RFK Jr. Fundraisers Tied to J6ers, QAnoners, Christian Nationalists, and Far-Right Extremists – By David Corn & Dan Friedman (Mother Jones) / April 5, 2024
Steve and Tracy Slepcevic have been hanging out with radical Trumpers.
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On March 23, Steve and Tracy Slepcevic hosted a fundraiser for independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the San Diego area. Tickets started at $575, and those who paid $2,750 were to be treated to a “private sunset reception” before RFK Jr. would chat with the assembled and pose for photos. It was hardly surprising that the Slepcevics were supporting Kennedy, given that Tracy is a long-time anti-vaxxer prominent within the autism community. But the personal politics of the Slepcevics illuminate the weird currents propelling Kennedy’s White House bid, for the pair have hobnobbed with QAnoners, Christian nationalists, election deniers, and other pro-Trump extremists. Steve, who has a checkered past as a businessmen that includes an arrest (but not a conviction) for allegedly defrauding victims of Hurricane Katrina, was in the crowd of Trump devotees outside the Capitol on January 6.
Last year, Tracy Slepcevic published a book called Warrior Mom about her years raising a son with autism that she blames on routine childhood vaccines. The book was endorsed by Kennedy and championed by Michael Flynn, the disgraced former national security adviser for President Donald Trump who has become a QAnon-friendly Christian nationalist and a leader within the far-right patriots movement. The Kennedy campaign sells signed copies of the book for $150 a pop. Tracy has been an ally of Children’s Health Defense, the anti-vax nonprofit that Kennedy ran before entering the 2024 contest. In November, she spoke at CHD’s annual conference in Savannah, Georgia, where she hawked her book and palled around with Kennedy, a longtime peddler of Covid and vaccine misinformation. On Facebook, she declared, “Had a great time at the CHD conference in Savannah with some amazing people…I’m so blessed to be on this journey with each and every one of them.” In promoting her book and activism, she has shared platforms with Stew Peters, a far-right anti-vaxxer who has been tied to QAnon advocacy and has spread (according to the ADL) antisemitic tropes, and with Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced scientist who wrote a discredited paper linking autism to vaccines.
Tracy is a regular on the far-right conspiracy circuit. In November 2022, she joined the ReAwaken America tour as a speaker. This was a traveling road show that fused Christian nationalism, QAnonism, and MAGAism. It was a feast of election denialism and assorted conspiracy theories that featured as headliners Flynn, MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell, longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone, conspiracy-theory-monger Alex Jones, and Lara and Eric Trump. At these events, there was much talk of demons. (At one stop, Stone proclaimed “there is a Satanic portal above the White House” that appeared after Joe Biden became president.) Last June, Tracy attended the premiere of Plandemic 3: The Great Awakening, the third in a trilogy of conspiracy theory movies produced by an independent filmmaker named Mikki Willis. The first was loaded with debunked notions about Covid and vaccinations, and Facebook and YouTube each removed the film from its platform. The third one claimed Covid lockdowns were “synchronized tyranny” concocted to control the masses, decried a “purported plot” for one-world government, and dubbed Black Lives Matter a pro-communist organization.
