FactChecking RFK Jr.’s V.P. Announcement

Para leer en español, vea esta traducción de Google Translate.

In announcing his choice for vice president, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and his running mate, Nicole Shanahan, made statements that were false or misleading:

• There’s no evidence that vaccines cause autism, contrary to the impression Shanahan left in questioning the safety of “one shot on top of another shot … throughout the course of childhood” just before citing an increase in the prevalence of autism.

• Kennedy wrongly blamed President Joe Biden for shutting down businesses in response to the pandemic in 2020, when Biden wasn’t in office, and misleadingly claimed there was no scientific basis for closing businesses during the pandemic.

• Kennedy faulted former President Donald Trump’s and Biden’s pandemic policies for transferring “$4 trillion from the middle class” to “500 new billionaires.” But an Oxfam report that found 573 new global billionaires during the pandemic didn’t attribute the increase to U.S. policies alone.

• Shanahan, 38, would not be “the youngest vice president in American history,” as she claimed. That would still be John C. Breckinridge.

Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and son of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, made his in Oakland, California, where Shanahan, a lawyer, was born.