FILE – Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., testifies earlier than a Home Judiciary Choose Subcommittee listening to on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 20, 2023. AP Picture/Patrick Semansky
By ALI SWENSON, Related Press
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Republicans attacked Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Monday because the longtime environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist launched an unbiased bid for the White Home, reflecting rising considerations on the proper that the previous Democrat now threatens to take votes from former President Donald Trump in 2024.
The Republican Nationwide Committee and Trump’s marketing campaign each took goal at Kennedy’s liberal background whereas nationwide Democrats stayed silent as Kennedy insisted in a speech in Philadelphia that he was leaving each political events behind.
“Voters shouldn’t be deceived by anybody who pretends to have conservative values,” stated Trump spokesperson Steven Cheung in an announcement. He labeled Kennedy’s marketing campaign “nothing greater than an arrogance undertaking for a liberal Kennedy trying to money in on his household’s title.”
The fiery response exposes the unknowns that lie in Kennedy’s long-anticipated resolution to run as an unbiased. The transfer is more likely to affect the 2024 race, which seems to be heading towards a rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden, but it surely’s nonetheless unclear precisely how.
Kennedy, a member of one of the well-known households in Democratic politics, was operating a long-shot main bid and holds higher favorability scores amongst Republicans than Democrats. Even Trump simply two weeks in the past stated of RFK, “I like him loads. I’ve identified him for a very long time.”
Allies of each Biden and Trump have at instances questioned whether or not Kennedy could be a spoiler in opposition to their candidate.
“The reality is, they’re each proper,” Kennedy stated onstage Monday to roaring applause. “My intention is to spoil it for each of them.”
Talking Monday from Philadelphia’s Independence Mall, the place America’s founding paperwork have been adopted, Kennedy made it clear he didn’t wish to be affiliated with both get together. He referenced a “rising tide of discontent” within the nation. He stated he needs to make a “new declaration of independence” — from firms, the media and the 2 main political events.
Tons of of supporters who gathered for Kennedy’s remarks, holding indicators that learn “Declare your independence” and at instances chanting “RFK, all the way in which!” have been upbeat about his resolution. An eclectic mixture of disillusioned Democrats, Trump voters searching for a change, and political outsiders who say their concepts don’t sq. with anyone get together, they insisted that Kennedy might unify all of them.
“He’s going to win,” stated Peter Pantazis, a 40-year-old enterprise proprietor from Lewes, Delaware. “I’ve been praying that he’s going to decentralize the marketing campaign, get away from the get together system and really be the candidate of the individuals for the individuals. And that’s what he introduced at the moment.”
“The final couple years I’ve been noticing the Republican Get together’s been going a manner I didn’t like,” stated Brent Snyder, a disabled veteran from south Philadelphia. “Not that I agree with every part that’s occurring to Trump, however I feel proper now he has extra baggage than his nation wants. The division proper now’s simply horrible. We’d like somebody to deliver each side collectively to make us work.”
Pleasure, hope and the faint odor of marijuana hovered above the group as Kennedy spoke of John Adams’ unwavering help for his nation and George Washington’s prescient warning that partisan politics would lead to corruption.
But Kennedy’s upstart marketing campaign has an extended approach to go to compete with the funding, help and expertise that the Trump and Biden campaigns take pleasure in. His announcement Monday was delayed briefly when he arrived onstage solely to seek out his speech hadn’t been loaded onto the teleprompter.
Monday’s announcement comes lower than every week after the progressive activist Cornel West deserted his Inexperienced Get together bid in favor of an unbiased White Home run. In the meantime, the centrist group No Labels is actively securing poll entry for a yet-to-be-named candidate.
Conscious of the chance that Kennedy might pull votes away from Republicans, Trump allies have begun circulating opposition analysis in opposition to Kennedy designed to wreck his standing amongst would-be conservative supporters.
The Republican Nationwide Committee revealed a truth sheet earlier than Kennedy’s speech titled “Radical DEMOCRAT RFK Jr.” that lists instances he supported liberal politicians or concepts. The doc additionally listed instances he supported conspiracy theories about COVID-19 or “stolen-election claims” associated to the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections that Democrats misplaced to President George W. Bush. Trump continues to advertise the disproved idea that his loss to Biden was the results of a stolen election.
Biden’s allies up to now have dismissed Kennedy’s main marketing campaign as unserious. Requested for remark forward of the announcement, a Democratic Nationwide Committee spokesman responded with a watch roll emoji. The DNC declined to remark Monday.
4 of Kennedy’s eight surviving siblings put out a joint assertion denouncing his candidacy and saying his announcement saddened them.
“The choice of our brother Bobby to run as a 3rd get together candidate in opposition to Joe Biden is harmful to our nation,” it learn. “Bobby may share the identical title as our father, however he doesn’t share the identical values, imaginative and prescient or judgment.”
Tony Lyons, co-founder and co-chairman of American Values 2024, the tremendous PAC supporting Kennedy, dismissed these feedback as “a part of a method to discredit him.”
“At his household dinner tables they might disagree about every part, and that’s what democracy seems to be like,” Lyons stated. “Households are allowed to disagree.”
Whereas Kennedy has lengthy recognized as a Democrat and regularly invokes his late father, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy, and his uncle President John F. Kennedy on the marketing campaign path, he has constructed shut relationships with far-right figures lately. He appeared on a channel run by the Sandy Hook conspiracy theorist Alex Jones and headlined a cease on the ReAwaken America Tour, the Christian nationalist highway present put collectively by Trump’s former nationwide safety adviser Michael Flynn.
Polls present much more Republicans than Democrats have a good opinion of Kennedy. He additionally has gained help from some far-right conservatives for his fringe views, together with his vocal mistrust of COVID-19 vaccines, which research have proven are secure and efficient in opposition to extreme illness and dying.
Kennedy’s anti-vaccine group, Youngsters’s Well being Protection, presently has a lawsuit pending in opposition to a lot of information organizations, amongst them The Related Press, accusing them of violating antitrust legal guidelines by taking motion to establish misinformation, together with about COVID-19 and COVID-19 vaccines. Kennedy took depart from the group when he introduced his run for president however is listed as considered one of its attorneys within the lawsuit.
Related Press writers Jill Colvin, Michelle Smith, and Will Weissert contributed to this report.
The Related Press receives help from a number of personal foundations to reinforce its explanatory protection of elections and democracy. See extra about AP’s democracy initiative right here. The AP is solely accountable for all content material.