LOS ANGELES \u2014 Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stands at the edge of a cliff, while his three dogs sit at attention, waiting for a treat from his pocket. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is gray and spitting rain, and Kennedy \u2014 scion of America\u2019s most famous political family, challenger in the Democratic presidential primary and one of the world\u2019s foremost conspiracy theorists \u2014 is partway up a 3-mile trail near Mandeville Canyon, a hike he makes every morning with his two Gordon setters and 1-year-old German shorthaired pointer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I am one of many reporters dispatched to profile Kennedy, who is so busy, and has so many journalists attached to the campaign, according to his press person, that accompanying him to official events won\u2019t be possible. So, on a Monday morning in late May, we are on this hike instead, a winding trek up and back down a steep hill, as Kennedy lays out his vision of the country he aims to lead. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He sees America as a divided place, where an elite few conspire to crush the rest, where doctors poison the public, and where few institutions or experts can be trusted. <\/strong>\u201cPeople should be scared,\u201d he tells me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a dark notion, one Kennedy believes that he, as president, can save the country from. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As Kennedy speaks, his dogs remain at attention. For a long time. No treats are given. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s something called an intermittent reward system,\u201d Kennedy, noticing my discomfort, explains of the lapse. \u201cI learned it from falconry. If you don\u2019t give the animal a treat every time, it actually makes them more obedient.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Something about the way the dogs are perched, salivating, their trusting eyes glued to Kennedy, reminds me of the way the world has recently been gripped by conspiracy theories \u2014 many of which Kennedy has helped spread: ones that imagine clouds as government-sprayed chemicals<\/a>, cellular networks as surveillance plots<\/a> \u2014 and lifesaving vaccines as poison<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He flicks three treats into the air and the dogs snap up their rewards. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy, 69, drove us to the trail in his taupe minivan, a beater without working seatbelts or back seats, meant for ferrying dogs and any wild animals he may find in need of help. He\u2019s known to decline interview requests from large outlets, including<\/a> a handful from me over the years, so I ask why he\u2019s agreed to meet. Kennedy shrugs and says he\u2019s always been open \u2014 it\u2019s the press that\u2019s hostile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n He disappeared from most networks and news organizations years ago \u2014 when his anti-vaccine activism became unpalatable to most Americans. His paranoia and anti-vaccine proselytizing during the pandemic only made him more of a pariah. But since he announced in April that he is running for president, the networks have come calling, and he\u2019s been reinstated<\/a> on Instagram after a 2021 ban for spreading misinformation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That invitation back into polite society, at a moment when he\u2019s got so much to say, is part of the reason he\u2019s running. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThere are rules that make it difficult for the public airwaves to censor you,\u201d Kennedy says, misciting<\/a> a federal law<\/a> that requires broadcast stations provide candidates for public office with equal opportunity to airtime. \u201cSo I thought maybe I should run.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n But he swears it\u2019s not just about the attention. \u201cMy wife would never let me run just to make a point,\u201d he says, meaning the actor Cheryl Hines. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy says he was inspired by Jeremy Zogby, from the right-leaning Zogby polls<\/a>, who shared \u201castonishing\u201d numbers that made him think he had a real chance. He declined to share the numbers, but he says the poll pushed him to throw his hat into a primary that most people are calling a long shot. (Asked for confirmation, Zogby said, \u201cAt this stage we are not discussing publicly Mr. Kennedy\u2019s internal polling.