Former President Donald Trump said on Thursday that independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is “not a serious candidate,” and he would have to get his poll numbers up “before he’s credible.”
After leaving the Manhattan courtroom where he is being tried for alleged hush money payments to porn actress Stormy Daniels, Trump was asked by a reporter if he would debate Kennedy.
“RFK? I don’t know anything about him,” Trump replied. “Look, RFK is polling very low. He’s not a serious candidate. They say he hurts Biden. I don’t know who he hurts; he might hurt me, I don’t know.”
“He has very low numbers,” Trump added. “Certainly not numbers he can debate with, and he’s gotta get his numbers up a lot higher before he’s credible. But the numbers he’s taking away, they say will be against Biden, but I don’t know; I’m not so sure. It could be a little bit against me, but I don’t see him as a factor.”
Trump: “RFK is polling very low. He’s not a serious candidate.” pic.twitter.com/epUKaHxDm1
— The Post Millennial (@TPostMillennial) May 2, 2024
In a five-way race with Trump, President Joe Biden, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and independent candidate Cornel West, Kennedy polls at 10% nationally, according to the RealClearPolitics average. Trump and Biden, meanwhile, are locked in a tight race at 41% and 39%, respectively.
While Kennedy remains far behind Trump and Biden in the polls, the independent candidate has gained ballot access in critical battleground states in recent weeks. According to the Kennedy campaign, the candidate has qualified to appear on the ballots in Michigan, Nevada, and North Carolina, all states considered to be battleground races this November, according to RCP.
Trump has repeatedly blasted Kennedy, calling him “the most radical Left candidate in the race” and saying he would likely pull votes away from Biden.
“RFK Jr. is the most Radical Left Candidate in the race, by far. He’s a big fan of the Green New Scam, and other economy killing disasters,” Trump said in March. “I guess this would mean he is going to be taking votes from Crooked Joe Biden, which would be a great service to America.”
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Last week, however, the Republican presidential candidate said that Kennedy’s campaign will help Biden, writing in a social media post that Kennedy is “a Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place in order to help Crooked Joe Biden.”
Kennedy has criticized both Biden and Trump during his presidential campaign, but more recently has focused his attacks on the sitting president. Kennedy said last month that he “can make the argument that President Biden is a much worse threat to democracy” than Trump is.
“The greatest threat to democracy is not somebody who questions election returns, but a president of the United States who uses the power of his office to force the social media companies, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter to open a portal and give access to that portal to the FBI, to the CIA, to the IRS, to CISA, to NIH to censor his political critics,” Kennedy said on CNN.
Earlier this week, Kennedy called on Biden to suspend his 2024 campaign, arguing that the president’s “presence gives Trump the victory instead of Kennedy.”
