Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign is pushing back on comments made by one of their consultants, in which she said his supporters share with former President Trump’s supporters a “mutual enemy” in President Biden.
In a video, Rita Palma, who is working on ballot access strategies to get Kennedy on as many state ballots as possible as an independent, was giving a talk to non-Biden voters about Kennedy’s path.
She outlined how Biden is their rival and said that supporters of Trump share in that desire.
“The Kennedy voter and the Trump voter, the enemy, our mutual enemy, is Biden,” Palma said in a portion of her presentation that focused on New York.
CNN first reported the video, which was also posted on the social platform X and distributed among Democratic operatives.
In another portion of the presentation, Palma explained what she believes would help increase Kennedy’s vote total for November, including by ideally awarding New York’s 28 electoral voters to him over the incumbent president.
She then went a step further to explain what would happen if the 270-vote threshold needed to win the White House is not met by any candidate in the general election.
“If you don’t get to 270, if nobody gets to 270, then Congress picks the president,” Palma said before speculating, “So who are they going to pick if it’s a Republican Congress? They’ll pick Trump. So we’re rid of Biden either way.”
Palma’s remarks caught the attention of Democrats earlier this week. Democrats have recently started making the case that Kennedy is beneficial to Trump’s candidacy, claiming he and his campaign aides are intentionally working to boost the former GOP president.
Kennedy campaign director Amaryllis Fox moved to clarify the comments as they circulated on the internet.
Fox said in a statement that while Palma was brought on recently as a “ballot access consultant,” she emphasized that “she has no involvement in — or access to — electoral strategy, nationally or in New York.”
“The video circulating was not taken at a campaign event. Palma was speaking as a private citizen and her statements in no way reflect campaign strategy, the sole aim of which is to win the White House with votes from former Trump and Biden supporters alike,” Fox said.
“We’re looking into whether any misrepresentations were made. Our campaign champions freedom of speech for all our supporters, volunteers, contractors and staff, as long as they do not claim to speak on our behalf,” she added.