\u201d) A CNN poll in May<\/a> has Kennedy with 20% Democratic support, compared to 60% for incumbent Joe Biden. <\/p>\n\n\n\n From the command of his animals, to his stride, to the way he maintains eye contact just a hair longer than feels comfortable, Kennedy\u2019s sense of confidence is palpable. Only one thing betrays it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI can\u2019t stand my voice,\u201d he says as I move my audio recorder closer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n His voice is gravelly and strained. It\u2019s gotten progressively worse since the \u201990s when Kennedy was diagnosed with spasmodic dysphonia, a rare neurological disorder that causes his larynx to tighten uncontrollably and his voice to halt and tremor. <\/p>\n\n\n\n But today, it sounds stronger than it has in years \u2014 a result of a recent surgery in Kyoto, Japan, Kennedy says, which implanted a titanium bridge between his vocal folds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The cause of spasmodic dysphonia isn\u2019t known; researchers<\/a> think it might be genetic, or a leftover disability from a respiratory infection, or even stress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy, though, suspects a flu vaccine may be to blame. \u201cI haven\u2019t been able to figure out any other cause,\u201d he told a podcaster<\/a> in 2021. <\/p>\n\n\n\n In a follow-up email, Kennedy said he wasn\u2019t sure of the connection, calling it \u201cmy own speculation.\u201d His press person sent links to fact sheets<\/a> included in manufacturer packaging of more recent flu vaccines that list dysphonia among dozens of reported \u201cadverse reactions.\u201d The adverse reactions in those package inserts \u2014 which are legal, not medical documents \u2014 are based on unverified observations, and, as they make clear, don\u2019t suggest the vaccine necessarily caused the reaction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy\u2019s suspicion would make his anti-vaccine activism personal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a 108-minute speech in Boston in April announcing his run, Kennedy never brought up vaccines<\/a> \u2014 alluding only once to some mystery cause for all childhood ailments. It was a striking omission for the founder of Children\u2019s Health Defense, the country\u2019s largest anti-vaccine organization<\/a>, which describes itself as a \u201cchild health protection and advocacy group.\u201d The organization\u2019s employees sell Kennedy\u2019s buttons and bumper stickers<\/a> and its on-leave president is now the campaign\u2019s director of volunteers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Full-page newspaper ads<\/a> supporting Kennedy make no mention of vaccines. The super PAC that paid for them<\/a> \u2014 an anti-pharmaceutical industry organization that pivoted to supporting Kennedy\u2019s candidacy \u2014 is run by John Gilmore, the president of Children\u2019s Health Defense\u2019s New York chapter. A main funder, Wall Street trader Mark Gorton, is also a major donor<\/a> to Children\u2019s Health Defense. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy also doesn\u2019t discuss vaccines in the 8-minute promotional video posted on his social platforms in June. Titled \u201cRunning on Truth,\u201d the video features heroes of the anti-vaccine movement who similarly skate past any talk of vaccines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And Del Bigtree, founder of the second-best-funded anti-vaccine nonprofit (after Kennedy\u2019s) who acts as Kennedy\u2019s hype man at fundraisers, only winked at the reason for his endorsement, tweeting, \u201cI just donated $100. If you know why I did it then join me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s good reason to be subtle. Kennedy\u2019s views on vaccines put him at odds with most Americans<\/a>, particularly Democrats. He aligns more with a growing wing of vaccine-skeptic Republicans; research and polling<\/a> consistently shows modern-day conservatives are more susceptible to conspiracy theories and hold more conspiratorial worldviews generally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy\u2019s supporters have gotten the message. In a Facebook group<\/a> where more than 4,000 people have gathered to organize events like Kennedy-branded Fourth of July parades, members have been workshopping possible appositives for their candidate, settling most recently on \u201cVaccine Safety Advocate.\u201d But they\u2019d really prefer to avoid the issue, as one poster put it, \u201cby sticking to Kennedy\u2019s campaign points as much as possible.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n People who have followed Kennedy for years aren\u2019t convinced by the spin, and privately, are blunt about the harm they fear could come from a Kennedy administration. A university researcher who studies anti-vaccine misinformation said over text, \u201c#GAMA: Give America Measles Again.\u201d One advocate who leads a local vaccine education nonprofit asked me gravely, \u201cHow much damage could he actually, really do here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I ask Kennedy whether distancing himself from the vaccine issue is strategic. He says I\u2019m making something out of nothing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIf anybody wants to talk to me about vaccines, I\u2019ll talk to them,\u201d he says, and recent interviews show this willingness. \u201cBut it\u2019s not an issue that I\u2019m leading with.