Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. suddenly seems the most open of any White House contender to talk about his past health problems, in a willingness that some experts have called “bizarre.”
Earlier this month, it was discovered that Kennedy had a parasitic brain infection, and he has spoken openly about the incident in numerous interviews, along with other health issues, including mercury poisoning, which he spoke about frequently in the years before he ran for president.
“Bragging about having brain parasites, bragging about mercury poisoning, and just generally weird behavior doesn’t inspire confidence in voters, and it’s definitely weird,” Democratic strategist Eric Koch told Fox News.・Told Digital.
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. cannot be expected to be taken seriously as a candidate when he has publicly stated that he may not be fit to lead.”
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Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. waves to the crowd as he leaves the stage after speaking at a voter rally at The Hangar at Stanley Marketplace on May 19, 2024 in Aurora, Colorado. (Helen H. Richardson/MediaNews Group/Denver Post via Getty Images)
“Revelations like this are why his poll numbers are stagnant. The more people learn about RFK Jr., the more it becomes clear that his vanity project work is not worth wasting your vote on.” ”, he added, citing what some polls suggest. Support for Kennedy slows. Other polls show he maintains steady double-digit approval ratings nationwide.
Lisa Booth, a Republican strategist and Fox News contributor, said that Kennedy’s sudden openness about his health issues was a sign that Biden was “essentially a ‘Bernie weekend’ candidate.” He said it was a “strange boast” considering that he was a “person”.
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“It’s a bit of a strange strategy because in this campaign you want to appear strong, not weak. The irony is that 77-year-old Donald Trump is the man of stamina in this campaign. He’s working harder than anybody else, he’s trying harder, and at the same time they’re trying to put him in prison and bankrupt him,” she added.
Kennedy’s experience with the brain-eating bugs was revealed in a New York Times story published earlier this month, citing a 2012 testimony from NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital that Kennedy was summoned by doctors there after they noticed dark spots on his brain scans and he complained of memory loss and mental fog.
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. speaks at a voter rally at The Hangar at Stanley Marketplace on May 19, 2024 in Aurora, Colorado. (Helen H. Richardson/The Denver Post)
Kennedy remembers doctors telling him the spots were “caused by bugs that had invaded my brain, eaten parts of it and died,” but in an interview with The New York Times a few months earlier, he said he had recovered from his previously public memory loss.
In the same interview, he said he had suffered from atrial fibrillation for decades, including four hospitalizations, but had not had an atrial fibrillation-related event in more than 10 years.
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The day after the parasite revelation, Kennedy told both the Times and Ben Shapiro’s podcast, Pushing the Limits, that he contracted the parasite and underwent treatment to remove the metal from his body, and that he suffered from mercury poisoning around the same time. He said he experienced.
“At the same time, I was getting tested for mercury and all kinds of tests. And my mercury test results were very high…I think it was 10 times the EPA blood mercury level.” he told Kennedy on the show. “They were 10 times more than what anyone would consider safe. And I chelated it out, and all that brain fog went away.”
Media members slammed presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for recently saying that a Biden presidency would be “much worse” for democracy than former President Trump. (John Nasion/Getty Images)
But Kennedy spoke frequently about his battle with mercury poisoning, at least in interviews since 2004, years before he battled the parasite.
“I have so much mercury in my body that if I were a woman of childbearing age, I would give birth to a child who would be cognitively impaired…probably with a permanent IQ reduction of five to seven points,” Kennedy said during a C-SPAN appearance in September 2004.
He said in subsequent interviews in 2005, 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012 that he had “recently” experienced high levels of mercury in his blood and was suffering from memory loss.
Fox News Digital has reached out to the Kennedy campaign for comment.
Fox News’ Howard Kurtz contributed to this report.
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