Ignore Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
There's no good reason to pay attention to a presidential candidate who has no chance of winning and is a deranged conspiracy theorist. Also, Meatball Ron is still bad at politics.
I’m Michael A. Cohen, and this is Truth and Consequences: A no-holds-barred look at the absurdities, hypocrisies, and surreality. If you were sent this email or are a free subscriber and would like to become a paid subscriber, you can sign up here.
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Look Away
For the Daily Beast, I wrote about Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s presidential campaign and offered my fellow political journalists some advice.
We should be paying less, not more attention, to Kennedy Jr. He has no chance of winning the Democratic nomination and he is not so much running for president as he is seeking a platform for his bevy of conspiracy theories that, in the most charitable telling, are misguided ramblings and, from a darker perspective, risk undermining public health and putting lives in danger.
The mainstream media is not required to give Kennedy Jr. a platform or cover his campaign, and they shouldn’t. The benefits of covering his quixotic bid for the White House are more than offset by the damage he can do by pushing his deranged conspiracy theories on an unsuspecting public.
What separates Kennedy Jr. from that other conspiracy-theorist lunatic, Donald Trump, is that Trump “is a former president, a legitimate candidate, and the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination. The press must cover him, for better or worse (mostly worse). But Kennedy doesn’t check any of these boxes, and, to boot, he’s a genuine public health menace.”
That’s the biggest reason to ignore RFK Jr. He is a decades-long purveyor of public health misinformation. Previously he pushed the widely debunked notion that vaccines cause autism. More recently, he has accused Dr. Fauci of “‘a historic coup d'état against Western democracy’ by exaggerating and prolonging the COVID pandemic and misleading Americans about the effectiveness of vaccines.”
In short, giving Kennedy a platform is not a consequence-free activity. It risks spreading vaccine lies that could cost lives. Political reporters and editors pick and choose which candidates they cover all time. Kennedy is getting attention because of his last name and public opinion polls showing him winning the support of 10-20 percent of Democrats. Undoubtedly those numbers are the result of the Kennedy name and Democrats who are not happy with Joe Biden. His backing is ephemeral, and there is no circumstance under which a person who believes that 5G wireless technology is a plot by the government “to harvest our data and control our behavior” and that chemicals in the nation’s water supply are causing children to become transgender, will be the Democrat nominee in 2024.
So ignore him. Nothing good will come from giving Kennedy Jr. a platform to spread dangerous lies.
The Incredible Shrinking Republican Presidential Candidate
The latest NBC News poll offers more bad news for Ron DeSantis
In our new poll, Trump gets support from 51% of Republican primary voters, while DeSantis gets 22% -- followed by former Vice President Mike Pence at 7%, former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie at 5% and former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley at 4%.
But back in April (after Trump’s first indictment in that alleged hush-money case), the former president’s lead over DeSantis was half its current size — Trump 46%, DeSantis 31%, Pence 6%.
Bottom line: Trump’s percentage has gone up 5 points since April; DeSantis’ percentage has gone down 9 points.
Part of what’s going on here is that Trump is undoubtedly getting a boost from his two indictments, but it’s also clear that DeSantis has not impressed the GOP electorate and convinced them to jettison Trump.
Poll results like the one below show how daunting the challenge is to unseat the former President.
Granted, 49% is a touch under half the GOP electorate, but it's a massive number in a multi-person presidential field. And, it’s worth noting that in the same poll, Trump beats DeSantis in a head-to-head content by 24 points (60-36). So even a sizable chunk of Republicans who think the party needs a new leader … still prefer Trump to DeSantis.
There are lots of reasons why DeSantis is failing. The most obvious is that he is charmless and repellent, even, it seems, to Republicans. Also, casting himself as a mini-Trump and refraining from attacking the race’s frontrunner seems to be a poor strategy. But another factor needs to be considered: he’s running a lousy campaign. Take, for example, this nugget from Politico today about DeSantis's faltering effort in New Hampshire.
DeSantis’ visit to the state Tuesday is being met with backlash from a major Republican women’s group.
The New Hampshire Federation of Republican Women released a statement Thursday slamming DeSantis for planning an event at the same time as their annual fundraising lunch — an event Trump is headlining. The group asked him to reschedule
… DeSantis world was quick to dismiss the group’s complaints, saying their event shouldn’t be a distraction since it’s in a different part of the state and at a different time than when Trump is speaking, and that the federation’s soiree is already sold out. They noted that two of the group’s members resigned over the statement targeting DeSantis, with the PAC blasting out their tweets. One of them, Kate Day, the now-former public relations chair, told POLITICO the federation erred when it “broke its neutrality in criticizing” DeSantis.
But DeSantis’ opponents were already weaponizing the exchange.
“If there’s one thing you don’t do in New Hampshire, it’s piss off the grassroots women,” said an adviser to a rival candidate granted anonymity to speak freely. “Don’t mess with them, they remember everything. Rookie move.”
This last accusation comes from a rival camp, so take it with a grain of salt. But clearly, this is how DeSantis’s opponents spin the incident, and considering who DeSantis is, the charge will resonate. The Florida Governor already comes across as stubborn, petulant, and utterly indifferent to how others perceive his actions. He is one of the most self-righteous presidential candidates I’ve ever seen (and suffice it to say, self-righteousness is not the best characteristic for a politician).
