Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a 2024 GOP presidential candidate, warned that Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent presidential bid will harm former President Donald Trump’s chances more than him in the general election.
While the Kennedy campaign has a tiny chance of victory, some polls have suggested that he could pull votes away from either the Republican or Democratic nominee, or both. Mr. Kennedy recently declared himself to be an independent candidate after having launched his 2024 bid as a Democrat, challenging incumbent President Joe Biden.
During the event, the Florida governor then cast himself as the alternative to President Trump because he believes that Mr. Kennedy would pull more votes away from the former president than him. Mr. DeSantis said it’s mainly because of his stance against COVID-19 vaccine mandates and lockdowns during the pandemic.
“If I’m the nominee, they all go to me because I stood up against Fauci,” Mr. DeSantis said of voters who were angry with former White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci. “With Trump, though, he created Fauci. He elevated Fauci. He never fired him.”
For years, Mr. Kennedy—the scion of assassinated New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy—has been a critic of certain childhood vaccines and later, COVID-19 vaccines and mandates. Because of his comments about vaccines, he could generate votes from individuals who share similar views.
He added that “those voters who are understandably still very frustrated with how this federal government handled COVID and the lies that were told and all the mistakes that were made with no accountability, they’re going to want a vessel for that and I think they may default.”
The Trump campaign rejected the Florida governor’s statements. “Ron DeSantis is [an idiot] to have that type of uninformed take,” Trump spokesman Steven Cheung told The Messenger. The Epoch Times has contacted the campaign for comment.
It’s not the first time Mr. DeSantis has claimed Mr. Kennedy would pull votes from President Trump.
He then stated that the former president is “very weak” on vaccines and again claimed he “empowered Fauci.” However, throughout 2020, the former president often criticized Dr. Fauci and at one point, called him a “disaster” and threatened to terminate his employment.
Responding to the Fauci criticism last month, President Trump told radio host Hugh Hewitt that he was “not allowed” to fire Dr. Fauci because “he’s civil service.”
“But forget that because I don’t necessarily go by everything … but Dr. Fauci would tell me things, and I wouldn’t do them in many cases. But also, he wasn’t a big player in my administration,” he explained. “Dr. Fauci became a big player in the administration of Biden. He’s a very big player in Biden’s administration.”
The former president, meanwhile, said that Mr. DeSantis “shut down beaches” and shut down his state in early 2020. “[Gov.] Henry McMaster didn’t shut down South Carolina. [Gov.] Kristi Noem didn’t shut down South Dakota,” he added.
“By the way, just so you know, it sounds very negative, third-most in deaths from COVID? Unfortunately, Florida.” President Trump said. “Florida was third-worst in deaths … that’s a horrible, that’s a horrible statistic. But that’s a statistic that sort of counts. Ron was the third-worst in terms of actual death from COVID. Ron is No. 3.”
A RealClearPolitics average shows Mr. DeSantis with 13 percent, while President Trump has 58.8 percent. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has 8.3 percent, and businessman Vivek Ramaswamy has 4.8 percent.
As for Mr. Kennedy, his campaign has not publicly responded to Mr. DeSantis’s recent claims.
