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Donald Trump posted on Truth Social Friday about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
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Trump called the third-party candidate a “Plant Democrat” and a “Radical Left Liberal.”
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The diatribe comes as polls show that RFK Jr.’s candidacy could divert votes from Trump.
donald trump will likely face a second contest against Joe Biden at the upcoming electionsbut the former president currently has another candidate in his sights.
On Friday night, Trump took to Social Truth attack Robert F. Kennedy Jr.an independent candidate running a long-term presidential campaign.
“RFK Jr. is a Democrat ‘factory’, a radical left liberal who was created to help the corrupt Joe Biden,” Trump alleged in his post.
Right now, six months before the election, Trump appears to have a slim 0.8% lead in the polls against Bidenaccording to national survey averages compiled by FiveThirtyEight. Polls for Kennedy show he has 10.2% support overall, while Trump and Biden have 41.7% and 40.9%, respectively.
A Bloomberg News/Morning Consult Survey it also showed Trump as the favorite over Biden in six of the seven swing states, a key metric used to determine who could win the election.
So why is Trump insisting on a distant independent candidate?
Evan Siegfried, a former Republican Party strategist and crisis communications expert, told Business Insider that Trump’s diatribe is expected, considering other recent polling showing that Kennedy could actually hurt Trump in the election.
An NBC News poll published this month showed that Kennedy could divert votes away from Trump, giving Biden a 2-point lead if the choices included all candidates — not just Biden and Trump.
“Honestly, this is not a surprise because in recent weeks polls have started to show that Kennedy takes more from Trump than from Biden,” Siegfried told BI. “He clearly turned against RFK Jr. simply because he takes advantage of swing states.”
Trump’s attack on Friday is a notable shift in Kennedy’s tone.
On April 5th, The New York Times reported that Trump considered the Democratic scion as a possible running mate, according to two sources familiar with the conversations.
“I like Trump-Kennedy,” Trump told one person, according to the report. “I like the way that sounds.”
Kennedy rejected the idea and told the Times that it was “not a path I would consider.”
A Kennedy campaign spokesman declined to comment, but pointed to a X post candidate on April 15th.
“President Trump calls me an ultra-left radical. I am so liberal that your emissaries asked me to be your vice president,” he wrote. “I respectfully declined the offer.”
Siegfried told BI that Trump would love to establish a “dynasty” and one of the best ways to do that would be to attach himself to the Kennedy name.
But the consideration was likely a passing thought that the former president was “reflecting on,” Siegfried said, adding that even Trump’s advisers probably knew it wouldn’t be a reality.
The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.
Read the original article at Business Insider
