Jimmy Kimmel may have figured out what’s really going on with the unusual 2024 presidential campaign of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
This whole thing could be the work of Borat ― aka actor Sacha Baron Cohen ― in yet another disguise.
Kimmel has been off the air due to the writers strike. While he tweets sporadically, it’s generally not about current events.
But on Wednesday, the late night host shared one of Kennedy’s tweets, along with his Borat theory:
Kennedy is challenging President Joe Biden for the 2024 Democratic nomination, but enthusiasm for his campaign has come from far-right figures such as Twitter host Tucker Carlson.
Kennedy has said Russia is acting in “good faith” in Ukraine, praised Donald Trump’s debate skills, spread conspiracy theories about vaccines and posted a strange shirtless video of himself doing pushups.
It’s that last one that caught Kimmel’s attention, as Kennedy’s message about weight gain was part of a thread that included the pushup video.
Kimmel was right to be skeptical of Kennedy’s claim: Americans did not gain an average of 29 pounds during the pandemic.
Kennedy may have been referring to an American Psychological Association poll conducted in 2021 that found 42% of Americans gained weight during the first year of COVID lockdowns. The average gain was 29 pounds — but only among that group reporting an unintended weight increase, not all Americans.
Other research has disputed those findings, and a study last year found Americans gained roughly as much weight during the pandemic as they had in the year before it, meaning COVID-19 had little to no impact on weight at all.