NEW YORK — Former President Donald Trump will speak at the Libertarian National Convention in Washington, D.C. later this month as he tries to attract voters outside the Republican base and avoid losing support to independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
“Libertarians are some of our country’s most independent and thoughtful thinkers, and I am honored to join them in Washington, D.C., later this month,” Trump said in a statement released Wednesday. and freedom for all Americans, and a second Trump administration will achieve that goal.”
He went on to argue that: “If libertarians join me and the Republican Party, where we have many libertarian views, the election will not be even close. We cannot have four more years of death, destruction and incompetence. WE WILL WORK TOGETHER AND WIN!” ”
The event comes as the Trump campaign steps up its attacks on Kennedy, who is running as an independent against Trump and President Joe Biden after abandoning his Democratic primary bid. Kennedy appealed to disaffected Democrats and Republicans looking for an alternative to the pending rematch of the 2020 elections.
Kennedy has spoken of his support for the Libertarian Party, telling CNN in January that he had a “very good relationship” with the party. A Kennedy alliance with the Libertarian Party could accelerate his efforts to gain access to the ballot box in all 50 states, including battlegrounds that small margins could decide in November, although Kennedy told ABC last month that he did not plan to run on the ticket. Libertarian.
On Wednesday, the main Trump-supporting super PAC released an old video clip of Kennedy that appeared to show him criticizing red states. “RFK hates you!” they wrote on X, formerly Twitter. The Kennedy campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Although Trump has publicly insisted that he believes Kennedy’s candidacy harms him less than Biden, he has addressed him in interviews and on his social media platform.
“RFK Jr. is the most radical left-wing candidate in the race by far,” he wrote last month in Truth Social, calling Kennedy “a big fan of the Green New Coup and other economy-killing disasters.”
Trump’s campaign aides also went after him on social media Wednesday, calling him “a radical left lunatic” and charging: “Any ‘conservative’ or ‘Republican’ letting this left-wing lunatic get on their platform to cover up their decades of farce -left-liberal positions & activism is helping and encouraging Joe Biden.”
The Libertarian Party said in a statement announcing the speech that it will share a list of its top ten issues with Trump before the convention, “in hopes of making an impact on the policy positions of a past, and possibly future, president.”
“For 50 years, we have tried to put our candidates on the main stage with the party’s leading POTUS candidates and we have finally managed to bring one to our stage,” party chair Angela McArdle said in a statement. We will do everything in our power to seize this incredible opportunity to promote the message of freedom.”
