Trump’s motivation for attack on RFK Jr. questioned

Former President Donald Trump‘s motives are being questioned after he denounced independent 2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as “the most radical left candidate.”

Kennedy, the son of ex-U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, has arguably become as well known for his anti-vaccine stance as his illustrious family name over the past two decades.

Despite being from a family of famous Democrats, some have suggested that Kennedy’s position on vaccines and some other issues are more in line with voters who lean Republican and could pose a threat to Trump in November.

Trump, who is taking on both Kennedy and President Joe Biden in his bid to return to the White House, shared to his Truth Social account on Thursday a nearly three-minute video arguing that Kennedy should not appeal to conservatives.

The former president insisted that Kennedy, who launched his independent campaign last year after a short-lived Democratic primary bid, presents more of a threat to Biden than him and predicted that he would be “indicted any day now” as a result.

“RFK Jr., as you know, is the most radical left candidate in the race,” Trump says in the video. “But he’s got some nice things about him, I happen to like him. Unfortunately, he is about the green new scam … [he wants to] waste money doing something that nobody wants and everybody knows doesn’t work.”

“He’s frankly more in line with Democrats,” he continues. “Kennedy is a radical left Democrat and always will be … It’s great for MAGA, I hope he continues to run … But expect him to be indicted any day now, probably for environmental fraud.”

Trump went on to say that Kennedy was “crooked Joe Biden’s political opponent, not mine,” predicting that he would “take a lot of votes away from” Biden.

The former president’s attack was quickly questioned by commentators on social media, with some asserting that Trump shared the video because he feared Kennedy’s candidacy or saying Trump had seen internal polling that shows Kennedy poses a threat.

Newsweek reached out for comment to the Trump and Kennedy campaigns via email on Thursday night.

“He’s doing this because his internal polling shows RFK Jr is pulling votes from him,” former federal prosecutor Ron Filipkowski wrote on X, formerly Twitter. “Especially since they now have essentially the same position on abortion and J6, and RFK Jr is more in synch with MAGA on Covid and vaccines than Trump is.”

“Even Trump knows RFK Jr. Is a #Spoiler4Trump,” wrote @TerenceBegleyNJ.

“Looks like the RFK Jr. strategy is backfiring on Trump,” @dudeonthebay wrote. “Stay tuned for more attacks on RFK now that the Trump campaign is realizing they are losing more of their voters than Biden voters.”

“RFK takes Trump votes away,” wrote @wisdom_of_yoda. “The Republicans let him out of the cage now they have to face the consequences.”

“All Trump’s videos ‘bashing’ RFK Jr are painfully phony and low effort,” @DJdolph wrote. “But considering his base believes literally everything he says, he knows this will be persuasive for the target audience.”

Kennedy has seemingly defended Trump or his positions on more than one occasion while campaigning as an independent, while he has had little positive to say about Biden.

During a CNN interview this month, Kennedy argued that Biden posed a “worse threat to democracy” than Trump, claiming that the current president had attempted to “censor political opponents” and “weaponized the federal agencies.”

A Kennedy campaign email sent to supporters this month also argued that there was “little evidence of a true insurrection” on January 6, 2021, and asserted that those detained for crimes related to the Capitol attack had been “stripped of their Constitutional liberties.”

However, a Kennedy campaign spokesperson later told Newsweek that the email had been “an error” and “does not reflect Mr. Kennedy’s views.”