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Speaker 4: Robert Kenny Junior claimed, who's going to be running this groundbreaking,
Speaker 4: once in a lifetime, once in a generation, independent campaign
Speaker 4: to challenge both parties. So for RFK Junior now to
Speaker 4: just abandon all the critiques that he was seriously making
Speaker 4: of Trump, now he just become a cog in the
Speaker 4: very duopoly and he claimed that he was running to dislodge.
Speaker 1: You can't say this is an easy decision that mister
Speaker 1: Kennedy made and you can't say it was just an opportunist.
Speaker 1: Mister Kennedy went against some of this key advisor in
Speaker 1: this campaign over this issue. He has a real chance
Speaker 1: to get into it the Trump administration and bring a
Speaker 1: lot of these these policies and a lot of these
Speaker 1: principles that he that is volunteers, the supportive wants. The
Speaker 1: reality of it is is if you don't have a
Speaker 1: seat at the table at the ends, you might as well.
Speaker 3: Stay at home.
Speaker 5: Welcome to counterpoints. We have a great conversation lined up
Speaker 5: for today. We are joined by journalist Michael Tracy and
Speaker 5: Jeff Hutt, who was a national field director for the
Speaker 5: Robert F. Kennedy Junior campaign. First, welcome to both of you.
Speaker 5: Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 6: Great to be with you.
Speaker 3: Thank you too, It's a real pleasure.
Speaker 7: I actually have a logistics question to start out with. So, Jeff,
Speaker 7: you're working for the RFK Junior campaign. Is that campaign?
Speaker 7: So he's off the ballot in the swing states, or
Speaker 7: he's trying to get off the ballot in the swing states.
Speaker 7: But now Democrats would love it if he would just
Speaker 7: stay on despite trying to kick.
Speaker 6: Him off like a year earlier.
Speaker 7: But he's still campaigning and telling people, or he's still
Speaker 7: telling people to vote for him in the non swing states.
Speaker 7: So or are you still on the campaign? Is there
Speaker 7: still a campaign happening? What's going on?
Speaker 3: Okay? So to be clear, I was the former national
Speaker 3: field director.
Speaker 1: I left in July of this year, late late June,
Speaker 1: after the Libertarian convention.
Speaker 3: So the campaign has shut down.
Speaker 1: It's there is still a volunteer effort going on in
Speaker 1: the background, but in terms of sort of a paid
Speaker 1: political effort to knocked doors and get out, no, there
Speaker 1: is not.
Speaker 3: They've shut that down.
Speaker 7: Why'd you leave after the Libertarian convention? And what happened
Speaker 7: at the Libertarian convention.
Speaker 1: Well, we had it was a real missed opportunity on
Speaker 1: behalf of everybody. We had been talking to the Libertarians
Speaker 1: for several months leading up to that. Actually, some members
Speaker 1: of our staff had actually been, you know, trying to
Speaker 1: make inroads into Libertarian Party.
Speaker 3: My pitch to the Libertarian Party had always been that.
Speaker 6: Robert F.
Speaker 1: Kennedy is a once in a lifetime candidate. We should
Speaker 1: knock down the door with him and all come through.
Speaker 1: So there was a lot of interest at the Libertarian convention. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: at that time we had individuals in our campaign who
Speaker 1: were not that excited about being on the Libertarian ticket.
Speaker 1: I think some of those things have changed after the
Speaker 1: Libertarian convention and we didn't get on their ballot. I
Speaker 1: realized at that time that we were not going to
Speaker 1: be on the debate stage, and I left the campaign
Speaker 1: to pursue some personal things, but I also knew that
Speaker 1: it was going to be easier for me to try
Speaker 1: to use my influence outside of the campaign. And since
Speaker 1: that time, yes.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, I'm sorry, oh no, finished answer.
Speaker 1: No, And since that time, I've been early on, I've
Speaker 1: been a proponent of mister Kennedy working with President Trump,
Speaker 1: and since leaving the campaign I've been talking to people
Speaker 1: behind the scenes and tried to make this happen.
Speaker 6: Great.
Speaker 5: Well, let's start right there actually with you, Michael, because
Speaker 5: what Jeff just mentioned was the once in a generation
Speaker 5: possibility that genuinely people really did see in Bobby Kennedy Junior.
Speaker 5: But you have since called RFK Junior's kind of flip
Speaker 5: flop on Donald Trump is probably the best way to
Speaker 5: put it. Given previous tweets, I think we have one
Speaker 5: of those we can put up on the screen, tweets
Speaker 5: and statements. Under no circumstance would I ever join up
Speaker 5: on the Trump campaign. That's a tweet from May tenth,
Speaker 5: twenty twenty three. He said, just a quality speculation. There
Speaker 5: are no circumstances will I joined Donald Trump? On an
Speaker 5: electoral ticket, our positions on certain fundamental issues, our approaches
Speaker 5: to government, and our philosophies of leadership could not be
Speaker 5: further apart. Now he has joined the Trump campaign to
Speaker 5: promote Donald Trump to campaign on behalf of Donald Trump
Speaker 5: and Tracy. You've since referred to this as a quote farce.
Speaker 5: So walk us through your position on why this turn
Speaker 5: in sentiments from Bobby Kennedy Junior is a farce.
Speaker 4: Well, I can also quote the founder of the Alliance
Speaker 4: Party in South Carolina, which actually just did remove Robert F.
Speaker 4: Kennedy Jr. From its ballot spite Robert F. Kennedy Junior
Speaker 4: having previously accepted the presidential nomination for that minor party
Speaker 4: in South Carolina. Now, as we know, seemingly on false pretenses,
Speaker 4: which is that Abra F. Kennedy Junior claimed he was
Speaker 4: going to be running this groundbreaking, once in a lifetime,
Speaker 4: once in a generation, independent campaign to challenge both parties.
Speaker 4: He would go around bragging that both Donald Trump and
Speaker 4: previously Joe Biden, when he was a nominee or the
Speaker 4: presumptive nominee, were both afraid of him and both regarded
Speaker 4: him as a spoiler.
Speaker 6: I mean the polling was always a little bit mixed.
Speaker 4: There were some indications that perhaps he did more disadvantage
Speaker 4: the Democrat, and other polling suggested he perhaps more disadvantaged
Speaker 4: the Republican. It wasn't entirely straightforward, but the entire core
Speaker 4: premise of the Robert F. Kennedy Junior campaign starting in
Speaker 4: starting last October, when he at least ostensibly declared his
Speaker 4: quote unquoue independence and that he was going to have
Speaker 4: this earth shattering independent campaign that was going to make
Speaker 4: the biggest impact on the electorate since ross Paro in
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety two, and some polling did indicate that he
Speaker 4: was garnering more voter support than any third party candidate
Speaker 4: since ross Paro in nineteen ninety two. The intent, he
Speaker 4: claimed was to challenge the two party system, and the
Speaker 4: founder of the Alliance Party in South Carolina, Jim Rex,
Speaker 4: told me yesterday that it wouldn't be too strong to
Speaker 4: say that many of the supporters of that party in
Speaker 4: South Carolina feel like they've been swindled because RFK Junior,
Speaker 4: now in retrospect, has proven that he was not intending
Speaker 4: to move forward and fulfill that pledge. And when you
Speaker 4: accept the nomination for president of one of these small parties.