DeSantis could have easily rescheduled his event — and considering the potential for upsetting a key New Hampshire constituency — he should have. But that would mean admitting he and his campaign made a mistake, and that clearly isn’t going to happen. Instead, he’s gotten in a needless fight that will inevitably distract from his campaign messaging. Moreover, this minor dust-up only reinforces the negative perceptions of him that have begun to take root among Republican voters. If DeSantis’s goal as a presidential candidate is to convince party insiders to abandon Trump, he needs to give them some honey. But he seems intent on offering nothing but vinegar.
I’ve written before that DeSantis does not appear ready for political prime time, and pretty much everything he’s done as a candidate has confirmed that analysis. But perhaps even the bigger problem is that DeSantis’s personality is not well-equipped for a presidential run. In short, this may not be a problem that can be fixed.
Putin Agonistes
Over the weekend, there was an “event” in Russia that could be characterized as a coup, mutiny, or possibly an insurrection. The Wagner mercenary group, led by Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has taken on much of the fighting in Ukraine, threatened to unseat his government (and then quickly backed down). In recent weeks Prigozhin has been a loud and frequent critic of the Russian military and how the war is being fought in Ukraine. However, after moving Wagner personnel and equipment toward Moscow, Prigozhin struck a deal, fled to Belarus, and his fellow Wagner commanders went underground.
I’m honestly not sure what to make of what happened, and I’m taken aback by the confidence expressed by many analysts about what comes next. The dominant takeaway is that the weekend’s events have badly weakened Putin. However, it’s unclear why the swift retreat of Wagner and Prigozhin is a complete disaster for Putin. It looks bad for the Russian President in the near term—there’s no way around that. But with Prigozhin out of the picture and with his tail between his legs in escaping to Belarus, Putin can certainly spin this in a positive way. (For example, “Prigozhin came at the king .. and he blinked.”) Indeed, it is striking that Prigozhin and his forces were traveling virtually unimpeded toward Moscow (and there’s some evidence that he was cheered on by the civilian population) and then abruptly called the whole thing off and sought a face-saving measure (a coup d’never mind). Why would someone else take the plunge if Prigozhin wasn’t willing to go after Putin when he had the proverbial wind at his back? As bizarre as it is to say this, a rival military leader too afraid to challenge Putin directly makes the Russian leader look like a bit of a badass. At the very least, even if Putin is weakened, it’s not clear that it will significantly impact the war in Ukraine.
Anyway, here’s some interesting commentary from more knowledgeable people than me.
Candace Rondeaux sees troubles ahead for Putin and Prigozhin.
Michael Kofman and Lawrence Freedman arrive at a similar locale, but Freedman goes a bit deeper in his analysis (BTW, his substack is excellent).
Tatiana Stanovaya thinks Prigozhin miscalculated, and Putin effectively resolved the situation.
Dan Drezner sees it my way — that while this was not a great outcome for Putin, there’s little reason to believe that he is in greater danger of a coup d’etat. If anything, with Prigozhin out of the way, he might be in a stronger position.
The World’s Dumbest Criminal Strikes Again
CNN has obtained an audio recording of the 2021 meeting in which Donald Trump admits to possessing classified documents and acknowledges that he could have classified them as President but no longer can.
There’s not a ton new here, but listening to Trump wave around top secret military plans for attacking Iran and say, “See, as president, I could have declassified it. Now I can't, you know, but this is still a secret” sure sounds pretty devastating. This is Nixon’s “Smoking Gun” tape on steroids.
What’s Going On
My friend Anthony Fisher challenges those who feel the bizarre need to defend Robert F. Kennedy Jr, deranged conspiracy theorizing.
Kudos to Joan Walsh, the former editor at Salon, for writing openly about her mistake in publishing Kennedy’s anti-vax nonsense.
Ori Nir is rightly worried about the growing settler violence in the West Bank.
The Supreme Court this morning rejected a ferkakta right-wing legal theory that would have allowed state legislatures to radically rewrite election laws … proving once against that the Court might be crazy, but it’s not meshugganah.
Musical Interlude
The entire second set of Dead and Company’s Wednesday night show at Citi Field was fantastic (the first set was great, too), but the “St. Stephen” (starting at the 20:00 minute mark) belongs in the pantheon.
Michael, I totally disagree with you about Kennedy or any other declared candidate for either party. Democracy is about giving a “platform”, as you put it (I think), and what I call a “voice” to anybody who declares their candidacy to run to office unless the person spews hate or vulgarity or something else on those lines. So, to say what you have, that this candidate or that candidate does not serve media attention is undemocratic or goes against what I believe the founding fathers intended as far as setting clear guidelines for running for office and allowing for justice for all in every walk of life. What you suggest will theoretically lead to lees choices for the people with less information for each of us and is unfair to any legitimate candidate. That Kennedy believes in conspiracy theories or doesn’t have a chance to win is not the point. We’re trying to safeguard democratic values in this country and this type of attitude simply doesn’t help. For the record, I don’t like him and have no challenge with his running ad getting media coverage. The people should be informed and be allowed to come to their own conclusions.
This from Yahoo News: Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh ― who appeared open to adopting this doctrine in two cases in 2020 ― remain open to it and anticipate a case resolving the issue at some point in the near future. Mayhap meshugganah in the long run?