RFK Jr. hires top anti-vaccine activist as campaign communications director

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s high-stakes presidential campaign has a new communications director: prominent anti-vaccine activist Del Bigtree. In a letter to his fans, Bigtree called the appointment “my biggest opportunity to date.”

In speeches and interviews, Kennedy has credited the anti-vaccine movement for boosting his candidacy and promised as president to halt research into infectious diseases and use the power of the attorney general to threaten editors of medical journals for publishing research on treatments and vaccines. against Covid.

Bigtree is the executive director of the Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), the second best-funded anti-vaccine organization in the country, after Children’s Health Defense, the group Kennedy Low as president in April so he can run for president. The pandemic was a blessing for both organizations. Additionally, Bigtree is home to The HighWire, a anti-vaccines and conspiracy internet show.

Del Bigtree speaks during a rally at the State Capitol in Albany, New York, on May 14, 2019.Hans Pennink / AP Archive

Bigtree did not respond to an emailed request for comment. In a note announcing his new role, Bigtree released a letter plagued by misinformation alleging that the Covid vaccine was responsible for widespread injuries and deaths. Bigtree called on his followers to “stop the globalist New World Order” and unite across the political spectrum under the banner of “medical freedom.” Bigtree also solicited donations of $1,000 from his followers to join a “health think tank,” funds he said would go toward creating television ads.

Recent Polls show Kennedy with high favorability ratings toward a third-party candidate. In hypothetical matchups involving President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, Kennedy collect a sizable proportion of voters who view the major candidates negatively, even though Kennedy’s views on vaccines they are not aligned with most Americans.

In the early months of his candidacy, Kennedy mostly avoided advocating for vaccines, telling NBC News that he was “not leading” on the issue. Likewise, during the election campaign, in media interviews and before a congressional committee, Kennedy has insisted that, despite a series of written and recorded statements to the contrary, he is not against vaccines. Bigtree’s appointment casts additional doubt on Kennedy’s claims.

Bigtree replaces Stefanie Spear, former editor of the Children’s Health Defense news website, who now takes on the role of press secretary. “I filled the positions of press secretary and communications director with plans to transition into the communications director role once we found the right person for the job,” Spear said in an email. “We found that person and that’s Del Bigtree. Del brings decades of experience as an Emmy-winning producer, digital asset master, and social media expert, among many other attributes.”

ICAN reported $13.4 million in revenue in 2022, according to newly filed tax records provided to NBC Newsand paid Bigtree a salary of $284,000. It’s unclear how Bigtree’s new role in the Kennedy campaign could affect his position as executive director of the nonprofit, which the IRS prohibits to participate in political activities. Calls and emails to ICAN were not returned.

While Bigtree’s title is new, his involvement in the Kennedy campaign is well established. She has appeared at official campaign events and fundraisers, and campaign finance records show that the Kennedy campaign has paid nearly $90,000 in “communications consulting” to KFP Consulting, a Texas organization. registered in May under the name Del Bigtree.

Bigtree has been a leading force behind the modern anti-vaccine movement. In 2016, the former daytime television producer teamed with discredited doctor and researcher Andrew Wakefield to produce “Vaxxed,” an anti-vaccine propaganda film that resurrected the long-debunked claim that the measles, mumps and rubella vaccine causes autism and that the government covered it up. Bigtree promoted the film with a multi-state bus tour and became a celebrity within the movement.

Over the next few years, Bigtree and his camera crew became a regular at state capitols, where he advocated for relaxing childhood vaccine requirements. Bigtree is also known for his stunts that attract media attention and his incendiary speeches. In 2019, he came under fire for appearing at rallies wearing a yellow Star of David to suggest that activists opposing childhood vaccines were similar to Jews in Nazi Germany during World War II. In a speech at a rally in Washington, DC opposing Covid vaccine requirements in 2022, Bigtree invoked the Nuremberg trials in a promise to hold public officials and the media accountable for promoting Covid precautions and vaccines.

Following a recent legal victory that weakened a childhood vaccine law in Mississippi, Bigtree said on HighWire last week that ICAN’s primary goal for 2024 is to file federal claims targeting religious vaccine exemptions in the five states that ban them: California, Connecticut, Maine, New York and West Virginia.

This is not the first shakeup within the Kennedy campaign. In October, Kennedy abandoned his Democratic bid for president and announced his candidacy as an independent candidate. That same month, he replaced his campaign manager, Dennis Kucinich, with his daughter-in-law, Amaryllis Fox Kennedy, a former CIA officer and filmmaker. (Via text message, Kucinich, the staunchly anti-war former congressman, declined to discuss his reasons for leaving, but said he no longer supported Kennedy as a candidate: “I wish him the best, but our paths really diverged last October.”) support of Israel in the Gaza war it cost him some of his first pacifist supporters.