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Instead, uphill on this hike, as I work to keep pace, Kennedy wants to talk about: Ukraine (he blames American \u201cneocons\u201d and says he\u2019ll \u201cbroker a peace\u201d); the middle class (he\u2019ll rebuild it); chronic illnesses (he\u2019ll heal them, by funding research into the causes with a focus on \u201cwellness\u201d); the environment (he\u2019ll shift farm subsidies and clean it up); and children (he\u2019ll protect them). <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy has his vocal supporters \u2014 anti-vaxxers, conspiracy theorists, internet contrarians, billionaire tech bros, Camelot nostalgists and right-wing provocateurs who seem to be pumping Kennedy as a spoiler candidate. Recent polls show him making a dent against an incumbent whom many voters see as too old. But for now at least, most<\/a> political commentators doubt<\/a> Kennedy\u2019s chances<\/a>. Mention the skepticism to Kennedy, and he bristles. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cTell me something,\u201d he says, \u201cdid you think Donald Trump would win?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The third of 11 children born to Ethel and Robert F. Kennedy Sr., Kennedy was 9 years old when his uncle, President John F. Kennedy, was assassinated and 14 when his father, a U.S. attorney general and New York senator, was shot and killed after winning California\u2019s 1968 Democratic presidential primary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy believes the government, specifically the CIA, is responsible for both killings. (The CIA denies involvement.) He\u2019s in good company here. Most Americans believe<\/a> \u2014 as they have for the last half<\/a>-century \u2014 that Lee Harvey Oswald didn\u2019t act alone. Polling at the time<\/a> of Robert F. Kennedy Sr.\u2019s murder shows more than half the country believed his death was part of a larger plot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Books about<\/a> and by<\/a> Kennedy tell the story of a wild, unsupervised childhood giving way to aimless years at boarding schools and college. He developed an addiction to hard drugs, went to law school, got married, had two children, got a job as an assistant district attorney in Manhattan and got busted<\/a> for heroin possession. He divorced and got sober, remarried and had four more children. In 2010, Kennedy filed for divorce from his second wife, who killed herself<\/a> in 2012 as the divorce was pending. He married Hines in 2014. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Despite decades of pundits and fans pleading for him to run for something, anything, it was just never a good time: A small-time campaign to get him to run in 2008 crashed when Kennedy threw his support<\/a> behind Barack Obama; all the other high-profile positions befitting a Kennedy in New York, where he lived until 2014, were taken; or he was in the throes of personal scandals<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As Kennedy said at his campaign kickoff: \u201cI got so many skeletons in my closet that if they could vote, I could be king of the world.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n In the midst of this turmoil, Kennedy found a space in the environmental movement, eventually leading the organization Riverkeeper, which is credited with cleaning up and protecting the Hudson and the New York City watershed by aggressively suing polluters. Riverkeeper inspired the Waterkeeper Alliance, a global movement Kennedy helmed until his 2020 resignation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n As an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, a watchdog group, Kennedy provided star power to environmental causes and spent the \u201990s criss-crossing the globe: in British Columbia as the last North American rainforest was threatened by loggers, meeting with Fidel Castro in Cuba to urge him to abandon its nuclear program, whale watching off Baja California\u2019s San Ignacio Lagoon at risk from the world\u2019s largest salt plant, and spending 30 days in a Puerto Rican jail, for protesting a military bombing exercise. He was on the cover of Vanity Fair\u2019s Green Issue<\/a> and named a \u201chero for the planet\u201d by Time magazine<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The way he tells it<\/a>, as Kennedy was zipping hither and yon, giving speeches about threats to the Earth, women started showing up with stories about their autistic children who they said had been harmed by vaccines, specifically a mercury-based preservative, thimerosal. (Without belaboring it, methylmercury found in contaminated fish is different<\/a> from the ethylmercury in thimerosal, which is easily broken down and doesn\u2019t cause<\/a> neurological problems, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. It was removed from most vaccines out of an abundance of caution in 2001.) But by 2005, Kennedy was convinced that the women coming in droves to see him were on to something and, as he had in the past with polluters, he went in search of someone to blame. <\/p>\n\n\n\n He found them, as he told Joe Scarborough on MSNBC<\/a>, in the \u201cphony scientists,\u201d \u201cfederal bureaucrats\u201d and the pharmaceutical industry. The proof for his wild claims was laid out in a 4,700-word article published in Rolling Stone and on Salon.com. The piece was covered breathlessly by mainstream press before being torn apart by researchers and journalists who identified multiple errors and seemingly deliberate instances of Kennedy slicing and dicing transcripts and research to prove his conspiracy theory: that vaccines caused autism and \u201cthey\u201d were trying to cover it up. The article was appended by several corrections and ultimately retracted<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The backlash only emboldened Kennedy, who dug in, garnering headlines every so often for his hysterical comparisons of childhood vaccinations to the Holocaust<\/a> or his growing collection of strange bedfellows<\/a>, connections including the Church of Scientology and the Rev. Louis Farrakhan<\/a>, the Nation of Islam leader. