Steve Schmidt: 'The Kennedy Factor: How Could RFK Jr. Shake Up the Trump-Biden Re-Match in the 2024 Election?'

Source:The Warning With Schmidt talking about Donald J. Trump's political wingman Robert F. Kennedy JR.

"Steve Schmidt joins Scripps News to discuss what Robert F. Kennedy's presence in the 2024 election means for the Trump-Biden rematch." 

From The Warning With Steve Schmidt

As my colleague Fred Schneider wrote about Robert F. Kennedy JR. back in March: 

"As an at best Independent Democrat at this point, whose not in love with the Democratic Party politically, or really anything else, for that matter, I would love to see Robert F. Kennedy JR. run for President as a Libertarian. Why? Because it would just confirm what I, what this blog, and what a lot of other Democrats believe about RFK JR. that he's simply a MAGA man, who at the very least doesn't want Joe Biden to be reelected and perhaps even wants Donald Trump back in The White House, where all their MAGA conspiracy theories and avenues to financially profit for them, would open up." 

From The New Democrat

As my colleague Fred Schneider wrote about Robert F. Kennedy JR. back in April: 

"As far as RFK JR. telling CNN anchor Erin Burnett, who I'm a fan of and think she does a great job and is an excellent interviewer and really doesn't take any junk (to put it mildly) from her guests, once again Bob JR. is just trying to blame President Biden for something that he can't even try to defend." 

From The New Democrat

As my colleague Kire Schneider wrote about Robert F. Kennedy JR. back in May: 

"As far as Robert F. Kennedy JR: The New Democrat has been pretty clear about him from the beginning. He's a better looking, more intelligent, perhaps healthier, younger (even though he's 70 years old)  Donald Trump. But now we know he also has brain damage, which explains his braindead presidential campaign. (Pun intended) And maybe he's looking for a way to get out of this election, because he's now seeing polling that his campaign is hurting Donald Trump. Which he doesn't want and is looking for a way to get out of this, before he hurts Trump even more. "  

From The New Democrat

As my colleague Fred Schneider wrote about Robert F. Kennedy JR. back in May: 

"If you are Joe Biden, the only thing you want to do, is beat Donald J. Trump. Who'll hopefully be Convict Don before the conventions, not just the election. The last thing you want to do is to be screwing around with Donald Trump's younger, better looking, hipper, smarter, physically stronger, little political brother, Robert F. Kennedy JR. Whose simply running for President as Donald Trump's political wingman or blocker, whose simply trying to keep Joe Biden from winning reelection. I mean Bob Kennedy isn't even qualified for the debates right now and isn't on enough state ballots to win the election. Don't give him a bigger platform than he deserves." 

From The New Democrat

I agree with Steve Schmidt that Robert F. Kennedy JR. hurts Joe Biden more than Donald Trump. But I guess it would put it differently and have different reasons. 

As we've already said on The New Democrat, RFKJR. is a just younger, healthier, smarter, stronger, Donald J. Trump. Not that being younger, healthier, smarter, and stronger, then Donald J. Trump, who just reported to his probation hearing in Manhattan today, is any great prize. You don't win prizes for being better than career criminals and crooks, who've just recently gotten caught and have become convicted felons for the first time in their lives. 

What Bob Kennedy wants to do here, is help Donald Trump by taking votes away from Joe Biden. If you are familiar with auto racing, they have teams as well. They'll have one driver whose in it to win it (to to speak) and another driver, or other drivers, who are there to make the top driver on their team job easier to win the race. And they do that by blocking the top driver's opponents from taking the lead in the race, or just catching up. That's what Kennedy JR. is doing here, but doing it in a political sense. 

RFKJR is one of the most well-known, antigovernment, conspiracy theorists: 

"Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s family publicly rebuked the longshot Democratic presidential contender for claiming at a dinner party in Manhattan last week Chinese and Ashkenazi Jewish people are less susceptible to Covid-19—unverified conspiracy theories widely viewed as racist and among a string of false claims he has helped spread over the better part of the past two decades.

Covid-19 targets certain races and gives others immunity: Kennedy Jr. was caught on camera telling fellow diners that “Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people” and “the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” according to a video made public in the New York Post, which also shows him saying the U.S. “put hundreds of millions of dollars into ethnically targeted microbes” and labs in Ukraine collected Russian and Chinese DNA “so we can target people by race.”

The 2004 presidential election was stolen: Kennedy Jr. said in a 2006 Rolling Stone article he was “convinced” that voter fraud in the 2004 presidential election allowed former Republican President George W. Bush to steal the victory from Democrat John Kerry, but while a 2005 postmortem by the Democratic Party found a breakdown of the election system in Ohio, it found no evidence of fraud.

The CIA was involved in the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy: Reprising the unfounded claim he has made for years, Kennedy Jr. recently made the suggestion to Fox News’ Sean Hannity (though the federal government’s Warren Commission convened to study the killing found that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone when he shot JFK in 1963).

The wrong person may have been convicted of killing his father: Kennedy Jr. cast doubt on the conviction of Sirhan Sirhan in the 1968 assassination of his father, former U.S. Attorney General and Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, to which gunman Sirhan Sirhan confessed days later, though his lawyers have claimed in recent years that he was hypnotized and coerced to kill Kennedy.

The pharmaceutical industry is throwing money at Democrats: After the Affordable Care Act of 2010, “Democrats were getting more money from pharma than Republicans,” Kennedy Jr. claimed on Twitter Spaces, though an analysis by STAT News found 23 of the country’s biggest drug companies and 2 pharmaceutical trade organizations have favored Republicans in 14 of the past 16 elections from 1990-2020, the most recent year STAT studied.

Gun ownership in Switzerland is similar to the United States: While vowing not to “take away anyone’s guns,” if elected president, Kennedy Jr. made the debunked claim, despite data that shows U.S. civilians possess an average of 120.5 firearms per 100 people, the highest per-capita rate in the world, compared to 27.6 in Switzerland, according to the Small Arms Survey by the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland." 

From Forbes Magazine

It's not just the COVID nonsense (to be kind) that RFKJR throws around. And then add to the fact that at one point, before he took it back last month, he was talking about pardoning all the January 6 defendants and calling them tourists and using all this MAGA propaganda to try to defend the Jan 6. insurrectionists. He's a younger, healthier, (minus the brain damage) smarter, less criminally exposed, Donald J. Trump. 

But the catch is, at least before he just won the Reform Party presidential nomination, that he was going to run as a hardcore, leftist, who might be able to make the so-called Squad in the House, look like flaming, mushy-middle moderates. I think's that's a lot harder now that he has the backing and even nomination of a center-right, fiscally conservative, oriented, political party, that wants to reform entitlements, get the national debt and deficit under control, and put limits on trade and immigration. 

So if you are the Trump Campaign, you have to convince and reenforce to the MAGA movement and perhaps center-right Republicans, that Donald Trump is the only person to vote for, before Bob Kennedy can hurt your campaign. 

For the Biden Campaign, you need your left-wing flank whose not in love with Joe Biden (especially politically) that RFKJR is not one of them, before they think about voting for him, instead of not voting at all, or voting for a third-party Socialist. 

But based on current polling and this will continue through the summer, if RFKJR sticks with the same political script, he takes votes away from Donald J. Trump and would cost him the election. Especially if DJT loses 10% or more of the Republican Party to Joe Biden, or those voters don't vote at all. 

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