Speaker 4: You're effectively forging a contract with them of sorts, and
Speaker 4: he's abrogated that those various contracts, because remember, Robert F.
Speaker 4: Kennedy Junior had this multi fold strategy for how he
Speaker 4: was going to get on the ballot in fifty states
Speaker 4: plus the District of Columbia, which is in some cases,
Speaker 4: he was going to already pre existing minor parties in
Speaker 4: the various states and petitioning them to nominate him for
Speaker 4: president so then he could be afforded their ballot access.
Speaker 4: So I also spoke to the head of a minor
Speaker 4: party in Michigan, head of the National of the Natural
Speaker 4: Law Party, that is, who similarly says, now he feels used,
Speaker 4: and he feels like Robert F. Kennedy Junior pulled a
Speaker 4: fast one on him by claiming that he was going
Speaker 4: to actually pose a bona fide challenge to the two
Speaker 4: party system, which yes, included the Republican Party and Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: RFK Junior loves to bang on about how the DNC
Speaker 4: undermined him, and I don't necessarily dispute that there was
Speaker 4: an extensive effort to fund litigation by the DNC and
Speaker 4: DNC aligned groups to challenge his BALA status in the
Speaker 4: varied States. But that's nothing new for a third party candidacy.
Speaker 4: Maybe the vigor of.
Speaker 6: It with RFK somewhat increased, but no, go.
Speaker 4: Talk to Ralph Nader about all the hurdles that he
Speaker 4: encountered to get on the ballots and say two thousand
Speaker 4: and four or two thousand and eight. So for RFK
Speaker 4: Junior now to just abandon all the critiques that he
Speaker 4: was seriingly making of Trump, including accusing Trump of being
Speaker 4: a stooge of the military industrial complex in hak to
Speaker 4: corporate power arming Ukraine and bragging about it and being
Speaker 4: unrepentant about that sinking relations with Russia. I mean, rf
Speaker 4: K Junior loves to also claim that one of the
Speaker 4: recents he now endorsing Donald Trump is because of the
Speaker 4: Ukraine War. You don't have to go very far to
Speaker 4: look up what r f K Junior was saying.
Speaker 6: This is as of May.
Speaker 4: RFK Junior said, quote, President Trump ragged about armoring Ukraine
Speaker 4: more than Obama did. He also walked away unilaterally from
Speaker 4: the Intermediate Range Nuclear Missile Treaty with Russia, destabilizing our
Speaker 4: relationship he also exacerbated tensions between Ukraine Russia that ultimately
Speaker 4: caused the war. So that's RFK Junior at least purporting
Speaker 4: to in part blame Donald Trump for causing the war.
Speaker 6: What happened? What happened in interim?
Speaker 7: So, Jeff, Jeff, what did happen? As somebody who followed
Speaker 7: this from the beginning, you know, RFK Junior starts running
Speaker 7: as a Democrat. In the middle, he's taking on the duopoly,
Speaker 7: extremely critical of Trump. By the end he's part of
Speaker 7: the duopoly. So what did happen?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I think so Kennedy came into the
Speaker 1: campaign with already a broad support base, and a lot
Speaker 1: of that broad support base had started around the medical
Speaker 1: freedom movement, the corporate the fighting corporate capture. So this
Speaker 1: movement had already people had kind of as soon as
Speaker 1: he jumped on the campaign trail, people had.
Speaker 3: Jumped into back him.
Speaker 1: At that time, there were a lot of Republicans, a
Speaker 1: lot of Libertarians, a lot of Bernie folks, a lot
Speaker 1: of Green Party folks, and they were all willing to
Speaker 1: run in the Democratic primary and when the Democratic primary
Speaker 1: and then go on to the presidential knowing that they
Speaker 1: themselves weren't a Democrat, but knowing that they were behind
Speaker 1: a cause that was greater, we couldn't the campaign, you know,
Speaker 1: the problems of the primary.
Speaker 3: So mister Kennedy decided that he was going to run.
Speaker 1: An independent run, and he did an independent run.
Speaker 3: We set up fifty state structure.
Speaker 1: We tried to get on the ballot and all those
Speaker 1: fifty states, and I believe at the end we will
Speaker 1: maybe New York and a couple other states are going
Speaker 1: to prove a little difficult.
Speaker 3: But what he still did was what he still did
Speaker 3: was just incredible.
Speaker 1: We got to a time where we started looking at
Speaker 1: third parties to augment the ballot access.
Speaker 3: And this was our plan.
Speaker 1: And all of these conversations that mister Tracya's talking about happened.
Speaker 3: Early on in the campaign. First of the year.
Speaker 1: The Alliance Party in South Carolina, which I was part of, happened,
Speaker 1: I want to say, in May or April. We were
Speaker 1: really trying to get on the ballot at that time.
Speaker 1: When that window closed for mister Kennedy was definitely when
Speaker 1: he didn't get on the first debate stage, when and
Speaker 1: Joe Biden had the disastrous debate, and then when Harris
Speaker 1: came on as sort of the coupdetas and replaced him.
Speaker 1: So the question is what mister Kennedy has a bunch
Speaker 1: of supporters who most dedicated supporters in the world that
Speaker 1: I've ever seen. I've done campaigns a lot, so in
Speaker 1: terms of I understand the philosophical idea about what said
Speaker 1: and what's done, But what's mister Kennedy supposed to do.
Speaker 1: He has a group of individuals who are single or
Speaker 1: at least monolithic in terms of what they want to accomplish.
Speaker 1: He has himself right now a path to be able
Speaker 1: to bring those ideas and that those agendas that his
Speaker 1: community wants, and he's able to leverage them into the
Speaker 1: Donald Trump campaign.
Speaker 5: So for me, Jacky, let me ask you about that actually,
Speaker 5: because it's not as though RFK Junior has just said
Speaker 5: what you just said, like, Hey, this is for the
Speaker 5: greater good. I have a pathway now to promote these
Speaker 5: ideas that are near and dear to my heart.
Speaker 6: He's gone on too.
Speaker 5: We can put this element up on the screen. He
Speaker 5: wrote almost an essay about what make America Great Again
Speaker 5: really means. He has been fawning about Donald Trump. He
Speaker 5: was on Talker Carlson Show recently, and that is a
Speaker 5: stark reversal from previous comments that he made about Donald Trump.
Speaker 5: So it's not just that he's saying this is for
Speaker 5: the greater good and I'm, you know, sort of doing that.
Speaker 5: Is that defense?
Speaker 2: Boy?
Speaker 5: I mean, is it really defensible going from we have
Speaker 5: fundamentally incompatible issues to this guy is actually great and
Speaker 5: a generational hero.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, when you endorse somebody and you bring
Speaker 1: somebody on and there's a possibility that you're going to
Speaker 1: become able to work in somebody's White House, you want
Speaker 1: to see that person in the White House.
Speaker 3: And I think what you heard in a lot.
