Robert Kennedy Jr. vehemently refuted allegations that he once consumed a dog while in Asia, after a photo of him holding up an animal carcass surfaced this week.
The 70-year-old independent presidential candidate blasted a Vanity Fair article that suggested the act, titled “RFK Jr.’s Family Doesn’t Want Him to Run. Even They May Not Know His Darkest Secrets.”
The outlet’s expose accused him of eating dog meat in South Korea—a claim he categorically dismissed as “a dumpster of misinformation.”
During an appearance on News Nation’s CUOMO, Kennedy stated, “I am a very adventurous eater… I’ll eat virtually anything,” before listing off what was on the list of meats that would never get past his lips.
Hey @VanityFair, you know when your veterinary experts call a goat a dog, and your forensic experts say a photo taken in Patagonia was taken in Korea, that you’ve joined the ranks of supermarket tabloids. Keep telling America that up is down if you want. I’ll keep talking about… pic.twitter.com/SGX3QpoaRZ
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) July 2, 2024
“There’s three things I wouldn’t eat – I wouldn’t eat a human, I wouldn’t eat a monkey, and I wouldn’t eat a dog,” he told the ex-CNN anchor.
“I think I’d eat anything else, but I just couldn’t bring myself to do those things, so it is a goat and you are what you eat,” Kennedy quipped.
Vanity Fair’s Tuesday article claimed to be an extensive review of Kennedy’s allegedly sordid history, highlighting his past ‘reckless’ behavior, including drug use and allegations of sexual misconduct.
The piece featured an image purportedly displaying Kennedy holding the butterflied and barbecued remains of a dog.
The magazine claimed Kennedy had shared this photo with a friend last year, suggesting his buddy go to a South Korean restaurant that serves dog meat when in country.
According to the outlet, a veterinarian identified the animal as a dog, citing the animal’s “floating rib” which dogs have.
They said the image was taken in 2010, coinciding with the year Kennedy was afflicted with a brain worm.
Referring to the contentious photo, Kennedy explained to Cuomo that “of course, it’s not a dog.”
“They said I was eating a dog in Korea, and they had checked with experts, metadata experts, and identified it as Korea and checked with veterinarians who validated that it was a dog, and it’s a goat,” he clarified.
He said the picture was taken during a trip he takes annually on the Futaleufú River.
“And you know, a kayaking trip that … that’s what we ate; that’s what everybody eats down there, is goats,” Kennedy reiterated.
“Oh, you know, the fact the irony is Vanity Fair is, the most persistent complaint against me is that I’m, I’m promoting misinformation, but that whole article is just a dumpster of misinformation,” he noted.
Kennedy echoed the sentiments in a Tuesday social media post that he tagged Vanity Fair in.
“Hey @VanityFair, you know when your veterinary experts call a goat a dog, and your forensic experts say a photo taken in Patagonia was taken in Korea, that you’ve joined the ranks of supermarket tabloids. Keep telling America that up is down if you want,” he penned.
The Vanity Fair article also included allegations that RFK Jr. sexually assaulted a former family babysitter named Eliza Cooney.
According to the magazine, Cooney alleged that Kennedy felt her up in the family kitchen without her consent.
Kennedy declined to comment on these allegations during an interview with the Breaking Points podcast on Tuesday.
“I had a very, very rambunctious youth,” he told the host. “I said in my announcement speech that I have so many skeletons in my closet that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.”
He added that Vanity Fair was “recycling 30-year-old stories” and emphasized, “I’m not going to comment on the details of any of them, but I am who I am.”
On the same podcast, Kennedy expressed his commitment to running for president as an independent candidate, but admitted it would have been easier to run as a Democrat.
“The best path for me to the White House is through the Democratic Party,” he commented. “I think that would probably be the best choice for everybody, and it’s certainly something I would consider,” if Biden drops out.
Speaking to Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum on “The Story,” the same day, Kennedy criticized Biden’s debate performance as “alarming,” raising concerns about the president’s ability to make critical decisions under pressure.
“This is the man who’s going to be possibly woken up at 3:00 a.m. in the morning and have to make a decision within six minutes of waking up about whether to retaliate, whether to send a missile barrage onto the Russians,” he pointed out.
Kennedy argued that it’s insufficient for the White House to rely solely on Biden’s record and brush off mounting worries about his mental decline.
“We need a president who’s going to be thinking all the time,” he went on, noting that the debate was a wake-up call for America.
“There was real shock. You know, people during the debate were texting each other. People who have very, very strongly…the strongest support of President Biden [were] saying to each other, this is embarrassing. This is terrible,” he recounted.
He further asserted that the country is in a more dangerous situation than at any point since the Cuban Missile Crisis, emphasizing the need for a president who is “actually looking at reality and trying to adjust our reality to the facts.”