Aaron Rodgers spent time and posed for photos with Robert Kennedy Jr., one of the country’s most prominent vaccine conspirary theorists.
RFK Jr, the son of the former presidential candidate and nephew of JFK, posted a photo with Rodgers to his Twitter account, Friday. Kennedy captioned it: “With Aaron Rodgers in Santa Monica. My dad said it best: ‘Moral courage is a rarer commodity than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital quality for those who seek to change the world which yields most painfully to change.” ”
RFK Jr is an environmental lawyer who founded Children’s Health Defense, a non-profit, in 2011. The organization focuses on fighting against children’s vaccines, alleging they cause a variety of medical conditions. When the COVID pandemic shut down the world in 2020, Kennedy started spreading misinformation about the virus. He wrote a book called The Real Anthony Fauci in 2021. And he also wrote the forward for a book penned by Judy Mikovits, who promoted COVID conspiracy theories in a digital video called Plandemic. YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook deleted the video from their platforms.
In the summer of 2022, Facebook and Instagram deplatformed RFK Jr’s non-profit.
Meanwhile, Aaron Rodgers also has expressed views that can best be described as anti-vaccine. Rodgers declined to be vaccinated for COVID in 2021. He then led the media to believe he had been vaccinated by answering a question that he had been “immunized.” The NFL didn’t mandate that players take the shot, but about 95 percent did so.
He talked about his COVID vaccine views during a 2021 episode of the Pat McAfee Show. Rodgers said:
“I realize I’m in the crosshairs of the woke mob right now. I am somebody who’s a critical thinker. (And) I march to the beat of my own drum. I believe strongly in bodily autonomy, and the ability to make choices for your body, not to have to acquiesce to some woke culture or crazed group of individuals who say you have to do something.”
Aaron Rodgers, when explaining why he didn’t receive the COVID vaccine, said he didn’t feel comfortable taking the Johnson & Johnson shot. He also said he was allergic to ingredients in the shots for Moderna and Pfizer.
In significant career news, Aaron Rodgers announced on Wednesday that he intends to play for the New York Jets. He met with a Jets contingent the week prior near his home in Malibu. The group included Woody Johnson, the Jets billionaire owner. Johnson, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom, is the heir to the Johnson & Johnson pharmaceutical fortune. So, at least indirectly, Rodgers’ paychecks will be from them.
But Aaron Rodgers can’t switch teams until Green Bay and the Jets agree to a trade. Rodgers still has two years remaining on his contract with the Packers.