Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s bid for the White House has had its ups and downs. Well, lately it’s had a lot of downs. Last week, one of Kennedy’s “key” operatives was arrested and charged with assaulting a woman in an upscale New York bar. This week, the political candidate garnered a less than stellar endorsement from famously #metoo-ed actor Kevin Spacey, while his own family members decided to go with President Biden. And, it goes without saying that Kennedy’s recent rhetorical defense of his past association with dead sex offender Jeffrey Epstein probably won’t win him any new supporters.
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However, undoubtedly the biggest story in the RFK news cycle of late has been the news that, according to the candidate himself, a worm once ate part of his brain and then died.
Yes, on Wednesday, the New York Times broke a story that involved an admission from Kennedy himself that, at one point in 2010, he visited a doctor due to mental fogginess and forgetfulness. Doctors initially thought he had a brain tumor but, according to Kennedy, it soon became apparent that something else was bothering him: There was a dead worm being calcified in his brain. The newspaper reports:
Several doctors noticed a dark spot on the younger Mr. Kennedy’s brain scans and concluded that he had a tumor, he said in a 2012 deposition reviewed by The New York Times. Mr. Kennedy was immediately scheduled for a procedure at Duke University Medical Center by the same surgeon who had operated on his uncle, he said.
While packing for the trip, he said, he received a call from a doctor at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital who had a different opinion: Mr. Kennedy, he believed, had a dead parasite in his head. The doctor believed that the abnormality seen on his scans “was caused by a worm that got into my brain and ate a portion of it and then died,” Mr. Kennedy said in the deposition.
The Times dug up evidence of the worm in a 2012 deposition related to Kennedy’s divorce proceedings. After that, they asked Kennedy about it, who reportedly conceded that he did, indeed, have a worm in his head at one point. According to the deposition, Kennedy claimed that he suffered from cognitive problems like “short-term memory loss” and “longer-term memory loss” but the candidate told the Times that he’s all good today.
This development makes the Kennedy team’s recent decision to challenge Donald Trump to a public debate seem very much like a bad idea. I can only imagine what rhetorical horrors Trump would visit upon Kennedy now that he has effectively handed him one of the easiest comedic attack vectors ever conceived. Since the internet has given us all brain worms, memes about Kennedy’s claim quickly followed the report. Here are some of the takes.
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