Former congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill) said the campaign of independent presidential candidate Robert Kennedy Jr. has been “hijacked by MAGA.”
“His campaign has been hijacked by MAGA,” Kinzinger told CNN Friday. “Maybe not ‘hijacked,’ maybe voluntarily.”
Kinzinger’s comment comes after RFK Jr campaign sent out a fundraising email to supporters referring to Jan. 6 Capitol rioters as “activists” who have been “stripped of their Constitutional liberties.”
In the email, RFK Jr compared jailed Capitol rioters to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and Edward Snowden, a former National Security Agency contractor who leaked highly classified national secrets and is living in exile in Russia.
“The Brits want to make sure our government doesn’t kill Assange. This is the reality that every American Citizen faces — from Ed Snowden, to Julian Assange to the J6 activists sitting in a Washington DC jail cell stripped of their Constitutional liberties,” the email said. “Please help our campaign call out the illiberal actions of our very own government.”
Kennedy’s campaign spokesperson Stephanie Spear tired to walk back the comment, saying the language used was an “error.”
“That statement was an error that does not reflect Mr. Kennedy’s views. It was inserted by a new marketing contractor and slipped through the normal approval process,” she said.
The “campaign has terminated its contract with this vendor,” Spear added.
However, Kinzinger predicted that RFK Jr’s campaign rhetoric will be aligning with Donald Trump more as the election draws closer.
“You’re gonna start seeing more and more of this kind of Donald Trump conspiracies, and he’s either going along with it, because that’s gonna help him raise money and get notoriety, or he truly believes it. Regardless, he’s absolutely wrong, and this is a frightening thing,” Kinzinger told CNN.
