“Junior’” Is Becoming A Problem For Donald

The candidate whom the GOP hoped would spoil the race for Joe Biden may be pulling more from Trump.

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on the campaign trial. Photo by Richard Vogel / AP

RFK, Jr. sounded like the perfect foil to draw support from Joe Biden. With that Kennedy name, his previous environmental credentials, and his willingness to criticize the scientific and political establishment, RFK Jr. could play the role of dangerous spoiler on Biden’s left flank, and the GOP was nearly giddy at what kind of damage he could do.

Steve Bannon, who has regularly advised Trump, was a big fan of RFK, Jr., praising him when he was considering challenging Biden for the nomination and floating the idea of him being a VP pick.

And as early as a month ago, Trump was still going on about how RFK Jr. would siphon votes from Biden. Claiming that RFK Jr. is “the most Radical Left Candidate in the race,” Trump posted a prediction that he would be “taking votes from Crooked Joe Biden.” He concluded, “He is Crooked Joe Biden's Political Opponent, not mine. I love that he is running!”

If you can’t beat him

As polls, however accurate or inaccurate, began to show more clearly that more Trump voters actually liked RKF Jr. more than Biden voters did, the Trump camp began to fret. It even sought to double down (and protect its own lunatic flank) by actually approaching RFK Jr. about joining Trump on the ticket as his VP.

In an interview, RFK Jr. said that the campaign had asked him “multiple times” about being Trump’s VP. Bannon also pushed the idea of a “unity ticket” hard in an interview with Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk as late as last week, claiming they could get two-thirds of the country behind it, a wild and unsupportable claim.

But RFK Jr. wasn’t interested. And then, it seems the most recent polling set Trump’s remaining hair on fire.

Meltdown

Yesterday on Truth Social, Trump left a lengthy, three-part screed, attacking RFK Jr. directly and changing his tune to accuse him of existing solely to spoil the Trump campaign.

“RFK Jr. is a Democrat ‘Plant,’ a Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place in order to help Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President in the History of the United States, get Re-Elected,” Trump posted. The ex-president has a habit, it seems, of saying things were planted when they aren’t going his way, from classified documents to third paty candidates.

To us political watchers, there was a sweet irony to Trump accusing RFK Jr.’s campaign of being a Democratic operation. If anything, he’s appeared to be a GOP spoiler from the get-go as someone who was directly financed by Trump’s top donor. As Newsweek reported,

Timothy Mellon, heir to the Mellon banking fortune, donated $5 million to the Trump-aligned MAGA Inc. fundraising attempts in January, as well [as] $5 million to a Super PAC supporting the Democrat-turned-independent’s presidential bid the same month, Federal Election Commission (FEC) listings reveal.

Trump apparently really didn’t like the newest numbers from a Quinnipiac University survey, which found that Kennedy’s supporters would be more likely to favor Mr. Trump in a two-way race: 47 percent would vote for Trump while 29 percent would vote for Mr. Biden.

Trump is still smart enough to know that 47 is much bigger than 29, even accounting for errors in polling. So he addressed his MAGA supporters directly about it. “A Vote for Junior’ would essentially be a WASTED PROTEST VOTE, that could swing either way, but would only swing against the Democrats if Republicans knew the true story about him,” Trump added.

And then there was this eyebrow raising closer: “I’d even take Biden over Junior’ because our Country would last a year or two longer prior to collapse.”

Bottom line? Trump must really be worried.

They forgot how cuckoo RFK Jr. really is

The Trump Campaign should have realized that the Venn diagram of RFK Jr. supporters and the MAGA right overlap considerably.

RFK Jr. was a top spreader of vaccine disinformation during the pandemic. Covid denialism and anti-vax ideology are more prevalent among the right than the left. The Center for Countering Digital Hate lists RFK Jr. as No. 2 on its Disinformation Dozen, writing that “his Children’s Health Defense (CHD) hosts a range of anti-vaccine articles” and that it released a film in mid-March ‘targeting members of the Black and Latino communities with tailored anti-vaccine messages.”

RFK Jr. also made a tidy sum from the pandemic disinformation and is a grifter in a mold that should feel familiar to MAGA. Kennedy is listed among the top “Pandemic Profiteers,” with his non-profit having made an estimated $2.9 million in revenue from anti-vax social media. It paid Kennedy a quarter million dollar annual salary.

Kennedy has also sought to make inroads within the Republican establishment. Judd Legum, who writes the Popular Information newsletter, even caught CDH (the non-profit that Kennedy runs) attempting to make an illegal $50K contribution to the Republican Attorneys General Association.

On top of this, the Trump Campaign, which has winked and embraced in its own blatant way at the QAnon folks, should have realized that conspiracy-minded, anti-establishment voters would find themselves nodding in agreement at Kennedy’s myriad bizarre and debunked conspiracies. These include false claims about how Wi-Fi causes cancer and “leaky brain” syndrome, ideas he pushed on the Joe Rogan podcast. Kennedy has also theorized that chemicals in our water supply are turning children transgender—echoing false claims from none other than Alex Jones. And he accused Bill Gates of developing an “injectable chip” to track our every movement.

Real tin-foil hat stuff.

As Kennedy’s insane views come more to light, higher information, Biden-inclined voters will likely move away from him, while lower information, Trump-inclined voters may see him as a good alternative, especially if Trump’s mental decline and criminal prosecutions weigh further upon him as a candidate.

Trump is now sounding even more unhinged than usual as he tries to do damage control over a third-party candidacy that he once delighted in. But the anti-vax, anti-science, conspiracy RFK Jr. genie is out of the bottle, and it may just turn out that those most easily swayed by him are found far more inside the MAGA cult than outside of it.