Musician Eric Clapton helped increase cash at a fundraiser for fellow vaccine critic Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 marketing campaign for the Democratic presidential main ticket on Monday.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer entertained Kennedy and donors at a non-public dwelling in Los Angeles’ posh Brentwood neighborhood the place tickets started at $3,300 and went as much as $6,600 for some face time with Kennedy, based on TMZ.
After the occasion, RFK Jr.’s marketing campaign mentioned it had raised a mixed $2.2 million for the Democratic lengthy shot’s marketing campaign and its impartial PAC.
Kennedy, the son of assassinated presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Sr., celebrated Clapton as a determine of unity on the yard live performance.
In an announcement on his web site, he thanked The Yardbirds rocker “for bringing his musical artistry and rebellious spirit to my gathering.”
“Eric sings from the depths of the human condition,” he wrote. “If he sees in me the possibility of bringing unity to our country, it is only possible because artists like him invoke a buried faith in the limitless power of human beings to overcome any obstacle.”
Team Kennedy, Kennedy24.com
Though neither Kennedy’s name for bipartisanship nor Clapton’s efficiency talked about vaccines, each males are outspoken critics of coronavirus pictures.
Clapton complained about struggling “disastrous” however short-term uncomfortable side effects from the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine in 2021, and he railed towards vaccine necessities when in-person gatherings started returning later that summer season.
In 2020, Clapton collaborated with singer Van Morrison, one other open vaccine skeptic, on the anti-lockdown tune “Stand and Deliver,” through which they in contrast COVID security protocols to slavery.
Kennedy has spent the final twenty years peddling extensively debunked disinformation about vaccines, which he has claimed trigger autism, allergic reactions, most cancers and different illnesses in youngsters.
The activist-turned-politician was banned from Instagram for spreading COVID misinformation in 2021, and this July, he known as himself “the first person censored by the Biden administration” when Republicans invited him to testify earlier than the House Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
While Kennedy is polling far behind President Joe Biden within the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, his numbers will not be insignificant.
According to a HarrisX/Harris ballot sponsored by the Harvard University Center for American Political Studies launched final week, Kennedy trails Biden 15% to 60%.
Earlier this summer season, American Values 2024, the political motion committee arm of Kennedy’s marketing campaign, reported elevating $16 million in June and July.
Meanwhile, Biden raised $72 million for his reelection bid between his April marketing campaign announcement and the tip of the second fiscal quarter in June.