public school in New York City. And, uh, and he had befriended two men, or two kids, at that school who were very large boys, six foot four, 250 pounds, and very rough, kind of gangsters. One of them was African American, the other was white. He brought those two boys to Greenwich on numerous occasions. They met Martha Moxley. One of them became obsessed with her, and they planned the assault on their way up on the train on Halloween Eve in 1975. Tony - they found golf clubs in the schoolyard, and Tony got frightened and left and the two boys killed Martha, told him that they were going to do it, and afterward confessed that they had done it, on numerous occasions."

Stamford Advocate: "The black man who Robert Kennedy Jr. says was 'obsessed with Martha Moxley's beautiful blonde hair' and went 'caveman' on her, killing her, says he never met Martha and was not in Greenwich when she was murdered 41 years ago. 'It's been rough. It started in 2003 and it still goes on,' says Adolph Hasbrouck, who broke his 13-year public silence about Kennedy's accusations to speak with me in the office of his lawyer in New York City."

FRAMED by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.:RFK JR.: "Adolph became obsessed with Martha Moxley. And on New Year's Eve in 1975, he rode the train with Burton and Tony Bryant to Greenwich, CT, to take part in mischief night. On the train on the way up, Adolph and Burr plotted to assault, sexually, a Greenwich girl and take her 'caveman style.' They pledged that they would not leave until they had accomplished this."

CNN: RFK JR.: "They were two kids from New York City, a very big man who with six foot three, 250 pounds, who now lives in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The other one lives in Portland, Oregon. I have spoken to both of them. One of them is black. When Martha Moxley's body was found, it was covered with hairs from a black person, which nobody has ever explained."

Richard French Live, Regional News Network: RFK JR.: "I would wager to you that it would be impossible for anybody to read my book and think that that story will not influence a jury. I, you know, the evidence against these people, including the two hairs that were found on Martha Moxley's body, which are consistent with the physical descriptions of these two men, and inconsistent with any Skakel hair or anybody else who's ever been connected to this. These two men, one of them was African American, one of the hairs was negroid, and nobody's ever been able to explain that, and the other had what the FBI crime lab called Asian characteristics, and the other man is described as Caucasian with Asian characteristics or American Indian characteristics. Those are the only two pieces of physical evidence that were ever found on Martha Moxley's body and they're absolutely consistent with Tony Bryant's description of these two men, that they came up with him that night, that they had been to Greenwich on six different occasions."

RFK Jr. Continues To Make These False Claims Despite The Fact That They Have Been Dismissed By A Court And By The Connecticut Division Of Criminal Justice

The Grio:As presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. runs on a platform championing criminal justice reform in his efforts to court Black voters, critics point out that for years, the independent candidate accused two Black and brown men of committing a murder his white cousin was convicted of despite the claims being dismissed in court. […] In 2016, Kennedy published a book titled 'Framed' in which he makes the case for why he believes his cousin Michael Skakel was innocent after being convicted of the Oct. 30, 1975, murder of 15-year-old Martha Moxley in Greenwich, Connecticut."

New York Times: "In an unusual response to the publication, the state's Division of Criminal Justice released a lengthy statement, saying the book presented 'no valid or new information' and calling Mr. Kennedy's claims 'inflammatory.' […] The statement also said that the actions of the two teenage suspects Mr. Kennedy describes were 'thoroughly vetted in legal proceedings and found to be baseless.'"

Washington Post: "With that background, let's look at Kennedy's specific points, in the order in which he made them. […] 'The two men confessed repeatedly to Bryant and a third man that they had committed the crime.' This is almost certainly false. Kennedy takes Bryant's word that the two men, shortly after the murder, bragged they had attacked a woman: 'We've achieved one of our fantasies. … We got her cave man style.' In interviews with Kennedy and the Michael Skakel investigator, Bryant claimed that they never mentioned a name and that he had kept this conversation secret for 27 years, with one exception. He says he told his mother at the time and she told him to keep away from Hasbrouck and Tinsley. (Bryant's mother testified that she found Hasbrouck and Tinsley 'attractive, mannerly, shy and respectful.' She said she first learned of her son's alleged involvement from reading a magazine article 'in recent years.') As noted, a judge did not find Bryant's testimony credible."

In Addition To His Book, RFK Jr. Also Profited Off His False Claims Via A TV Deal

IndieWire: "Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. believes his cousin Michael Skakel was wrongfully convicted and spent 11 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit. His book 'Framed' investigated who might have really killed 15-year-old Martha Moxley in 1975, and has now been optioned by FX Productions to be developed as a multi-part TV series."

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