Speaker 1: Of the early speech that he said is there's definitely
Speaker 1: places where they disagree. They don't disagree on anything, and
Speaker 1: if you want to know, there's gonna have to ask
Speaker 1: mister Kennedy himself. But there's areas disagreement. But he's he's
Speaker 1: all on board because he realizes that the only window,
Speaker 1: the only pathway for him at this time and to
Speaker 1: represent the ideas and what his volunteers want is for
Speaker 1: him to help mister the President Trump out and win
Speaker 1: the White House. In terms of I understand philosophically that
Speaker 1: there's maybe this idea about what you're supposed to do
Speaker 1: and what you're not supposed to do in politics. But
Speaker 1: the reality of it is is if you don't have
Speaker 1: a seat at the table at the end, you might
Speaker 1: as well stay home.
Speaker 7: So, Michael, what about Robert F.
Speaker 4: Kennedy Junior, in other words, has become a Republican functionary
Speaker 4: by putting out these embarrassing little poetic platitudes about what
Speaker 4: he claims the true meaning of MAGA is. I mean,
Speaker 4: it's incredibible to me that anybody could read that little
Speaker 4: essay of his and actually be impressed by it. I mean,
Speaker 4: I've never seen a more ridiculous collection of cliches, especially
Speaker 4: when you contrast it with what Robert F. Kennedy Junior
Speaker 4: was saying as of a couple of weeks ago about Trump,
Speaker 4: which is that not only was Trump's first term a
Speaker 4: dramatic failure, including on the central issue that supposedly galvanized
Speaker 4: RFK Junior's initial supporters around skepticism of vaccines and COVID policy.
Speaker 4: RFK Junior was going around declaring that Trump invented lockdowns
Speaker 4: and was unrepentant about it, and also that he was
Speaker 4: the one who was behind the production of the mass
Speaker 4: vaccine program operation warp speed. That's not my singular issue,
Speaker 4: but if it's yours, then that's a pretty that's pretty
Speaker 4: difficult to reconcile. And so Robert Robert Kenny Junior screwed
Speaker 4: over so third party candidates.
Speaker 5: Yeah, what do you think about that?
Speaker 4: Third parties that he claimed running to enhance their viability,
Speaker 4: And nobody seems to want to necessarily probe what caused
Speaker 4: that shift other than oh, now he has a seat
Speaker 4: at the table. Well, that's just him saying his own
Speaker 4: self advancement and self empowerment always took premium over what
Speaker 4: he was purporting to stand for for the past ten months,
Speaker 4: which is that he was going to forge this groundbreaking
Speaker 4: new independent movement that turned out to be false.
Speaker 6: So yeah, Michael, let him.
Speaker 1: You appreciate it now, it's not you know, the pathway
Speaker 1: that mister Tracy puts forward is that at this point,
Speaker 1: like Kennedy just goes away into obscurity and all this
Speaker 1: effort that was put forth. No, you can't say this
Speaker 1: was an easy You can't say this is an easy
Speaker 1: decision that mister Kennedy made and you can't say it
Speaker 1: was just an opportunist. I mean, he really went up
Speaker 1: against his family. He went against family members. I mean,
Speaker 1: mister Kennedy went against some of his key advisor in
Speaker 1: this campaign over this issue. And I think the best
Speaker 1: people to decide if this is a right move or
Speaker 1: not is his volunteers and his supporters. And Pauline has
Speaker 1: showed that over about sixty percent of his supporters are
Speaker 1: going to stick with what if he would have dropped out,
Speaker 1: would have gone over to Trump. And I'm thinking from
Speaker 1: what I've seen through the different social media, through the
Speaker 1: different interactions I have, that there's even going to be
Speaker 1: more than that. So the people who really care about
Speaker 1: this decision, Kennedy supporters, they're going to turn out and
Speaker 1: vote for Trump and they're okay with this. So once again,
Speaker 1: I think this philosophical decision that the discussion that we're
Speaker 1: having about what he should or shouldn't do. I mean,
Speaker 1: I think he's going out on the limb, going against
Speaker 1: his family a lot of times, going against the party.
Speaker 1: He's not going to get invited to cocktail parties anymore.
Speaker 1: None of his friends are either no Christmas dinners and
Speaker 1: things like that. And he's really taking this what is
Speaker 1: I think a brave I know, politicians, this is a
Speaker 1: brave and difficult thing he's doing.
Speaker 3: It's not that easy to support Trump.
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of his support for Trump
Speaker 1: really has to do with the fact that he believes
Speaker 1: in his supporters. He has a very close relationship with him,
Speaker 1: and he wants to see their ideas and they're what
Speaker 1: they want push forward in a Trump administration. Otherwise, all
Speaker 1: of this effort that volunteers and folks have put on
Speaker 1: for you know, a couple of years now just goes
Speaker 1: in the waist span of a wastepan of history.
Speaker 5: Two. Michael, I mean, there are two ways to look
Speaker 5: at Donald Trump. On the one hand, he's the guy
Speaker 5: who said he was going to drain the swamp and
Speaker 5: then put the CEO of Exonomobile at the head of
Speaker 5: the State Department and brought in Steve Mnusian and Cohne
Speaker 5: and all of those guys. On the other hand, there
Speaker 5: are some areas where he actually does threaten the swamp.
Speaker 5: But I know that you know, the way you see
Speaker 5: Donald Trump is basically he's bringing the swamp back. To
Speaker 5: Ryan's point, he's part of the duopoly. Essentially, if you
Speaker 5: look at how Jared Kushner used his time in the
Speaker 5: White House, there's significant argument for that, no question about it.
Speaker 5: He does have a lot of billionaires backing him, no
Speaker 5: question about that either. So why is it that this
Speaker 5: RFK Junior argument that Donald Trump actually you know, longtime
Speaker 5: history of skepticism of vaccines going.
Speaker 6: Back literally years.
Speaker 5: Why is it that there isn't a significant chance for
Speaker 5: Bobby Kennedy Junior to advance these genuinely anti establishment causes
Speaker 5: through the Trump administration. Why is he essentially just rolling
Speaker 5: over for the duopoly and becoming a part of the
Speaker 5: system that he decried.
Speaker 4: Well, I can't get inside his brain, nor would I
Speaker 4: want to. I might get brain worms. But I mean,
Speaker 4: all you have to do is go back and check
Speaker 4: what RFK Junior himself said about Trump to verify this
Speaker 4: critique that you're saying is fairly commonplace about Trump.
Speaker 6: RFK Junior pilloried.
Speaker 4: Trump for filling his administration with corporate lobbyists, including appointing
Speaker 4: as his defense secretary the chief lobbyist for raytheon and
Speaker 4: so on and so forth. That was part of the
Speaker 4: whole argument that RFK Junior at least claimed he was
Speaker 4: making in service of his challenge against the two party system.
Speaker 4: Your other guest hasn't addressed a single one of these
Speaker 4: inconsistencies or about faces. They're just kind of a gets
Speaker 4: glossed over, and people can extol RFK Junior's supposed bravery because,
Speaker 4: as the head of the Alliance Party in South Carolina
Speaker 4: explained to me, there is a bit of a divide
Speaker 4: among the volunteers and supporters, at least as far as
Speaker 4: he's been able to perceive it.
Speaker 6: On the one hand, you have people who have like.
