While official Washington occupied itself with small talk and passed canapés during last week’s White House Correspondents’ Dinner party circuit, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was predictably not on anyone’s guest list. The ruling classes were, as usual, laughing at Kennedy from a safe remove. Comedian and Saturday Night Live writer Colin Jost—who was very funny as the headline guest at the WHCA Dinner, despite claims to the contrary from one snooty New York Times critic—joked that Kennedy will never be president. “Like his vaccine card says, he doesn’t have a shot,” Jost said, with a smiling President Biden seated just to his right.

Instead, Kennedy spent the last week far from the green rooms of Washington, sitting for yet another round of alternative media interviews that have made him a sensation among the quirkier sectors of the American electorate—and an ongoing threat to Biden’s reelection chances, even if he has no shot at winning. Kennedy talked to dudebro YouTuber George Janko, faithfluencer (and occasional Laura Ingraham sub-host) Raymond Arroyo, and conservative talker Ben Shapiro, who asked if Kennedy was “the last real Democrat.” And while Biden was roasting and toasting the press on CNN and C-SPAN over the weekend, Kennedy was on HBO, jousting with Bill Maher about vaccines and free speech.