Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a scion of one of many nation’s most well-known Democratic households, on Monday dived into the total embrace of a number of conservative figures who eagerly promoted his long-shot main problem to President Biden.

For greater than two hours, Mr. Kennedy participated in a web based audio chat on Twitter with the platform’s increasingly rightward-leaning chief executive, Elon Musk. They engaged in a pleasant back-and-forth with the likes of Tulsi Gabbard, the previous Democratic congresswoman turned right-wing commentator; a high donor to Gov. Ron DeSantis of Florida; and a professional surfer who grew to become a distinguished voice casting doubt on coronavirus vaccines.

Mr. Kennedy, who announced his 2024 presidential campaign in April, is himself a leading vaccine skeptic, and has promoted different conspiracy theories. Yet he has constantly hovered around 20 percent in polling of the Democratic main, which the social gathering has in any other case ceded to Mr. Biden.

On Monday, he appeared like a candidate way more relaxed within the mushrooming Republican presidential contest.

He stated he deliberate to journey to the Mexican border this week to “try to formulate policies that will seal the border permanently,” known as for the federal authorities to think about the battle in Ukraine from the angle of Russians and stated pharmaceutical medication have been liable for the rise of mass shootings in America.

“Prior to the introduction of Prozac, we had almost none of these events in our country and we’ve never seen them in human history, where people walk into a schoolroom of children or strangers and start shooting people,” stated Mr. Kennedy, who famous that each his father and uncle have been killed by weapons.

Mr. Kennedy stated he now had “about 50 people” working for his marketing campaign. Unlike Marianne Williamson, the opposite introduced Democratic challenger to Mr. Biden, he doesn’t seem like aiming to enchantment to Democrats who’re ideologically against the average president or are in any other case uneasy with renominating him. Instead, he has used his marketing campaign platform — and his well-known identify — to advertise misinformation and concepts which have little traction in his social gathering.

Asked throughout the dialogue by David Sacks, a top DeSantis donor who can also be near Mr. Musk, “what happened to the Democratic Party,” Mr. Kennedy spent 9 uninterrupted minutes attacking Mr. Biden as a warmonger and claimed that their social gathering was below the management of the pharmaceutical trade.

“I think the Democratic Party became the party of war,” Mr. Kennedy stated. “I attribute that directly to President Biden.” He added, “He has always been in favor of very bellicose, pugnacious and aggressive foreign policy, and he believes that violence is a legitimate political tool for achieving America’s objectives abroad.”

The Democratic National Committee and Mr. Biden’s marketing campaign declined to remark about Mr. Kennedy.

The occasion, which at its peak had greater than 60,000 listeners, in response to Twitter, at occasions felt as if Mr. Kennedy have been interviewing Mr. Musk about his stewardship of Twitter, a platform that has lost more than half of its advertising revenue since the billionaire acquired it in October. For greater than half-hour on the occasion’s begin, the presidential candidate interrogated the tech mogul about releasing the so-called Twitter files, self-driving automobiles and synthetic intelligence.

“These are really interesting topics for people, but I think a lot of the public would like to hear about your presidential run,” Mr. Musk stated to Mr. Kennedy.

Mr. Kennedy, 69, is a longtime amplifier and propagator of baseless theories, starting almost twenty years in the past with his skepticism about the result of the 2004 presidential election in addition to frequent childhood vaccines. His viewers for such misinformation ballooned throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

On Monday, Mr. Kennedy repeated a number of false statements, amongst them:

• He stated that after the Affordable Care Act of 2010, “Democrats were getting more money from pharma than Republicans.” An analysis by STAT News discovered that political motion committees with ties to pharmaceutical corporations gave extra money to Republicans than Democrats in 14 out of 16 election years since 1990.

• He claimed, with out proof, that “Covid was clearly a bioweapons problem.” American intelligence businesses do not believe there is any evidence indicating that’s the case.

• And as he blamed psychiatric drug use for the rise of gun violence within the United States, he contended that the gun possession fee within the U.S. was much like that of Switzerland. The United States had the very best civilian gun possession fee on the earth, at an estimated 120.5 firearms per 100 folks, according the latest international Small Arms Survey. That was greater than double the speed of the second-highest nation, Yemen at 52.8, and far larger than Switzerland’s 27.6.