Speaker 4: A cultish devotion to RFK Junior, who will follow whatever
Speaker 4: he does and don't care about any inconsistencies or the
Speaker 4: fact that he had winked another segment of support his
Speaker 4: supporters for another for a year or so by claiming
Speaker 4: he was running this fake independent campaign. And on the
Speaker 4: other hand, you have people who actually foolishly believed RFK
Speaker 4: Junior's own rhetoric and thought that this was going to
Speaker 4: be one of the most formidable independent candidacies since Ross Perot.
Speaker 6: So they got screwed over.
Speaker 4: They were obviously mistaken in their belief in the sincerity
Speaker 4: of his rhetoric, because now he just become a cog
Speaker 4: in the very duopoly that he claimed that he was
Speaker 4: running to dislodge. So I don't know what RFK Junior
Speaker 4: thinks in his own mind that he can accomplish. I
Speaker 4: just can look at his own rhetoric and statements, and
Speaker 4: there's no real way to discern any kind of consistency
Speaker 4: in those statements other than self advancement.
Speaker 6: And yes, he does.
Speaker 4: Seem tethered to at least some principles, like you know,
Speaker 4: food security and removing toxins from food. Okay, I mean
Speaker 4: I don't disagree with that on principle. I don't think
Speaker 4: really many people do. But in terms of other flagship
Speaker 4: issues that he claimed that he was campaigning on, like
Speaker 4: opposing the military and the industrial complex and so forth,
Speaker 4: in fact, he's now granting some degree of credence or
Speaker 4: validity to Donald Trump as an avatar for carrying forth
Speaker 4: those issues on the basis of virtually nothing other than
Speaker 4: that he met with Trump in I think it was
Speaker 4: Minnesota and then Florida, and they had a cheery conversation
Speaker 4: and they decided that no, they liked each other, or
Speaker 4: they could have a nice gab fest. I mean, where's
Speaker 4: the substantive departure on any of this, it doesn't really
Speaker 4: make much sense. But then again, our chedunior only has
Speaker 4: a natural stature because people have cultish devotion to the
Speaker 4: idea of the Kennedy dynasty, and this bogus mythology that
Speaker 4: he peddles around his deceased uncle and father as though
Speaker 4: somehow it became credential to become president that your father
Speaker 4: and uncle were killed.
Speaker 6: I never really understood that.
Speaker 4: And also now he's actually disempowering and misdirecting whatever energy
Speaker 4: actually did exist within the electric to challenge the national
Speaker 4: security state, the military industrial complex, the so called deep state,
Speaker 4: by claiming that Trump is a vehicle for doing this,
Speaker 4: when there's no indication at all that Trump actually wants
Speaker 4: to do oversight or actually erode the power in any
Speaker 4: way of the national security state. He just wants it
Speaker 4: more in hock to himself as far as anybody can ascertain.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's not just that this didn't accomplish anything.
Speaker 4: I mean, obviously I did accomplish what turned out to
Speaker 4: be the ultimate objective on our of f case part,
Speaker 4: which is to bring disaffected, independence or hazily ideological voters
Speaker 4: into the Republican fold. So if you're Timothy Mellon who
Speaker 4: dumped twenty five million dollars into RFK Junior's campaign while
Speaker 4: simultaneously dumping I think fifty million or more into the
Speaker 4: Trump campaign, then your cynical strategic calculus worked out swimmingly
Speaker 4: because now you were able to use your apparent tactic
Speaker 4: of using RFK Junior as a proxy Republican for the
Speaker 4: past year and a half out to.
Speaker 6: Be the ultimate objective.
Speaker 4: I think the other guest is a Republican himself, Jeff,
Speaker 4: that you're on some Republican council. So if your ultimate
Speaker 4: objective is to elect a Republican and re elect on
Speaker 4: Holald Trup, I could see why you'd be celebrating this.
Speaker 6: Let's get it works out for your partisan advantage.
Speaker 7: Let me get Jeff to respond either to that or
Speaker 7: to something else that you raised earlier, which was this
Speaker 7: contradiction between the single issue for many of RFK Junior
Speaker 7: voters of quote unquote medical freedom contrasting conflicting with Trump's
Speaker 7: record of operation or speed, you know, the production of
Speaker 7: the vaccine, and you know, being the guy who maybe
Speaker 7: he was more skeptical than Fauci about some of the lockdowns,
Speaker 7: but he was the president during these lockdowns. So how
Speaker 7: how does a Kennedy supporter and how does Kennedy himself
Speaker 7: square that circle?
Speaker 1: I think it's I think it's pretty easy. You know,
Speaker 1: if you look at the two parties and you look
Speaker 1: at across the states, what states went on the you know,
Speaker 1: major lockdown and what states didn't, I think you'll see
Speaker 1: a divide between Democrats and Republicans. And now you have
Speaker 1: a vice president candidate that really played, you know, real
Speaker 1: strong on the war on COVID in terms of mandates
Speaker 1: and you know, is actually pro mandates and pro shutdown
Speaker 1: and things like that. So for me, I think it's
Speaker 1: a pretty simple kind of movement over. Nobody really acted
Speaker 1: well during Trump, none of our elected leaders. I have
Speaker 1: local officials who are my good friends, and they didn't
Speaker 1: elect They didn't act well either. But the idea is that,
Speaker 1: you know, Trump seems to have come across, he seems
Speaker 1: to have understood where he went wrong. And there is
Speaker 1: this belief that once you put Kennedy into the Trump administration,
Speaker 1: maybe not a not a you know, a seat or
Speaker 1: something like this, that you will have this influence and
Speaker 1: Kennedy can have influence in the Trump administration. And you've
Speaker 1: already seen, I think on the telephone call that mister
Speaker 1: Kennedy's son put out, you always see there's a there's
Speaker 1: already a sense of natural affection with Donald Trump.
Speaker 6: Uh.
Speaker 1: I'd like to answer the question. No, I was really happy.
Speaker 1: I thought there was no there was no sort of
Speaker 1: talk in the campaign early on about Republicans. And I think,
Speaker 1: if you will, there was some instances where our campaign staff,
Speaker 1: especially our national our upper level campaign staff, that the
Speaker 1: idea of us being Republican was just repugnant to him.
Speaker 1: And a lot of the a lot of the campaign
Speaker 1: has riled against it. And I like to say the
Speaker 1: idea that mister Kennedy is an opportunist.
Speaker 3: You know, the twilight of your life.
Speaker 1: What you decide to do is wreck your relationship with
Speaker 1: your family, run your social structure, you know, your social sittings,
Speaker 1: put your marriage in jeopardy with your wife because you
Speaker 1: want to run for office, and then your doors to
Speaker 1: that office, indoors to making that change are closed on you,
Speaker 1: not of your own doing, mostly, and then what choice
Speaker 1: of a politician are you left for your for your
Speaker 1: movement or what your folks want to do.
Speaker 3: What's your choice.
Speaker 1: Your choice is to find the best path forward to
Speaker 1: make it, to make those reality.
Speaker 3: And you know, I mean this has happened.
