Where's Robert F. Kennedy Jr.?
The independent candidate has backed out of campaign events as the 2024 race is scrambling.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been silent in a moment of significant volatility in the presidential election.
The independent candidate, who has sought to be the biggest threat to the two major parties in a generation, has canceled key campaign appearances in the last two weeks. He hasn’t sent a fundraising email since Saturday. And after trying repeatedly to counterprogram past events in the election, including June’s debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, Kennedy is doing little to shift the focus away from the Republican National Convention or to exploit a raft of questions from Democrats over whether Biden should still be the nominee.
Instead, Kennedy sparked a round of speculation after talking with Trump on Monday, prompting him to use his official social media account to quash the rumors on social media: “No, I am not dropping out of the race,” he posted on X.
But Kennedy hasn't been campaigning much.
Last week, as Democrats have been grappling with Biden's poor debate performance, Kennedy announced a major news conference at the National Press Club in Washington to "present a solution to the mounting political crisis" — only to cancel it for the day. The campaign, which has repeatedly derided Biden’s leadership, said it was postponing “out of respect for President Biden's solo press conference scheduled for the same day." Nothing has been rescheduled so far. He instead posted a video offering himself as a replacement nominee for the party, which he left last fall.
And it did seem like Kennedy was planning to present some counter programming at the RNC. Kennedy had been scheduled for a virtual interview at the CNN-POLITICO Grill in Milwaukee on Monday. But it never happened.
“Mr Kennedy’s schedule has changed and we can no longer do the interview,” said Stefanie Spear, the campaign’s spokesperson.
He also planned to host a Boomer Town Hall on Facebook Live to answer questions from “fellow baby boomers” on Tuesday. The event was then postponed. And Kennedy planned to meet with farmers in Baraboo, about two hours from Milwaukee, on Wednesday afternoon to discuss agriculture regulation. That campaign stop was also pulled from his schedule.
The campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request to elaborate on the campaign's cancellations or future plans to return to the trail.
He is scheduled to deliver the keynote address at a Bitcoin conference and attend a private fundraiser in Nashville at the end of July ....
politico.com
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