Donald Trump on Thursday scoffed at the notion that he would debate long shot presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. even as the former president’s allies show more concern about Kennedy’s campaign.”I don’t know anything about him,” Trump told reporters as he left his criminal trial in Manhattan. “Look, RFK is falling very low.”Trump repeatedly attacked Kennedy over social media this past weekend, despite the former president’s claim that he knows little about Kennedy.”He’s, uh, not a serious candidate,” Trump said on Thursday. “They say he hurts Biden. I don’t know who he hurts, he might hurt me. I don’t know. He has very low numbers, certainly not numbers that he can debate with. He’s got to get his numbers a lot higher before he’s credible.”Early polling has also shown that Kennedy’s inclusion hurts Trump. An NBC News national poll found that Trump led Biden by two points, but when Kennedy and other third-party hopefuls were added, Biden ended up with a two-point lead. It should be noted both outcomes are within the margin of error and illustrate the extremely close margin of the race entering the summer. According to FiveThirtyEight’s weighted national polling average, Kennedy is polling at 10% while Trump and Biden are at 41.4% and 40.8% respectively.
The former president’s barrage of criticism comes after Kennedy showed genuine efforts to appeal to Trump voters. The noted vaccine skeptic has refused to rule out recalling the Moderna COVID-19 shot, a position held by his running mate, Nicole Shanahan. Kennedy has also expressed sympathy for some Americans convicted of charges related to the January 6, 2021, Capitol riot. As Politico reported, Kennedy has repeatedly appeared on more MAGA-aligned podcasts and shows. Kennedy rose to initial fame as an environmentalist in line with his family’s well-known liberal views, but in recent years, he has found much more in common with the right-wing. He abandoned his primary challenge to President Joe Biden in favor of an independent run.Trump’s refusal to debate Kennedy may not be entirely in his hands. The nonprofit Commission on Presidential Debates, created by both major US parties, has hosted every presidential debate since 1988. The commission has faced intense criticism over its treatment of third-party candidates. It allowed Texas businessman Ross Perot to participate in all three debates in 1992 but blocked him four years later. No third-party candidate has come close to surpassing Perot’s mark of nearly 19% of the popular vote he received in 1992. Since 2000, the commission has imposed a 15% threshold in major national polls, which no third-party challenger has met.But Trump and his allies have been harshly critical of the debate commission. The Republican National Committee voted in 2022 to leave the commission. On Wednesday, Trump’s campaign managers threatened to hold a debate without the commission if they refused the former president’s request to move up the first debate, which is set for September 16 at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.Biden recently told radio host Howard Stern that he would like to debate Trump, but there is rampant speculation such a debate will never occur. The pair’s first debate in 2020 was an objective disaster. The second debate was canceled after Trump refused to accept a virtual format after the then-president tested positive for COVID-19.While millions of Americans vote before Election Day, the debates hold a powerful place in the political calendar. In an era where Americans watch little live TV besides sports and the Oscars, the debates are frequently one of the highest-rated telecasts of an election year.