Speaker 1: It's not like the first time this has happened in
Speaker 1: political history. I mean, you look back at the populist
Speaker 1: movements of the late eighteen hundreds and this thing sort
Speaker 1: of happened where you had candidates and you had supporters
Speaker 1: of one party who trashed another party who ended up
Speaker 1: coming together in these coalition governments.
Speaker 3: And as much as it is, this is a coalition government.
Speaker 1: So I kind of I reject the idea that one
Speaker 1: Kennedy ever wanted to go as a Republican. I mean,
Speaker 1: you could see it was just he was strained when
Speaker 1: he had to come out and say it too, that
Speaker 1: there were people within his campaign that wanted him. I mean,
Speaker 1: I was, I was big on I personally was big on.
Speaker 3: The Libertarian Party. And I'm trying to get in the
Speaker 3: middle here.
Speaker 6: And other way.
Speaker 3: They go, yeah, I'll make it.
Speaker 6: Other way.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I appreciate it takes it takes a village. I was,
Speaker 1: you know, I was, I was big. We were we
Speaker 1: I mean, there was a lot of people who came
Speaker 1: into this with a lot of experience. But the fact
Speaker 1: of the matter is that the doors for mister Kennedy closed.
Speaker 1: He had, uh, mister Trump offered him opportunity. Mister Kennedy
Speaker 1: also talked to the Democrats, and he has a real
Speaker 1: chance to get into a Trump administration and.
Speaker 3: Bring a lot of these a lot.
Speaker 1: Of these policies and a lot of these principles that
Speaker 1: he that is, volunteers as supporters wants.
Speaker 3: So it's not goo ahead, yes, ma'am.
Speaker 5: Well, I was gonna say, Michael respond to that. So
Speaker 5: if we take this argument that you know, this is
Speaker 5: a broken two party system, all of us probably agree
Speaker 5: with that. If we take that argument and say there's
Speaker 5: an opportunity to make one of the parties slightly better,
Speaker 5: is there a moral argument for doing what RFK Junior
Speaker 5: is doing?
Speaker 6: A moral argument, I'm not sure.
Speaker 4: I could just evaluate what RFA Junior has actually done,
Speaker 4: which is he's squandered what he was previously claiming insistently
Speaker 4: was the most formidable third party or independent run in decades.
Speaker 4: Now he's allowed that to all be subsumed into the
Speaker 4: Republican Party, one of the two party duopoly parties that
Speaker 4: he claimed that he was running to dislodge. Again, if
Speaker 4: you're a Republican like our other guest here, I could
Speaker 4: see why you'd be happy about this outcome because perhaps
Speaker 4: you were always inclined. And he said that he was
Speaker 4: in favor of some collaboration with Trump and RFK Junior
Speaker 4: from the beginning. So I mean, if the rubber hit
Speaker 4: the road, or you said you said something to that
Speaker 4: effect so you can explain it to us, then.
Speaker 6: I mean, would you have voted for RFK Jr.
Speaker 4: Against Trump, say, if you were living in a swing
Speaker 4: state or you that committed to him.
Speaker 6: I mean, if you're saying that.
Speaker 4: Door close, okay, okay, very good, then so uh if
Speaker 4: you say the door was going to close or the
Speaker 4: door had closed on RFK Junior, how did the door
Speaker 4: close exactly?
Speaker 6: You claim? Because because he was excluded from the debates.
Speaker 4: RFK Junior was previously accusing Trump of colluding against him.
Speaker 6: To exclude him from the debates.
Speaker 4: He filed an FEC complaint against Trump, Biden, and CNN
Speaker 4: saying they all had worked in concert to illegally exclude
Speaker 4: him of the debates. Now he's sick of fantaly cozying
Speaker 4: up to Trump and for trying to pretend that ever happened,
Speaker 4: and a lot of the cult and many of the
Speaker 4: cultish supporters are willing to join in his effort to
Speaker 4: memory hole what happened, you know, a month or two ago,
Speaker 4: because now they're just becoming partisan cheerleader Republicans. And if
Speaker 4: that's your mo o gout, you know, have at it.
Speaker 4: But you know, if you actually, you know, we're had
Speaker 4: the misfortune of believing this guy's own rhetoric, then I
Speaker 4: guess the fault is your own. And yeah, opportunism. This
Speaker 4: guy has been an opportunist for decades. He hadn't sought
Speaker 4: office prior to this run. I think I when he
Speaker 4: first announced his campaign in April of last year, I
Speaker 4: went and just dug a bit through the archives. I
Speaker 4: don't think anybody has ever endorsed Hillary Clinton more times
Speaker 4: in total than RFK Junior, probably including Bill Clinton. He
Speaker 4: you know, would speak at every Democratic convention. He was
Speaker 4: a hardcore russiagator during.
Speaker 6: Trump's first term.
Speaker 4: He has this messianic worldview that he claims derive from
Speaker 4: the Kennedy legacy about interventionism abroad. You can go find
Speaker 4: opez that he wrote during Trump's term denouncing him for.
Speaker 6: Sidling up to autocrats like Putin or Kim Jong un.
Speaker 4: And now he's done this totally one eighty and he
Speaker 4: hardly even is pressed to explain it because I'm sorry.
Speaker 6: I know we're on alternative media right now, but.
Speaker 4: Much of alternative media has just brown nosed RFK Junior
Speaker 4: because they're so irrationally enthused by this phony mythology around
Speaker 4: his dopey, overrated family. Where RFK Junior in his speech
Speaker 4: and announcing me he was going to endorse Trump's and
Speaker 4: the Democratic Party under my father and uncle was the
Speaker 4: party of peace and free speech and transparency.
Speaker 6: Are you kidding me? JFK was a hardcore militarist.
Speaker 4: He actually ran to the interventionist right of Richard Nixon
Speaker 4: in nineteen sixty. He tried to do regime change in Cuba.
Speaker 6: He was obsessed, along.
Speaker 4: With his brother, who is his hatchetman as Attorney General,
Speaker 4: with assassination campaigns abroad a coach K. RFK Junior has
Speaker 4: tried to RFK Junior has incessantly invoked the legacy of
Speaker 4: this family to claim that he's carrying.
Speaker 6: Forth this anti establishment, anti.
Speaker 4: War mantle, and everybody just gobs it all up because
Speaker 4: they don't look at him with any degree of scrutiny,
Speaker 4: because they're also impressed that he happens to be the
Speaker 4: progenity of this supposedly martyred family dynasty. I mean, it's
Speaker 4: actually insulting to one's intelligence if you actually know a
Speaker 4: single thing about what the Kennedy's actually did empower. Another
Speaker 4: irony is that the people who were enamored of camelot,
Speaker 4: you know, the Kennedy sort of estate, and like this
Speaker 4: mythology around them, they used to beat their standard fair
Speaker 4: liberals and an RFK Junior's tactic, which obviously made some inroads,
Speaker 4: was to claim, actually he's going to marshal this camelot
Speaker 4: legacy to challenge the so called establishment.
Speaker 6: The Kennedy's embodied the establishment for decades, and you know, JFK.
Speaker 4: You know another thing that really bothered me in particular
Speaker 4: is that, Look, if you've read about the Vietnam War,
Speaker 4: which I have maybe others haven't, you know that JFK
Speaker 4: actually introduced combat troops to Vietnam for the first time.
