Environmentalists who as soon as labored with Robert F. Kennedy Jr. are calling on him to drop his presidential bid, The New York Occasions was first to report Friday, whereas a variety of inexperienced organizations are additionally denouncing the unbiased candidate for his anti-science beliefs.
The push for Kennedy to exit the 2024 race comes from his ex-colleagues on the Pure Assets Protection Council, whose political arm is planning to run full-page newspaper advertisements in six swing states subsequent week. Kennedy had served as a senior legal professional on the local weather advocacy group for round 28 years.
The advertisements describe his marketing campaign as benefiting presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump, “the only worst environmental president our nation has ever had.”
“We’ve got spent our careers combating to guard the planet and its individuals,” the advertisements state. “As present and former management and board members of the NRDC Motion Fund, in addition to former colleagues of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., we now have one message for him: Honor our planet, drop out.”
They additional state that Kennedy has been “spinning anti-vaccination conspiracy theories, denying science, and placing lives in danger.”
“The RFK, Jr. I knew as a colleague isn’t the identical individual I see in the present day,” Liz Barratt-Brown, one among his former colleagues, mentioned in a press release.
“We really feel betrayed by him and what he’s espousing. He’s utilizing his environmental credentials to promote a darkish and conspiratorial model of politics. It’s heartbreaking. If he loves the planet the best way he did as my former colleague, he can not open the door to a different Trump Administration.”
Individually, Kennedy confronted criticism Friday in an open letter from a handful of environmental teams, together with the NRDC Motion Fund. The 12 organizations rejected Kennedy’s claims of being an environmental candidate and sought to warn the American public about his beliefs, pointing to his earlier anti-science statements.
Although he was as soon as a number one environmental legal professional, Kennedy is now “peddling the time period ‘local weather change orthodoxy’ and making empty guarantees to scrub up our surroundings with superficial proposals,” the letter says.
“Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. isn’t an environmentalist,” it argues, suggesting that his “agenda could be a catastrophe for our communities and the planet.”
The letter calls him a “harmful conspiracy theorist and science denier,” citing experiences on false claims he’s made about vaccines inflicting autism in kids and statements minimizing the riot on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, amongst others.
The letter says that Kennedy’s rejection of science makes him “no totally different than Donald Trump.”
“Kennedy is enjoying a harmful spoiler function that would profit Trump,” Manish Bapna, the president and CEO of the NRDC Motion Fund, mentioned in a press release, including that President Joe Biden’s efforts and insurance policies round local weather change make him the “actual environmental candidate.”
“In the meantime Kennedy’s marketing campaign staffers have made clear they’re making an attempt to syphon votes away from the President. Polling exhibits he has no path to the White Home, so if Kennedy is critical about defending the planet, the time to drop out is now,” Bapna mentioned.
Kennedy’s marketing campaign didn’t instantly reply to JHB’s request for remark.
Trump’s camp initially thought that Kennedy’s candidacy may benefit the previous president. However now, each the Republican’s marketing campaign and Biden’s fear that Kennedy may lose them votes.
A Kennedy presidency seems to be a protracted shot, with a Wall Road Journal ballot final month discovering that he averaged 11% help in seven states that can doubtless decide the 2024 election.
In the meantime, greater than a dozen members of the Kennedy household — together with the unbiased candidate’s sister — endorsed Biden’s marketing campaign Thursday.
“President Biden has been a champion for all of the rights and freedoms that my father and uncle stood for,” mentioned Kerry Kennedy, the daughter of former U.S. Legal professional Basic Robert F. Kennedy and niece of former President John F. Kennedy.
“That’s why practically each single grandchild of Joe and Rose Kennedy helps Joe Biden,” she added. “That’s proper — the Kennedy household endorses Joe Biden for president.”
In a publish on social media, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. acknowledged the information of his household’s help for Biden.
“I hear a few of my household can be endorsing President Biden in the present day,” he wrote. “I’m happy they’re politically lively — it’s a household custom. We’re divided in our opinions however united in our love for one another.”