Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is seeing his star rise after President-elect Trump glided to a second White Home victory on Tuesday, a outstanding trajectory for somebody who was lengthy dismissed as a fringe political determine.
Kennedy and Trump wager massive on one another, taking a bet that independents and different coalitions of voters disillusioned with institution politics would merge to beat Vice President Harris. That partnership paid off for each males, with a large Trump win all however guaranteeing Kennedy is poised to have a distinguished position in Washington.
One concept that’s being floated, per a supply aware about discussions about Kennedy this cycle, is making him “an adviser that wouldn’t need Senate confirmation, but have a direct line to POTUS.”
“He would make personnel recommendations,” the pro-Kennedy supply mentioned. “Nothing solid or in stone yet.”
Nonetheless, figures near each Trump and Kennedy consider it’s solely a matter of time earlier than the environmental lawyer is elevated inside Trump’s newly revamped mind belief. They see the president-elect rewarding Kennedy, who has proven appreciable loyalty to the MAGA motion in current months, with a spot that would have nice affect.
Key nominations, appointments and different high roles within the incoming Trump administration are beginning to be mentioned as hypothesis builds round the place Kennedy could possibly be a believable match.
Within the instant aftermath of the election, the ex-Democrat has already began flexing some muscle privately. The supply acquainted advised The Hill that Kennedy has some early personnel preferences, together with round overseas coverage. Sen. Marco Rubio’s (R-Fla.) title has been floated as a possible nominee for secretary of State, to which Kennedy has expressed opposition.
“He will be advocating for someone who is less neocon,” the supply mentioned.
The scope of affect Kennedy could have is but to be decided, however a lot of his critics — specifically Democrats who strongly opposed his third-party run — are already casting doubt that he’ll be a serious determine in Trump’s orbit.
Democratic strategists who had been apprehensive about Kennedy being a “spoiler” within the election painted him as a noncredible conspiratorial candidate who struggled to get on state ballots after which, later within the contest, even had hassle eradicating himself from battlegrounds the place he may damage Trump.
Celebration advisers and operatives circulated speaking factors and held calls about Kennedy’s potential hazard to Harris’s marketing campaign, highlighting his most controversial moments. A picture of Kennedy making an attempt to eat a charred animal carcass and information tales about him tossing a useless bear into Central Park had been just a few of the weird tales that surfaced concerning the contender.
Democrats additionally performed up a line in a profile on Kennedy the place he mentioned his mind was broken by a worm years in the past.
These peculiar life occasions, which formed the narrative round Kennedy as an odd character, got here on high of some already controversial stances on vaccinations that disregarded a lot of the scientific neighborhood’s consensus.
None of that, nevertheless, appeared to faze Trump. Kennedy was, as a substitute, thought-about a robust asset, capable of faucet into sure teams who shared a lot of his unorthodox views, which at instances ran counter to each neoliberal and neocon considering.
Earlier than he dropped out of the presidential race, Kennedy and Trump allies mentioned ways in which the impartial, who had reached double-digit assist however struggled to get broader traction, may elevate Trump. They settled on a plan that will take away Kennedy from key swing states, wagering that it might assist the Republican nominee.
Kennedy, for his half, pressed for an unspecified place inside what each individuals hoped can be a second Trump administration. Because the election entered its closing weeks, Kennedy made his choice to vary America’s method to public well being — his main focus past his newer foray into electoral politics — recognized to Trump.
Publicly and privately, the president-elect was receptive to that concept, even teasing a doable position engaged on girls’s well being particularly — which shortly angered Democrats who didn’t get sufficient momentum with feminine voters by pushing an abortion message.
Trump mentioned he would let Kennedy “go wild” on the federal government’s well being care programs, a line that his son Donald Trump Jr. additionally enthusiastically repeated to conservative media after his father’s victory.
Kennedy has most not too long ago claimed he needs to eradicate fluoride within the nation’s ingesting water provide, regarding well being officers who contemplate including the mineral chemical a serious development to preserving tooth.
Trump has been nondescript aside from pledging to present Kennedy respiratory room to advance a few of his well being objectives. “He wants to go do some things and we’re going to let him go to it,” Trump mentioned in a part of his postelection victory tackle.
Reeling from their loss towards Trump, some Democrats are skeptical that Kennedy’s greatest agenda gadgets will come to move and level to giant bureaucratic our bodies just like the Environmental Safety Company as checks on his energy. And whereas Republicans regained management of the Senate, there’s an present 60-vote threshold to get Cupboard nominations confirmed within the higher chamber, making a high-level publish more durable to navigate.
“RFK’s eyebrow-raising ideas are so toxic that he’d never be confirmed in a Senate,” mentioned Sacha Haworth, a Democratic strategist. “You think Collins or Murkowski are really going to vote for the brain-worm guy who wants to ban childhood vaccines?” she mentioned, referencing the average Republican senators from Maine and Alaska.
Some Democrats like Haworth are additionally hopeful that Trump, who is thought to have shifting and fleeting, alliances, won’t stay steadfast to Kennedy. “Now that RFK Jr. has served his purpose, Trump will do what he always does: Drop him like a rock,” she added.
The early debate taking part in out over Kennedy, in and of itself, is considerably astonishing and showcases his unlikely rise over the previous two years. After failing to get any traction difficult President Biden for the Democratic nomination final yr, few anticipated that Kennedy could possibly be advising the GOP president-elect on the nation’s most urgent well being issues.
However Trump’s curiosity in Kennedy solely elevated because the election neared. The 2 appeared collectively at battleground state rallies and Kennedy gave public directives to his supporters to not vote for him in locations the place he couldn’t legally get off the ballots, like Michigan and Wisconsin.
Regardless of not being an official candidate, Kennedy nonetheless amassed practically 44,500 votes in these two states, exhibiting his reputation together with his personal diehard base.
As Kennedy now strikes to hone his focus extra carefully on well being in the course of the transition, Democrats are pointing fingers at one another, questioning who’s finally guilty for his ascent.
“As a progressive it’s disappointing that the Democratic Party establishment is allowing an existential threat to our public health to wreak havoc on our country because they failed to stop Donald Trump,” mentioned Kamran Fareedi, a left-wing Democratic operative.
Fareedi mentioned that for a wide range of causes, Democrats didn’t adequately tackle voters’ considerations and now may “fall victim to the conspiracy-laden populist right.”