Speaker 4: He authorized the CIA to take on a combat role
Speaker 4: in Vietnam. He expanded the powers of the national securities
Speaker 4: that he did not diminish them, including goes on this
Speaker 4: whole in pedals this nonsense. This is the topic. The
Speaker 4: topic is the talking is the fund about the topic
Speaker 4: is the fundamental fallaciousness and incoherence of RFK Junior's campaign,
Speaker 4: as evidenced by his misuse and phony invocation of his
Speaker 4: family legacy, which people use to shower him with praise
Speaker 4: to this day and now are following him into the
Speaker 4: fold of the Republican Party response, fake presentation.
Speaker 3: So so.
Speaker 1: If if RFK Junion, if rf K Junior was going
Speaker 1: to drop out, and he was going to give a
Speaker 1: simple endorsement, say like a Pete Buddha Judge endorsement of
Speaker 1: Biden in twenty twenty, I'd kind of understand where some
Speaker 1: of this was coming. It would be a it'd be
Speaker 1: a meaningless endorsement, and because it would have zero impact
Speaker 1: on the election. But Kennedy is bringing to the Republic,
Speaker 1: to the Trump administration, which is a Republican administration. He's
Speaker 1: bringing a constituency and he's going to deliver the White
Speaker 1: House for Trump. And if you look at the numbers
Speaker 1: across the across the Swing States, his numbers of supporters
Speaker 1: in the Swing States show that clearly that he's going
Speaker 1: to be able to make more Trump more competitive than
Speaker 1: the swing states. And also the interesting thing about polling
Speaker 1: says across the nation. I mean, if if you know,
Speaker 1: if Trump and President Trump and mister Kennedy were really
Speaker 1: serious about going after this, I mean they should. Mister Kennedy,
Speaker 1: I believe, should come off the ballot in Oregon, should
Speaker 1: come off the ballot in Colorados, to come off the
Speaker 1: ballot in New Mexico, and they should full court press
Speaker 1: this thing. And yes, I do think we talk about
Speaker 1: is he selling out a message?
Speaker 3: Is he selling out of people? No, he is.
Speaker 1: He is going to be the deciding factor in bringing
Speaker 1: Trump uh, bringing Trump the election. And I don't know
Speaker 1: if you've ever worked in politics on sort of.
Speaker 3: A campaign level. I'm not a pundit.
Speaker 1: I'm more of just a political geek. So my job
Speaker 1: is just to get my candidate where they need to go.
Speaker 1: But if you've ever worked on it, there is no
Speaker 1: more power that an individual has than if you're the
Speaker 1: one who delivers the office for the person running for
Speaker 1: who's running for the you know, running for the office
Speaker 1: in the first place. So he, mister Kennedy and mister
Speaker 1: Kennedy supporters. Just by what they do and how they
Speaker 1: turn out the vote, they're going to be a major
Speaker 1: They're going to be a major part in this new
Speaker 1: administration if Trump wins. And you talk about you can't
Speaker 1: really trust Trump. I mean, I think in terms of constituencies,
Speaker 1: if you look at twenty sixteen, if you like this
Speaker 1: or not, but it's the truth. I mean, the evangelicals
Speaker 1: really came out and they put some a lot of
Speaker 1: ideas and a lot of sort of things that it
Speaker 1: was difficult for a lot of evangelicals to endorse Trump
Speaker 1: and to vote for Trump. But what did Trump end
Speaker 1: up doing for them? He delivered three Supreme Court justices
Speaker 1: that ended up sending the abortion issue back to the States,
Speaker 1: which is a which is a conservative viewpoint.
Speaker 3: It met what they want.
Speaker 1: So Trump has it as a track record of delivering
Speaker 1: for those constituents who helped him deliver.
Speaker 7: Let's say this comes to pass, there's a a bunch
Speaker 7: of RFK junior turnout in the swing states and they
Speaker 7: do lift Trump over the finish line, he becomes president. Again,
Speaker 7: what would the prior we know what the evangelicals wanted
Speaker 7: and they got it, what would what would what would
Speaker 7: the similar thing be for RFK.
Speaker 1: I missed a little part of that, but I'm not
Speaker 1: too sure, you know, I've I've heard there's a lot
Speaker 1: of people in the sort of the internet world who
Speaker 1: talk about how they like them to be part of
Speaker 1: the CIA because he can look at the you know,
Speaker 1: the assassinations and this is that. I don't know what
Speaker 1: he would like to do, but I can tell you
Speaker 1: from his volunteers and folks that I've talked to, they
Speaker 1: would love to see him in something like health and
Speaker 1: human services where he can have an impact on things that.
Speaker 3: Are important to us.
Speaker 1: And and I would like to a lot of the
Speaker 1: things that his supporters are into are sort of this
Speaker 1: third wave of politics, regenerated farming, medical freedom, health and
Speaker 1: our food, things like that.
Speaker 3: So I cannot speak for mister.
Speaker 1: Himself, and I don't know what hit the conversations that
Speaker 1: him and President Trump would have, but I'm personally i'd
Speaker 1: love to see him in a position in health and
Speaker 1: human services.
Speaker 7: I mean, from from my own perspective, agree like the
Speaker 7: thing that's most interesting to me about him is the
Speaker 7: you know, his elevation of the problem of toxics in
Speaker 7: the in the food supply and in the environment, and
Speaker 7: the regenerate farming is awesome all that stuff, but is
Speaker 7: it isn't it a isn't it a problem? Kind of
Speaker 7: inherent to RFK Junior that we don't know the answer
Speaker 7: to that, and it's all and they're they're about to
Speaker 7: start printing ballots like.
Speaker 6: Sort of a gamble.
Speaker 7: Shouldn't we know, like which element of his eclectic politics
Speaker 7: is going to be the thing that he pushes in
Speaker 7: a in a Trump administration, if this group of people
Speaker 7: is going to go out and help push him over
Speaker 7: the top.
Speaker 3: When you say we are you talking about.
Speaker 7: Everybody like me and you, all of us, just like
Speaker 7: we know what the evangelicals wanted. They wanted Roby Wade overturned,
Speaker 7: and they wanted you know this, this literal list of
Speaker 7: justice has slapped onto the Supreme Court, so they would.
Speaker 6: I don't know, I mean, we don't know it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a game with it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And that gets the core of the incoherence of
Speaker 4: the rfk K campaign. I mean, you can't pinpoint what
Speaker 4: exactly he would be receiving in exchange for him abandoning
Speaker 4: every declaration that he had been making for the past
Speaker 4: ten months. And claiming he was running this unbelievably earth
Speaker 4: shattering third party campaign by using his overrated family name
Speaker 4: to galvanize disaffected podcast voters from across the political spectrum.
Speaker 4: You could just speculate you can trust him by saying
Speaker 4: he had all these fruitful conversations with Trump and it
Speaker 4: turns out they agree on more than they disagree, and
Speaker 4: now RFK Junior understands the true meaning of Maga and
Speaker 4: can give us all these weird spiritual poems about the
Speaker 4: meaning of Maga, and then you can be contented with that.
