Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. made headlines on Friday, May 24, as he addressed the Libertarian National Convention and compared wearing a COVID mask to being a "slave."
Kennedy recounted an anecdote about being at a gathering without a mask when an NBC News crew approached him.
He humorously pointed out, "They asked me why I wasn’t wearing a mask, which, nobody was, except for the NBC film crew." The crowd responded with laughter.
When questioned about his fear of contracting COVID-19, Kennedy told the crowd, "There’s a lot worse things than dying. Like living like a slave."
Kennedy, known for his vocal opposition to the COVID-19 vaccine, has undergone a shift in his views over time. Initially critical of vaccines, he later clarified, "I’ve never been anti-vaccine."
In a congressional hearing on censorship in 2023, Kennedy highlighted the dangers of targeted propaganda, emphasizing that labeling him as "anti-vaxx" was misleading.
“I’m subjected to this new form of censorship, which is called targeted propaganda, where people apply pejoratives like ‘anti-vaxx.’ I’ve never been anti-vaccine. But everybody in this room probably believes that I have been because that’s the prevailing narrative.”
Nevertheless, Kennedy raised concerns about the US vaccination policy, attributing it to a spike in excess mortality during the pandemic. He questioned the unexplained increase in deaths in 2021 and 2022 and challenged the prevailing narrative on vaccine efficacy.
Kennedy's wavering stance on vaccines mirrors a broader trend among political figures on the right.
Former President Donald Trump, who initially supported vaccine development through Operation Warp Speed, has recently distanced himself from this achievement.
Embracing anti-vaxx rhetoric, Trump vowed to withhold funding from institutions mandating the vaccine.
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In a recent social media post on Truth Social, Trump attacked Kennedy over the subject of vaccines, dispelling misconceptions about his anti-vaxxer image. The presumptive GOP nominee for president clarified, "He's not really an anti-vaxxer."
"RFK Jr. is a Democrat plant,” the ex-president and presumed 2024 Republican nominee began, "a radical left liberal who's been put in place in order to help crooked Joe Biden, the worst president in the history of the United States, get reelected."
"Kennedy said the other night that vaccines are fine. He said it on a show, a television show, that vaccines are fine," Trump told his 6.9 million followers. "He’s all for them. And that’s what he said. And for those of you that want to vote because you think he’s an anti-vaxxer, he’s not really an anti-vaxxer.”