Robert F. Kennedy Jr. hails from a Democratic dynasty and is running for the Democratic nomination against President Joe Biden, but it's been clear for months the party's voters overwhelmingly reject him and that much of his support come from Republicans hoping he'll play spoiler.
New evidence emerged for that this week, as Politico reported that a super PAC supporting Kennedy got more than half its money from a Donald Trump-backing billionaire.
"The group, American Values 2024, launched the same month Kennedy set out on his own longshot bid against President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary. It officially reported raising $9.8 million through the end of June," reported Jessica Piper. "Of the $9.8 million reported, $5 million came from Timothy Mellon, a longtime GOP donor who gave $1.5 million to a Trump-aligned group last fall, according to campaign finance records."
This comes as Mellon is openly advocating for Kennedy in a touted press release, touting him as “the one Democrat who can win in the general election.”
Mellon, a Wyoming resident and heir to the eponymous banking family's fortune, doesn't appear to be interested in an actual Democratic victory, though. He has given millions to a Trump-aligned super PAC, and in 2021, he contributed $53.1 million to far-right Texas Gov. Greg Abbott's private fund to construct a border wall, almost 98 percent of the total at the time.
In a self-published autobiography, Mellon engaged in racist rants against Black people, calling them "belligerent" and "unwilling to pitch in to improve their own situations."
Kennedy, who has long pushed conspiracy theories attacking the safety of vaccines and has echoed Alex Jones' assertion the government is putting "gay chemicals" in drinking water, faces outrage for pushing an anti-Semitic claim that the COVID-19 virus may have been ethnically engineered to spare Jews.
He insists those comments have been mischaracterized, even though they were caught directly on video and even though he has a history of making offensive statements about the Holocaust.