Speaker 4: It seems a little bit foolish, especially if you were
Speaker 4: believing what RFK Junior was saying uncritically as of like
Speaker 4: a month ago, which turned out to be a total fabrication.
Speaker 6: And don't take my word for it.
Speaker 4: I know our other guest is trying to reflect the
Speaker 4: sentiments of the portion of RFK Junior's voter base that
Speaker 4: is pleased by this development. But there's another portion, some
Speaker 4: of whom I've just been speaking to and reporting on
Speaker 4: as of the past day, who told me that they
Speaker 4: believe they have been swindled by RFK Junior, who has
Speaker 4: violated this kind of a covenant or agreement or a
Speaker 4: contract with those third parties whose nomination he accepted on
Speaker 4: the understanding and the commitment that he would be seeking
Speaker 4: the presidency and running a viable third party campaign.
Speaker 6: To the very end, he's proven that now that that
Speaker 6: was false.
Speaker 4: So if you're going to say, oh, maybe RFK Junior
Speaker 4: is going to be in the administration, look, I don't
Speaker 4: doubt that Trump wants to throw a bone to him
Speaker 4: and try to siphon off his electoral support to whatever
Speaker 4: degree is possible. But even before Trump came into office
Speaker 4: in twenty seventeen, he met with RFK Junior in Trump
Speaker 4: Tower as president elect, and RFK Junior came away and said, look,
Speaker 4: Donald Trump says he wants to work with me on
Speaker 4: some sort of vaccine oversight program or some you know,
Speaker 4: low level bureaucratic panel, and I'm happy to work with them.
Speaker 4: That didn't come to pass. But if the end result
Speaker 4: of this supposedly historic third party independent campaign that was
Speaker 4: going to challenge the duopoly has now if the end
Speaker 4: result is simply that RFK Junior might be installed on
Speaker 4: some FDA panel to analyze, you know, the toxicity of soil,
Speaker 4: I mean, look, I don't necessarily denigrate that as a
Speaker 4: valid pursuit, but it's not in keeping with these sweeping
Speaker 4: themes that RFK Junior was using to promote himself and
Speaker 4: past himself as this unprecedentedly formidable third party or independent
Speaker 4: candidate who was going to galvanize all these independent and
Speaker 4: disaffected voters, when now he's just encouraging them to become
Speaker 4: maga Republicans.
Speaker 6: I mean, if.
Speaker 4: People in his family or in his social cohort are
Speaker 4: offended by this, I think they're correct too, as long
Speaker 4: as they're not offended to it because they just hate
Speaker 4: anything associated with Trump reflexively, but because it shows that
Speaker 4: RFK Junior is willing to just throw into the garbage.
Speaker 6: Can any of.
Speaker 4: His purported principles if circumstances modestly shift and pretend that
Speaker 4: he wasn't just denouncing somebody who now he is enthusiastically endorsing.
Speaker 4: It doesn't even explain this supposed change of mind. I mean,
Speaker 4: if you just kind of irrationally give yourself over to
Speaker 4: whatever change of mind that a political figure makes, then
Speaker 4: it shows that you're incredibly credulous and willing to believe anything,
Speaker 4: which is why I'm surprised that some of the more
Speaker 4: cultish devotees of RFK Junior or are following in this path.
Speaker 4: But if you think of yourself as more of a
Speaker 4: critical thinker who's like challenging the establishment, and that's why
Speaker 4: you were supposedly enamored with RFK Junior, and now he
Speaker 4: wants you to just to become a.
Speaker 6: Card carrying Republican. I mean, give me a break.
Speaker 4: I mean, this is this really should be insulting to
Speaker 4: anyone's intuligence. But it gets to the core theme of
Speaker 4: RFK Junior's campaign from the beginning, which was always insulting,
Speaker 4: which is that he's going to be the torch bearer
Speaker 4: for the supposedly anti establishment Kennedy legacy, which was always
Speaker 4: a farce.
Speaker 6: There was no anti establishment candidate Kennedy legacy.
Speaker 4: It was just apparently a self promotional venture on rf
Speaker 4: case part so he could get on an FDA panel.
Speaker 6: Ultimately, really, I.
Speaker 5: Mean next next to it, it could be Tracy versus
Speaker 5: like Oliver.
Speaker 6: Stone or Oliver Stone.
Speaker 4: I mean, that movie was integral in furnishing some of
Speaker 4: his bogus Kennedy mythology that puts him out as this
Speaker 4: like savior figure of America who was martyred and needs
Speaker 4: to be avenged, And unfortunately RFKA Junior was able to
Speaker 4: continue on those ridiculous themes.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 5: And on that note, Jeff, let's give you the last
Speaker 5: word here with also the I'll toss the last word
Speaker 5: to you with the question of is there also a
Speaker 5: danger if you're somebody who you know opposes the duopoly,
Speaker 5: opposes the broken two party system. Is there a danger
Speaker 5: to someone who was formerly or who still says they're
Speaker 5: a torch bearer for that cause dragging people into the
Speaker 5: Republican Party? Is there is there anything about that that
Speaker 5: concerns you? And you just give us your general sort
Speaker 5: of wrap up thoughts as well.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm a big proponent of third party politics and
Speaker 1: that's that's the reason I'm into this campaign. So I personally,
Speaker 1: so I don't think that he is dragging I don't
Speaker 1: think he's dragging people into the Republican Party. I think
Speaker 1: a group of his supporters are going to vote for
Speaker 1: Donald Trump because they want to see mister Kennedy in
Speaker 1: a position within a Trump White House to.
Speaker 3: Make movements and to push their agenda. So does this.
Speaker 1: Mean that four years from now that these say, if
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party doesn't change, or the Democratic Party doesn't
Speaker 1: have a has a different a candidate, they're not going
Speaker 1: to vote in that.
Speaker 3: No, these are true. These are true independents.
Speaker 1: There is no third party in the United States.
Speaker 3: They're probably the way that they've.
Speaker 1: Demolished the fusion voting laws over the last ten twenty years.
Speaker 1: They'll probably never be another third party again until one
Speaker 1: of these two parties, either the Republican.
Speaker 3: Or the Democratic Party's fall.
Speaker 1: What a better way to crush the duopalty duopolity than
Speaker 1: bringing out than having a crushing defeat for a Democratic
Speaker 1: presidential candidate in this election and causing real change in
Speaker 1: the Democratic Party understanding that this pathway that they're on
Speaker 1: is not a good pathway. And if you would look
Speaker 1: at if you're in mister Kennedy spot, and you look
Speaker 1: at the primary, you look at the law fair that's
Speaker 1: been waged against them, and you look at some of
Speaker 1: the other things, I think it makes sense. So No,
Speaker 1: I don't think this is in any which way a
Speaker 1: hurting the independent party. I would imagine that this is
Speaker 1: a good philosophy that I would encourage other third party
Speaker 1: third party candidates to do.
Speaker 3: In the future.
Speaker 1: If we were having this conversation, say, you know, two
Speaker 1: thousand and one, we would have been telling a lot
Speaker 1: of people would have been telling Ralph Nader he should
Speaker 1: have dropped out and endorse the Democrat, and we wouldn't
Speaker 1: have tru we wouldn't.
