Musician Eric Clapton helped at a fundraiser for his colleague Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 campaign for the Democratic presidential primary on Monday.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Famer hosted Kennedy and donors at a private home in Los Angeles’ posh Brentwood neighborhood, where tickets started at $3,300 and went up to $6,600, to have a one-on-one interview with Kennedy. according to TMZ.
After the event, RFK Jr. campaign said it raised a total of $2.2 million for the Democratic campaign and its independent PAC.
Kennedy, the son of assassinated presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Sr., celebrated Clapton as a figure of unity at the backyard concert.
In a statement on his website, he thanked rocker The Yardbirds “for bringing his musical artistry and rebellious spirit to my meeting.”
“Eric sings from the depths of the human condition,” he wrote. “If he sees in me the opportunity to bring unity to our country, it is only possible because artists like him invoke a buried belief in the limitless power of man to overcome any obstacle.”
Team Kennedy, Kennedy24.com
Although neither Kennedy’s call for bipartisanship nor Clapton’s appearance mentioned vaccines, both men are outspoken critics of coronavirus vaccinations.
Clapton complained about suffering “catastrophic” but temporary side effects from the AstraZeneca COVID vaccine in 2021, and he railed against compulsory vaccination when in-person gatherings resumed later in the summer.
In 2020, Clapton collaborated with singer Van Morrisonanother open vaccine skeptic, in the anti-lockdown song “Stand and Deliver,” in which they compared COVID safety protocols to slavery.
Kennedy has spent the last two decades spreading widely debunked disinformation about vaccines, which he says cause autism, allergies, cancer and other diseases in children.
The activist-turned-politician was banned from Instagram in 2021 for spreading COVID misinformation, and he was banned from Instagram in July of this year called himself “the first person censured by the Biden administration” when Republicans invited him to testify before the House Judiciary Committee subcommittee on arming the federal government.
While Kennedy is far behind President Joe Biden in polls in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, his numbers are not insignificant.
According to a HarrisX/Harris poll Kennedy trails Biden 15% to 60%, according to data released last week by the Harvard University Center for American Political Studies.
Earlier this summer, American Values 2024, the political action committee of Kennedy’s campaign, reported Raised $16 million in June and July.
Meanwhile Biden Raised $72 million for his re-election bid between his campaign announcement in April and the end of the second fiscal quarter in June.
