New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers is unlikely to be named as the running mate for conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 presidential campaign, according to a report from Mediaite over the weekend.
But it came as no surprise to me when Kennedy confirmed that Rodgers was on his list of potential veeps — both men have become celebrities in the conservative movement for rappelling into the depths of far-right rabbit holes and spouting the harebrained claims they find down there. And like with Kennedy, Rodgers’ conspiracy theories evidently can be steeped in outright bigotry.
That was made abundantly clear after some of Rodgers’ past remarks recently surfaced. Although he spent time last week responding (in lawyerly fashion) to allegations that he has privately shared false conspiracy theories about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, he apparently doesn’t feel a similar desire to address the anti-immigrant bigotry and election denialism he espoused during a recent interview with fellow conspiracy theorist Eddie Bravo.
As first reported by the sports website Awful Announcing, Rodgers spread lies about Covid-19 during the Feb. 23 podcast — and then promoted a claim, without evidence, that immigrants who speak Spanish or Chinese are looking to join the U.S. military and then potentially turn on the country.
Rodgers said he heard the claim from conspiracy theorist Bret Weinstein on an episode of Joe Rogan’s podcast:
How ’bout when he’s [Weinstein] talking about the two different migration groups, right? You have the Spanish-speaking group and you have the Chinese group. And he’s talking about the scariest thing, which I’ve actually thought about for years. I said, no American-lovin’ soldier is going to turn on their people, right? But who would turn on their people?
He went on to say that Congress was opening the door to this kind of betrayal:
And he [Weinstein] mentioned on the podcast: What happens if they offer citizenship for…
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