Kennedy ain’t the ‘ticket’
Trump aide: VP buzz is ‘fake news’
A top aide to former President Donald Trump ruled out the possibility of tapping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a running mate and poured cold water on a report that members of the candidate’s inner circle made preliminary overtures to the Democratic scion.
Senior Trump adviser Chris LaCivita refuted that the campaign had reached out to the environmental lawyer and independent presidential candidate, and closed the door on asking him to run as vice president in the future.
“This is 100% FAKE NEWS — NO ONE from the Trump Campaign ever approached RFK jr (or ever will) — one of the most LIBERAL and radical environmentalists in the country. For all the fake news — update your stories,” LaCivita posed on X in Saturday.
The Post had reported earlier in the day that people close to Trump had contacted Kennedy.
“Trump operatives expressed an interest in Kennedy early on, but it was all premature,” one person familiar with the matter told The Post, stressing it was “right out of the box when Bobby announced.”
Kennedy in April launched his presidential campaign as a Democrat seeking to primary President Biden, but switched to running as an independent in October.
Since then, he claims to have secured spots on general election ballots in multiple states, including recently in New Hampshire.
Some prominent figures in MAGA world such as Steve Bannon, Trump’s former chief White House strategist, have publicly mused about the idea of the 45th president teaming up with him.
A ‘winning’ pair
In August, while Kennedy was still mounting a bid as a Democrat, Bannon suggested that a Trump-Kennedy ticket would “win a massive landslide.”
Bannon is not directly associated with the Trump campaign.
Trump, 77, the distant front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, made waves earlier this month when he revealed that he had someone in mind to be his running mate.
“The person that I think I like is a very good person, pretty standard. I think people won’t be that surprised, but I would say there’s probably a 25% chance it would be that person,” Trump teased.
The former president publicly lauded Kennedy, 70, amid his run as a Democrat last year, calling him a “common-sense guy.”
While forming his administration after the 2016 election, Trump mused about tapping Kennedy to helm a vaccine safety commission, but that never came to fruition.
Kennedy — the son of the late Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, who was shot during his 1968 presidential campaign — has been deeply skeptical of certain vaccines. Critics have accused him of trafficking in anti-vaccine conspiracies.
Members of his family have lambasted his campaign and endorsed Biden in 2024.
Still, Kennedy has garnered significant support in a spate of national polling, which could render him the first independent presidential candidate to make the debate stage since 1992.
At the moment, Kennedy has 15.8% support, lagging behind Biden at 36.2%, and Trump at 39% in the RealClearPolitics aggregate of national polling.
The Post contacted the Kennedy campaign for comment.