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy tells me he still believes he was right about thimerosal and autism, despite the decades of published scientific research that shows otherwise<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For Kennedy, even the assumption that childhood vaccines work is up for argument. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI\u2019ll be very careful,\u201d Kennedy says, before explaining that he\u2019s among a subsection of the anti-vaccine community who believes that vaccines have been given undue credit<\/a> for eradicating infectious diseases, when sanitation and nutrition played a larger role. <\/p>\n\n\n\n When pressed to tell me something he\u2019s gotten wrong about the vaccine issue \u2014 he can\u2019t think of anything specific. \u201cIn the early days, I was wrong about a lot of things,\u201d he says. \u201cBut you know, now I\u2019m very, very careful about everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n For as long as an obsession with vaccines has gripped Kennedy, reporters have tried to figure out why. Why would a man with every opportunity to do good in the world and for himself undermine the health of children and tarnish his own legacy? Their answers<\/a>, penned<\/a> in long profiles<\/a>, suggest everything from Kennedy\u2019s affinity for underdogs, to a romanticization of the natural world, to a selfish desire for adulation, to an extreme view that splits the world into gods and monsters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Dr. Paul Offit, the director of the Vaccine Education Center at Children\u2019s Hospital of Philadelphia and co-inventor of the rotavirus vaccine \u2014 who was, until Anthony Fauci came along, the main monster in Kennedy\u2019s world \u2014 suggested the answer might be found in Kennedy\u2019s occupation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy, Offit noted, is not a scientist, but a lawyer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cAs a scientist, you\u2019re trying to reveal the laws of nature,\u201d he said. \u201cYou\u2019re trying to find some truth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n A good lawyer, on the other hand, makes a good argument. \u201cYou\u2019re there to represent your client,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd so you construct an argument that represents that client even if they\u2019re completely guilty. That\u2019s your job. It has nothing to do with the truth, really.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n His fixation has come at a cost. Kennedy\u2019s family has spoken out against him<\/a>, his paid speaking gigs have dried up and he says he lost out on jobs. \u201cAll of my income essentially disappeared,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The cost to the public of the anti-vaccine movement \u2014 which Kennedy helps lead \u2014 has been far greater, according to public health experts and officials. They point to a devastating measles outbreak in Samoa in 2019 and the rise of vaccine hesitancy in the U.S. since Covid. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Public health officials see the measles outbreak on the Pacific island as a cautionary tale of how anti-vaccine influencers like Kennedy, who met with<\/a> local activists in Samoa, can undermine public confidence in a vaccine. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Anti-vaccine activists and organizations, including Kennedy\u2019s Children\u2019s Health Defense, fanned fears of the mumps-measles-rubella shot on social media<\/a> when two infants in Samoa died in 2018 after being injected with doses that nurses had contaminated with expired muscle relaxant. Even after it became clear that there was no widespread danger<\/a> from the vaccine, and as dozens of people, mostly small children, began to die of measles, the same groups failed to correct the record. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy believes, despite evidence, that the vaccine, rather than measles, is to blame for the deaths in Samoa, contradicting the World Health Organization. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cYou need to question the narrative,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Children\u2019s Health Defense sent NBC News a statement from 2020 reiterating Kennedy\u2019s claim and calling the implication that its advocacy had any effect in Samoa \u201cfanciful at best.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Then Covid hit the U.S., with a \u201csilver lining\u201d<\/a> for Children\u2019s Health Defense: More Americans began questioning the safety of vaccines. In two years<\/a>, the group more than quadrupled its annual revenue, to nearly $16 million in 2021<\/a>, and Kennedy\u2019s salary as chairman and chief legal counsel grew to more than $500,000. