New York Jets quarterback Aaron Rodgers is fighting back after a story surfaced on Wednesday on CNN that alleged he was a Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist.
CNN reported that Rodgers, who is reportedly being vetted as a potential running mate for independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., had “shared deranged conspiracy theories about the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting not being real” in private conversations.
Rodgers emphatically denied that report on Thursday afternoon.
“As I’m on the record saying in the past, what happened in Sandy Hook was an absolute tragedy,” Aaron Rogers wrote on Twitter. “I am not and have never been of the opinion that the events did not take place. Again, I hope that we learn from this and other tragedies to identify the signs that will allow us to prevent unnecessary loss of life. My thoughts and prayers continue to remain with the families affected along with the entire Sandy Hook community.”
Rodgers has entered the national spotlight in a new way after emerging as a potential running candidate for Kennedy.
The star quarterback, who tore his Achilles tendon four plays into his New York Jets tenure last September, is in line to be the Jets starting quarterback this upcoming season. It will be the second season of a two year, $75 million deal that Rodgers inked with the Jets after the franchise traded multiple draft picks to the Green Bay Packers for the quarterback prior to the 2023 season.
A potential run on Kennedy’s presidential ticket could obviously impact that.
Kennedy initially tried to run as a Democrat and a primary challenger to incumbent Joe Biden, but was generally rejected by the party and its electorate, and opted to change and run as an independent in October 2023. He and Rodgers shared political common ground on one issue: vaccine skepticism.
That belief was amplified, in Aaron Rodgers’ case, during the Covid-19 pandemic.
Rodgers infamously said he was “immunized” and seemed to have skirted some amount of NFL protective protocol for unvaccinated players, which he was at the time. Rodgers has since struck out to cast himself as open-minded, unorthodox and intellectual. He piqued interest with his darkness retreat and sharing that he’s used ayahuasca in the past, and also sparked outrage with his comments linking late-night host Jimmy Kimmel to alleged sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein on the Pat McAfee Show.
Rodgers made those comments about Kimmel days before he stood before a collection of reporters and explained how exit interviews were a chance for the Jets to “flush the bulls--- after a season that fell flat.
“If you want to be a winning organization and put yourself in position to win championships and be competitive, everything that you do matters. And the bulls--- that has nothing to do with winning needs to get out of the building. So that’ll be the focus moving forward,” Aaron Rodgers said then, in early January.
On3’s Andrew Graham also contributed to this report.
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