Photo Illustration by Luis G. Rendon/The Daily Beast/Getty Images
When Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was roaming New Hampshire earlier this year, Donald Trump’s campaign saw him as “pure upside,” as one source close to the campaign put it.
Running to challenge President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary, Kennedy has made dystopian and conspiratorial critiques of the administration that disguise misinformation as populism in a way Trump could never pull off—at least under the right circumstances.
Since launching his campaign in April, Kennedy has accused the Biden administration of denying him Secret Service protection in an unprecedented fashion, implying it was for political reasons, by falsely claiming he was the first candidate since the assassination of his father in 1968 not to receive it by this stage of the primary.