CNN
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Impartial presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. stated in a social media video on Sunday that he drove a lifeless bear cub carcass from upstate New York and positioned it in New York Metropolis’s Central Park 10 years in the past, sharing the story in what he stated was an effort to fight a forthcoming New Yorker article he predicted will likely be “a foul story.”
Within the video, which was posted to his X account, Kennedy tells actress Roseanne Barr about touring via New York’s Hudson Valley to go hawking and coming throughout a “younger bear” that had been hit and killed by one other driver. He says within the video he determined to place the lifeless bear in his automobile.
“I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him at the back of my van as a result of I used to be gonna pores and skin the bear,” he stated. “It was in superb situation and I used to be gonna put the meat in my fridge.”
Kennedy then tells Barr he spent the day hawking earlier than driving to New York Metropolis for a dinner — with the bear nonetheless in his automobile. On the finish of the dinner, Kennedy stated, he needed to go to the airport and couldn’t take the bear again to his residence. He stated he broached to associates the concept of taking the bear to Central Park and making it seem as if a biker had hit it.
“I had an previous bike in my automobile that anyone had requested me to do away with and I stated, ‘Let’s go put the bear in Central Park and we’ll make it appear like he bought hit by a motorbike,’” Kennedy says within the video, prompting laughs from Barr and others within the room not seen within the video. “Everyone thought, ‘That’s a fantastic concept.’ So we did that and we thought it will be amusing for whoever discovered it or one thing.”
Kennedy stated the bear’s discovery appeared on “the entrance web page of each paper,” drawing vast media protection and prompting investigations from legislation enforcement, which he stated “anxious” him as a result of he’d left behind fingerprints. Kennedy advised he was not blamed for the incident on the time.
“Fortunately, the story died down after some time and it stayed lifeless for a decade. The New Yorker someway came upon about it, they usually simply — they’re gonna do an enormous article on me. … So that they requested me, the actual fact checkers,” he stated.
Kennedy advised the upcoming story would painting him in a adverse gentle.
“You recognize, it’s gonna be a foul story,” he stated whereas laughing.
A number of the particulars Kennedy describes within the video seem to align with an October 2014 incident wherein a lifeless bear cub was found in Central Park, attracting protection from main information retailers across the nation. The girl who found the bear informed reporters on the time that she discovered it with its head resting on a motorbike. The state’s Division of Environmental Conservation stated shortly after the bear was found that it had died after being hit by a automobile.
In a caption on the submit containing the video, Kennedy wrote, “Trying ahead to seeing the way you spin this one, @NewYorker.”
