We’ve shown how WorldNetDaily started out loving Robert Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign because he might harm President Biden’s re-election chances, then backed away (and suddenly noticed his non-right-wing views) when he switched to running as an independent because that might hurt Donald Trump’s election chances. Then, when Kennedy returned to spouting right-wing friendly things, WND was back on the RFK Jr. bandwagon. It was still wavering a bit, though, when he made another non-right-wing pronouncement, as Bob Unruh wrote in a May 10 article:
Conservatives across America have been reminded of Democrat-turned-independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s complete adherence to the abortion ideology.
In fact, his position of supporting even at “full-term” appeared to surprise his hand-selected runningmate, Nicole Shanahan.
[…]Kennedy’s campaign soon put out a statement saying that the candidate ‘misunderstood’ repeated questions on the topic,” NBC said.
Notice Unruh’s rhetorical trick of labeling any view that diverges from right-wing orthodoxy as an “ideology” — as if right-wingers like you aren’t ideologues.
But WND was back on the RFK agenda in a July 16 article by Andrew Powell cheering how Kennedy was inculcating Donald Trump with anti-vaxxer ideology (see how that works?):
A leaked video of a conversation between former President Trump and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. shows Trump criticizing what is presumed to be COVID-19 vaccines, and the effects he has personally seen.
“I agree with you, man. Something’s wrong with that whole system, and it’s the doctors you find,” Trump can be heard telling RFK, who is well known for his criticism of vaccinations.
Trump goes on to note vaccine doses meant for small babies look like they are “meant for a horse.”
[…]Trump then went on to say he has seen many instances of babies suffering from adverse reactions to vaccines.
Powell made no apparent attempt to verify anything Trump or Kennedy said. But it’s that kind of extremism that got WND’s Joe Kovacs excited when rumors started to spread that Kennedy might drop out of the race and endorse Trump, as he wrote in an Aug. 20 article:
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is seriously considering quitting the 2024 race and endorsing former President Donald Trump, according to RFK’s running mate Nicole Shanahan.
“There’s two options that we’re looking at and one is staying in, forming that new party, but we run the risk of a Kamala Harris and Walz presidency because we draw votes from Trump, or we draw somehow more votes from Trump,” Shanahan said on the “Impact Theory” podcast.
“Or we walk away right now and join forces with Donald Trump and you know, we walk away from that and explain to our base why we’re making this decision,” she told interviewer Tom Bilyeu.
[…]Regarding Kennedy, Trump told CNN on Tuesday: “I didn’t know he was thinking about getting out, but if he is thinking about getting out, certainly I’d be open to it.”
Trump said he’d “love that endorsement, because I’ve always liked” Kennedy.
Asked if he would consider appointing RFK Jr. to a role in his future administration, Trump said he “probably would.”
“I like him a lot. I respect him a lot,” Trump said. “I probably would, if something like that would happen. He’s a very different kind of a guy, a very smart guy. And, yeah, I would be honored by that endorsement, certainly.”
The next day, Kovacs giddily touted that “Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. will address the nation on Friday” about “about the present historical moment and his path forward,” adding: “Interestingly, Trump will be attending a rally in the same area late Friday afternoon in Glendale, Arizona, fueling speculation Kennedy will be joining the Trump team, as RFK is railing against Democrats for trying to keep him off the presidential ballot.”
It fell to Unruh to write about Kennedy’s actual dropping out a couple days later:
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a member of a family with decades of adherence to the Democrat party in America, on Friday suspended his campaign and threw his support behind President Donald Trump because he simply could not agree with the nation’s current Democrat party.
He criticized the party for abandoning – in fact, trying to destroy – democracy with a government-tech censorship campaign that he blamed for working to try to keep him off the ballot and to put President Donald Trump in jail.
He said Trump’s commitment to work to end the Ukraine-Russia war is enough, alone, for him to support this year’s GOP nominee.
He said Trump has asked him to help in a new Trump administration.
He said he met multiple times with Trump and found that he and Trump agree on “many” key issues.
Unruh made no mention of Kennedy’s discredited anti-vaxxer ideology.
WND then published an Aug. 25 article from the discredited Gateway Pundit touting Kennedy’s claim that “President Trump is going to make a series of announcements of other Democrats who are joining his campaign.” An Aug. 27 column by Andy Schlafly claimed without evidence that Kennedy aligning with Trump “brings many voters to the Republican side. It creates a coalition of the anti-war left and conservatives who recognize that only Trump can end the war in Ukraine and restore peace through strength for our country.” Neither Unruh nor Schlafly identified anything Trump has actually done to try and stop Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Victor Joecks followed up with his own odd Aug. 27 column:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and my wife have done the impossible – make me want to buy organic food.
Kennedy’s long-shot presidential bid came to an end on Friday. Third-party candidates face a nearly impossible task. After Democrats forced President Joe Biden to give up the nomination, Kennedy’s polling plummeted.
While he didn’t win the election, Kennedy used his campaign to draw attention to the “chronic disease epidemic.” When you step back and look at health trends, it’s hard to miss.
Joecks followed with anti-vaxxer talking points like “U.S. children born in 1992 had an autism rate of 1 in 150. For those born in 2012, it was 1 in 36.” In fact, the increase is driven by increased awareness and more accurate diagnosis.
This was followed by an Aug. 28 syndicated column by John Stossel in which pointed out that Kennedy has spread lies about vaccines, though he oddly added that “Although Kennedy and I disagree about a lot, I’m grateful that he will debate.”
After that, however, WND pretty much stopped featuring Kennedy. The last article it published about him was a Sept. 17 article taken from the Daily Caller on how a federal agency was “investigating Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for an incident involving the alleged decapitation of a dead whale carcass.”