RFK Jr reveals why he couldn’t be Trump’s running mate

Robert F Kennedy Jr has said that he doesn’t want to be former President Donald Trump’s running mate because he doesn’t “think that my marriage would survive it”.

The ex-Democratic, now independent candidate for president spoke to Variety at the Los Angeles premiere of Curb Your Enthusiasm, which stars his wife, actress Cheryl Hines.

“I think he’s right,” Ms Hines added to the magazine regarding her husband joining the Trump campaign.

There have been reports that the Trump campaign has looked at the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist as a possible running mate, something a Republican strategist forcefully rejected.

Mr Kennedy Jr told NewsNation earlier this week that the Trump team had reached out to him about the possibility of being the vice presidential candidate, but that “I would not take that job... I’m flattered that President Trump would offer it to me, but it’s not something that I’m interested in”.

But adviser Chris LaCivita wrote on X that “NO ONE from the Trump Campaign ever approached RFK Jr (or ever will)”.

Mr LaCivita called Mr Kennedy Jr “one of the most LIBERAL and radical environmentalists in the country”.

After announcing his campaign in April last year, Mr Kennedy switched from running in the Democratic primary to being an independent candidate in October.

In a hypothetical race including independent and third-party candidates, a new poll by Quinnipiac University released on Wednesday shows President Joe Biden receiving 39 per cent, Mr Trump getting 37 per cent, Mr Kennedy getting 14 per cent, independent Cornel West getting three per cent, and Jill Stein of the Green Party getting two per cent.

The Trump campaign could see Mr Kennedy as an asset if he remains as an independent candidate.

Democratic strategist Joe Trippi served as the campaign manager for the presidential campaign of Vermont governor and later DNC chair Howard Dean in 2004.

He previously told The Independent that the “big threat” to the Democrats in 2024 is if the “larger third party candidates” manage to make it into “a 45-45 kind of race”.

“Trump can’t win a race where you have to get to 50,” he added.

Mr Biden won in 2020 with 51.3 per cent of the vote. In 2016, Mr Trump managed to win the electoral college but lost the popular vote to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, 46.1 to 48.2 per cent. Third-party and independent candidates have often been blamed for helping Mr Trump to win in 2016.