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy claimed Operation Warp Speed, then-President Donald Trump\u2019s interagency vaccine initiative, was a nefarious plot engineered by the intelligence agencies and the military. In his bestselling, turgidly footnoted<\/a> book, \u201cThe Real Anthony Fauci,\u201d Kennedy spun a story about a powerful vaccine cartel \u2014 led by Fauci and Bill Gates \u2014 that colluded to prolong the pandemic, hide the efficacy of alternative treatments, and sit by as millions died needlessly, in exchange for professional and monetary gain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Fauci has responded<\/a> to Kennedy\u2019s claims \u2014 calling them the work of a \u201cvery disturbed individual.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy\u2019s pivot to Covid denialism, and his subsequent banning by social media companies, made him a darling of the right, while his criticism of corporations and the military-industrial complex has drawn supporters from the left. <\/p>\n\n\n\n The early big-name proponents of his presidential bid are a hodgepodge of contrarians, including fired Fox News host Tucker Carlson<\/a>; former Trump adviser Steve Bannon<\/a>; conspiracy theorist radio host Alex Jones<\/a>; Twitter co-founder and bitcoin enthusiast Jack Dorsey;<\/a> former Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers<\/a>; and David Talbot<\/a>, a longtime friend and the founder of Salon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy\u2019s right<\/a>– and left-wing support shows the horseshoe theory<\/a> in action \u2014 political science speak for the convergence of belief at the most radical points of the political spectrum. He skews very much to the right on issues like vaccines and gun control (he says he won\u2019t \u201ctake your guns\u201d and suggests<\/a> that psychotropic medications<\/a> are to blame for school shootings) and to the left on environmental issues and war. But undergirding all of his positions is a deep distrust of the establishment \u2014 a perspective that\u2019s made him a welcome guest on alternative platforms and podcasts, including most recently \u201cThe Joe Rogan Experience,\u201d which reaches millions of listeners per episode. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy acknowledges that a big part of his base is Republicans who warmed to him during the pandemic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cA shocking number of Republicans,\u201d he says at the top of the hill. The view usually stretches a hundred miles, from snow-capped mountains to L.A. high-rises, but today it\u2019s fog in every direction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cSo why not run as a Republican?\u201d I ask, as we begin our turn back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBecause I\u2019m a Democrat,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cBut maybe you\u2019re not?\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy looks annoyed. He says the swell in right-wing support is evidence that not he, but his party, has changed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n His campaign manager, Dennis Kucinich, an anti-war liberal who twice unsuccessfully ran for president, during the 2004 and 2008 Democratic primaries, told me this pooling of the margins is exactly how Kennedy could win. <\/p>\n\n\n\n America is divided, Kucinich told me over the phone while waiting to board a plane. \u201cThe divisions are profound now and people are looking for a healer. They\u2019re looking for somebody to unite the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I suggested, without mentioning vaccines, that Kennedy may have name recognition and perhaps even a certain charm, but has in recent years been a polarizing figure. Kucinich stopped me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLet me address that, because first of all, I\u2019m not anti-vax,\u201d Kucinich said. \u201cAnd if Mr. Kennedy was anti-vaccine, I wouldn\u2019t be doing what I\u2019m doing. But he is not. He is for vaccine safety,\u201d Kucinich added, echoing the Facebook group workshopping Kennedy\u2019s image.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So, for a brief moment, I imagine Kennedy in the White House. What would he do about vaccines? Would he try to halt childhood vaccinations altogether?