Robert F. Kennedy Jr.\u00a0announced Monday that he would end his primary challenge to\u00a0President Biden\u00a0and\u00a0instead run for the White House as an independent.And with the announcement not only did a long-running GOP effort to elevate him in the service of embarrassing Biden go up in smoke, but Kennedy now appears to pose a potential spoiler threat by\u00a0taking more votes from former president Donald Trump than Biden.What has resulted is a remarkable turnabout in how Republicans and the right talk about Kennedy.In recent days, the Republican National Committee has called Kennedy \u201cjust another radical, far-left Democrat\u201d while detailing 23 reasons Republicans should oppose him. RNC Chairwoman Ronna McDaniel said Kennedy is a \u201ctypical elitist liberal, and voters won\u2019t be fooled.\u201d And Trump\u2019s campaign made it even clearer that it fears a potential spoiler candidacy from Kennedy, who is\u00a0much more popular with Republicans than Democrats.\u201cVoters should not be deceived by anyone who pretends to have conservative values,\u201d Trump spokesman Steven Cheung said in a statement. He added that an \u201cRFK candidacy is nothing more than a vanity project for a liberal Kennedy to cash in on his family\u2019s name.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is a far cry from how the right \u2014 and even Trump himself \u2014 once talked about Kennedy. And to the extent MAGA voters are \u201cfooled\u201d into thinking he\u2019s one of them, Republicans will have themselves to blame.While Republicans are now pitching Kennedy as an opportunist and a radical, Trump in late June\u00a0vouched for Kennedy\u2019s character and \u201ccommon sense.\u201d\u201cHe\u2019s a very smart guy, and a good guy,\u201d Trump said, adding: \u201cHe\u2019s a very good man, and his heart is in the right place.\u201d\u201cHe\u2019s a common-sense guy, and so am I,\u201d Trump said. \u201cSo, whether you\u2019re conservative or liberal, common sense is common sense.\u201dWhile they now suggest Kennedy should be persona non grata for conservative voters, key Trump-aligned strategists including Stephen K. Bannon and Roger Stone have pushed Kennedy as a possible running mate for Trump.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Monday that he would end his primary challenge to President Biden and instead run for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_coblocks_attr":"","_coblocks_dimensions":"","_coblocks_responsive_height":"","_coblocks_accordion_ie_support":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-210","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/whatistandfor.co\/LeFachicette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/whatistandfor.co\/LeFachicette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/whatistandfor.co\/LeFachicette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whatistandfor.co\/LeFachicette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whatistandfor.co\/LeFachicette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=210"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/whatistandfor.co\/LeFachicette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":211,"href":"http:\/\/whatistandfor.co\/LeFachicette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/210\/revisions\/211"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/whatistandfor.co\/LeFachicette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=210"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whatistandfor.co\/LeFachicette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=210"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/whatistandfor.co\/LeFachicette\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=210"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}