Test Audio: Kennedy Puts the Screws to Swing State Voters

 

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Tried and Failed. Now He's Putting the Screws to Swing State Voters.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Credit Wikimedia Commons

by Melisaundra Welles

It was hard for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign to get his name on states’ ballots throughout the country.  Running as an Independent or under the banners of various third-parties, Kennedy had to obtain precise numbers of signatures and meet other specific requirements of each state in order to access their ballots.  Sometimes he had to litigate.  And, in many states, none of the ballot process was cheap.  In New York alone, Kennedy reportedly spent $1.1 million in an attempt to get on that state’s ballot.[i]  He ultimately failed there because New York judges objected to him using a sham address to finagle his way onto the ballot.[ii]  

Kennedy’s been denied in other places, too, but there are plenty of states where he’s succeeded.  Even through worker layoffs and drastic dips in cash, he and his campaign persisted until his name is set to appear in roughly half of the 50 states in November.[iii]

From the start, though, it was pretty clear that Kennedy wasn’t in it to win it.  He simply wanted to be a spoiler to defeat President Biden and leave open a path for a Donald Trump victory.  Rita Palma, a Kennedy campaign official based in New York, said as much out loud.  According to an early April 2024 CNN article, Palma had “… repeatedly made the case, including in a meeting with Empire State Republicans, that efforts to put Kennedy on the ballot in New York will help “get rid of Biden…”  That was her ‘No. 1 priority,’ which she assessed would “make it easier for Trump to win the historically Democratic state.”[iv]

Palma got fired for admitting that openly,[v] but she couldn’t have been all wrong.  Regardless of the sequence of events that got us to where we are today (including the appearance of Vice President Kamala Harris at the top of the Democratic ticket), Kennedy has suspended his campaign in as many swing states as possible and has tossed his endorsement to Donald Trump. 

In exchange, Trump praised Kennedy at an Arizona rally and pledged, if elected, to create an independent presidential commission on assassinations … to release all remaining documents related to John F. Kennedy's assassination.  Trump further iterated that he'd “establish a panel … to investigate the increase in chronic health problems and childhood diseases, including autoimmune disorders, autism, obesity and infertility.”[vi] 

Those pledges meshed seamlessly with Kennedy’s interests: The first would provide answers to questions he might have about his uncle’s death, and the second gives a nod to Kennedy’s plans for the National Institutes of Health (NIH), should he become president.  In a 2023 conference for the Children’s Health Defense (the nation’s largest anti-vaccine organization), Kennedy described his plan for the NIH.  “I’m gonna say to NIH scientists, God bless you all[.] … Thank you for [your] public service.  We’re going to give infectious disease a break for about eight years.”[vii]

Kennedy is a major proponent of anti-vaccine misinformation and was especially prolific with conspiracy theories during the COVID-19 pandemic.  His intent to dismantle the NIH’s work on infectious diseases would be disastrous to the health and safety of this country. 

Nevertheless, even in the face of Trump’s capitulations, Kennedy still wanted voters to continue to support him in non-battleground states.  Then, on September 5, 2024, Kennedy had an epiphany.  He instructed—in a fundraising email—that all his supporters everywhere should cast their votes for Trump.[viii]

Was it really that easy?  A simple email to let the country know that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. had once more changed his mind?  If, in fact, it is that easy, then it is deeply offensive.