<\/p>\n\n\n\n He doesn\u2019t answer directly but offers a window into the vaccine policy of a Kennedy administration. <\/p>\n\n\n\n President Kennedy would order childhood vaccines, which have already gone through clinical trials and constant safety studies<\/a>, to undergo bigger, double-blind controlled trials. That sounds scientific, but those studies, health professionals say<\/a>, would needlessly and unethically deny children vaccines, offering them a placebo instead, in a quest to find out what we already know: that vaccines are safe and prevent myriad illnesses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n President Kennedy would gut the agencies that currently regulate, monitor and recommend schedules for childhood vaccines \u2014 the Food and Drug Administration, the National Institutes of Health and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention \u2014 and the expert advisory panels of doctors, scientists and professors they rely on. The agencies have become \u201csock puppets\u201d for the industries they regulate, he says, so he\u2019ll impose more stringent conflict-of-interest qualifications and replace the bad guys with good ones. Kennedy won\u2019t tell me who he\u2019s got in mind (\u201cnot until they\u2019re vetted\u201d) but says he\u2019s got many names. <\/p>\n\n\n\n President Kennedy would also order his Justice Department to investigate the editors and publishers of medical journals for \u201clying to the public.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n And when the next pandemic arrives \u2014 and it will<\/a> \u2014 would President Kennedy pursue vaccines as Trump did? Kennedy won\u2019t directly say. He says he\u2019d prioritize treatments, like ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine \u2014 which Kennedy says worked against Covid, despite<\/a> numerous<\/a> studies<\/a> saying<\/a> they didn\u2019t<\/a> (and the retraction of flawed<\/a> or fraudulent\u2002<\/a>studies that claimed they did).<\/p>\n\n\n\n Besides, Kennedy says, the vaccines didn\u2019t work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Covid vaccines have saved lives<\/a>,\u201d I balk. \u201cThey\u2019ve made hospitalizations fewer and less severe, illnesses less severe \u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWhy do you say that?\u201d he says, and stops walking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I offer that almost everyone who would know \u2014 researchers, doctors, health officials, medical organizations \u2014 they all say so. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That\u2019s where I went wrong, Kennedy says: trusting these experts. He speaks quickly and peppers me with questions and numbers, which he says show that Covid vaccines have killed more people than they\u2019ve saved. (This is just not true<\/a>.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n We go on like this, literally and figuratively, downhill for the next half-hour. For someone who isn\u2019t leading with vaccines, this is the topic that lights Kennedy up. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Listening to Kennedy speak about vaccines is unsettling. It\u2019s like being in a room with a man unspooling his red string, connecting various directors of government agencies with pharmaceutical company executives, philanthropists, prominent doctors and public health advocates, media and tech organizations. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Like any good conspiracy theory, Kennedy\u2019s underlying argument contains grains of truth: The pharmaceutical industry does exert<\/a> influence on science; misconduct<\/a> from prestige-seeking researchers does sometimes occur; and doctors and drug companies do too often make medical decisions based on profit<\/a>. Kennedy wraps these truths in the generic storyline of conspiracy: Something bad is happening, but \u201cthey\u201d don\u2019t want you to know about it so that \u201cthey\u201d can reap profit and power. <\/p>\n\n\n\n If his views are true, I ask, why haven\u2019t any reputable whistleblowing doctors or scientists come forward to agree with him publicly? <\/p>\n\n\n\n He says they are all, in some way or another, on the payroll. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt\u2019s fixed. It\u2019s rigged.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n The impasse reminds me of an idea from Heidi Larson, an anthropologist who\u2019s spent decades combating vaccine hesitancy in vulnerable communities around the world. As Larson explains it, trust in a vaccine is a multi-step process \u2014 a chain of trust, she calls it, that can be broken through doubt in the scientists who research, create and test vaccines; doctors who administer them; or governments that organize and oversee the effort. In Kennedy\u2019s case, the chain is broken at every link.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The White House has been home to conspiracy theorists before, of course, but it\u2019s hard to imagine such a fanatical one winning the office \u2014 even if he is a Kennedy. But he\u2019s won so much already. Attention for himself and his cause. The legitimization and growth of his movement. Nearing the bottom of the hill and the end of our hike, I tell him as much.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cI think a cynical person might say that you probably can\u2019t win a Democratic primary,\u201d I say. \u201cWhat seems more likely is that you use this moment where everyone is interviewing you, including me, to promote yourself and these ideas and your books and whatever else. And that would be fine, but a lot of people think that these ideas will have really dire consequences.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n Kennedy grits his teeth and walks past me. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cWe\u2019ll have to see, won\u2019t we?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n