Speaker 3: Have had Bush.
Speaker 1: So this idea of endorsing a candidate, especially at this time,
Speaker 1: and you know, the presidential not as the primary, I
Speaker 1: think it really gives an independent movement. It gives an
Speaker 1: independent candidate a lot of political leverage. And I've heard
Speaker 1: a lot what he said. Philosophically, I understand that, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe some fundents have a problem with it, maybe
Speaker 1: some folks have a problem with it, but I see
Speaker 1: it on and I don't think they're politician at all.
Speaker 1: I think the volunteers are the most some of the
Speaker 1: most brilliant, well rounded, achieve volunteer base that I've ever
Speaker 1: worked with. But yeah, I mean, I think this is
Speaker 1: a boss move on Kennedy, And you know, mister Tracy
Speaker 1: and I just really disagree on what this outcome is.
Speaker 1: And I do expect Kennedy to be Kennedy and his
Speaker 1: support and his supporters to be the key thing that
Speaker 1: you know moves Trump across the finish line, and when's
Speaker 1: the election for Trump?
Speaker 6: So well? Have actually a quick final point, yeah, quickly.
Speaker 4: I mean the Republican Party is also regularly engaged in
Speaker 4: law fair to Steiny, independent or third parties like Libertarian
Speaker 4: Party or the Constitution Party. So that's not unique to
Speaker 4: the Democratic Party. Yes, they've been more vigorous this cycle,
Speaker 4: combating RFA, your Cornell West and so forth, but it's
Speaker 4: not in no way unique to the Democratic Party. So
Speaker 4: to say that the best way to topple the duopoly
Speaker 4: is to empower one prong of it, that's amazing pretzel logic.
Speaker 4: But that's what you get when you're talking to a campaign.
Speaker 3: Office and this is what happened.
Speaker 6: Ridiculous decision. And one other.
Speaker 4: Thing, I mean one other thing, one other thing.
Speaker 6: I'm not pissing on history. I'm saying that the republicandidates.
Speaker 1: The end of the end of the end of party
Speaker 1: systems in America has normally happened when one party has
Speaker 1: had a disastrous election and they changed the end of
Speaker 1: the Whig Party, the end of okay, Well, okay.
Speaker 4: Well we'll see if we'll see if the Democratic Party
Speaker 4: is okay I'm sure come twenty twenty five, if Trump wins,
Speaker 4: the Democratic Party on a nationwide basis will dissolve itself.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that seems really feasible. Anyway.
Speaker 4: I did want to just note that one of the
Speaker 4: reasons that our chedutor claims that he is he's aligned
Speaker 4: with Trump is on the issue of free speech. And
Speaker 4: I'm not defending at all the record of the Democratic
Speaker 4: Party as of late on issues of speech with the
Speaker 4: First Amendment, and it's been abysmal, But the Republican Party,
Speaker 4: including Trump, have been fanatical over the past ten months
Speaker 4: and trying to purtail and punish and penalize a speech
Speaker 4: that's critical of Israel. And I can see why RFK
Speaker 4: Junior excludes that consideration from his calculus, because his fanaticism
Speaker 4: around Israel is roughly comparable to that of Donald Trump.
Speaker 4: So I'm sure they bonded over that in their little
Speaker 4: soires down at mar Alago.
Speaker 6: So congratulations to that word.
Speaker 1: Last ten seconds, Kennedy, derangement syndrome is real.
Speaker 3: I want to end up.
Speaker 6: I'm not deranged.
Speaker 4: I'm trying to be rational and just not a fanatical
Speaker 4: cult devote of the guy.
Speaker 1: This is the guy who this is the guy who
Speaker 1: came out early on in the campaign and said that
Speaker 1: Kennedy was a bad candidate because of the way he talked,
Speaker 1: and people get yeah.
Speaker 6: I did note that the guy my issue was not
Speaker 6: a voice. I didn't bring that up.
Speaker 4: He does sound like he's garbling rocks, which seems like
Speaker 4: a potential communicative impediment. But I mean, that's just you
Speaker 4: trying to say that I have some like psychological malfunction.
Speaker 1: In my analysis, supporters have psychological malfunction.
Speaker 3: So I guess what's good.
Speaker 6: For these I said, there's a portion that have a
Speaker 6: cult following.
Speaker 4: That's what the third Party came actually, since South Carolina
Speaker 4: said to me directly, since.
Speaker 7: Our closing here is just off the rails anyway. I actually,
Speaker 7: I actually do think the voice was a like actual
Speaker 7: substantial problem for him in the race.
Speaker 3: Did Jeff do you know what do you know, Jeff?
Speaker 7: Do you know what was up with that?
Speaker 3: Like? What was there was that diagnosed? Or what's what
Speaker 3: the situation is that?
Speaker 1: So you know he had a I don't know, there
Speaker 1: was something that happened medically that happened to him where
Speaker 1: his voice got really bad some time before the election.
Speaker 1: He went he I believe he went to Japan and
Speaker 1: he got some shots to try to fix it, and
Speaker 1: some people they they fix and and.
Speaker 3: They uh and and they didn't it would.
Speaker 1: I mean, it corrected its some, but it's still I
Speaker 1: admit it's it's difficult.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I listened to him so much.
Speaker 1: You get to the point where you can't hear it,
Speaker 1: and when you're talking to him one in person, it
Speaker 1: really doesn't come.
Speaker 3: Across at all.
Speaker 4: All right, Well, my issue is not his voice, and
Speaker 4: it was his misappropriation of his Tony family legacy.
Speaker 6: All right, reason running we could go for my issue.
Speaker 5: All right? Well, Journalist Michael Tracy and former National Field
Speaker 5: Organization organizer for the RFK Junior campaign, Jeff Hutt, thank
Speaker 5: you so much for joining us.
Speaker 6: We appreciate it.
Speaker 3: Thank you, guys. I appreciate y'all. I love y'all's program.
Speaker 5: Well, thank you so much for tuning into that really
Speaker 5: interesting debate. It's worth saying. I think we probably all agree,
Speaker 5: all four of us would agree that this is a
Speaker 5: consequential voting block our FK junior voters, given what happened
Speaker 5: with Jill Stein and just how the math works out
Speaker 5: in those blue Wall States, especially Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania. We
Speaker 5: know he's going to be on the ballot in Michigan,
Speaker 5: Wisconsin as of right now, not getting his name off
Speaker 5: the ballot, So how people decide to vote based on
Speaker 5: RFK Junior, the previous support for him actually will matter.
Speaker 7: I learned stuff from that conversation. That's all I ask for,
Speaker 7: It's all we have, right. I thought that was actually interesting. Yeah,
Speaker 7: it was interesting. Yeah, a couple of different viewpoints argued out,
Speaker 7: it's a good more he asked for exactly.
Speaker 5: It's always good when there's real contrast, and that is
Speaker 5: what we hope to do on counterpoints, especially on these
Speaker 5: Friday debates.
Speaker 7: Name kind of gives it away.
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 6: Yeah, we're not subtle.
Speaker 5: So we hope everyone has a great Labor Day weekend
Speaker 5: and we will see you back here on Wednesday with
Speaker 5: more counterpoints.