Democratic presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. will not participate this weekend in a far-right Christian nationalist conference he previously attended, his spokesman said, despite being listed as a featured speaker at the event website.
«Mr. Kennedy is not a featured speaker for the upcoming tour. We have submitted a request to have your photo removed,» Kennedy communications director Stefanie Spear said in a text message.
Kennedy, best known for his vaccine skepticism and heterodox political views, has previously participated on the ReAwaken America tour, which was started by a conservative businessman and Michael Flynn, the first national security adviser to former President Donald Trump to have promoted the QAnon conspiracy theory.
Kennedy’s activism against vaccine mandates and alleged censorship by social media platforms has endeared him to the far-right, especially since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, when conservatives frequently promoted tirades of the famous Democrat against Anthony Fauci and social distancing measures.
Other speakers included Trump’s sons Eric and Don Jr., conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, former Trump adviser Roger Stone, former Trump administration officials and some of the leading voices behind efforts to quash the election. of 2020, including attorney Sidney Powell and the founder of MyPillow. Mike Lindell.
This year’s tour, which begins this weekend at Trump’s golf course in Miami, has attracted additional controversy because it includes speakers who have promoted openly antisemitic conspiracy theories, such as claiming that Jews orchestrated the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, viral pandemics, and more. «Hitler was actually fighting the very people we’re trying to take down today,» one speaker, Scott McKay, saying last year on his broadcast show.
Many speakers close to the former president still plan to participate, including Eric Trump, who has attacked journalists for pointing out his connection to people who have downplayed the holocaust and praised hitler.
Kennedy, however, will not be participating in this year’s tour. «He was never a part of this tour,» Spear said.