A US presidential candidate is being roasted for appearing to eat barbecued dog in a newly surfaced photograph.
Independent candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr. seems to hold an animal carcass with a metal stake through it and has his mouth open as if to take a bite, in the photo supposedly taken in 2010 and obtained by Vanity Fair.
He allegedly texted the photo, in which he stands next to an unknown woman, to a friend last year.
‘Kennedy told the person, who was traveling to Asia, that he might enjoy a restaurant in Korea that served dog on the menu, suggesting Kennedy had sampled dog,’ reported the magazine on Tuesday.
A veterinarian said the carcass appeared to belong to a dog, based on 13 pairs of ribs including a ‘floating’ one.
Kennedy has called the report ‘a lot of garbage’.
‘The picture that they said is of me eating a dog, it’s actually me eating a goat in Patagonia on a whitewater trip many years ago on the Futaleufu River,’ Kennedy told the Breaking Points political podcast.
‘They say … they have an expert that has identified that as a dog carcass. It’s just not true.’
Kennedy went on to share the image on X (formerly Twitter) and address Vanity Fair directly.
‘Hey @VanityFair, you know when your veterinary experts call a goat a dog, and your forensic experts say a photo taken in Patagonia was taken in Korea, that you’ve joined the ranks of supermarket tabloids,’ he wrote.
‘Keep telling America that up is down if you want. I’ll keep talking about the fact that working families can’t afford houses or groceries because our last two presidents went on a $14trillion debt joyride, paid for by hard-working Americans.’
The third-party candidate is seen as a thorn at the side of both President Joe Biden and ex-President and Republican candidate Donald Trump. As Biden and Trump continue to run a close race, Kennedy could claim critical votes.
Kennedy, who is the nephew of America’s 35th President John F Kennedy, left the Democratic Party late last year and announced he would run for the White House as an independent.
‘The truth is, they’re both right,’ Kennedy said in October of the Biden and Trump camps. ‘My intention is to spoil it for both of them.’
In his X post on Tuesday, Kennedy concluded of the report: ‘The DNC media’s garbage pail journalism may distract us from President Biden’s cognitive deficits but it does little to elevate the national debate or reduce the price of groceries.’
Kennedy said in the podcast that Vanity Fair was ‘recycling 30-year-old stories’ and that he was not going to comment on details around them.
‘I’ve said this from the beginning. I am not a church boy. I am not running like that. I said… I had a very, very rambunctious youth,’ he said.
‘I said in my announcement speech that I have … so many skeletons in my closet, that if they could all vote, I could run for king of the world.’
The alleged photo of Kennedy emerged just a few months after Conservative South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem admitted to shooting dead a dog she called ‘untrainable’ and ‘worthless’. She is no longer considered a potential vice presidential running mate for Trump.
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