S4 Ep27: RFK Jr.: The Most Insider Outsider (with Astead Herndon)

Hello, everyone, and welcome to the Focus Secret Podcast. Sarah Longwell publisher of the Bulwark. And this week, we are talking about a real wild card in the twenty twenty four presidential election. Robert f Kennedy Junior, r f k, who’s running as an independent and breaking double digits in many national polls. Now, RFK is a bit of a paradox.

On one hand, he’s an environmentalist, and on the other hand, he’s also an anti vaxxer. And he comes from one of the most prominent families in Democratic politics. And he’s also been doing interviews with the likes of Steve Bannon. So it’s not entirely clear whether his candidacy will hurt Trump or Biden more. I wanted to dig into why voters in both political parties are interested in Kennedy.

And to discuss it all, my guest today is a steadfast Herndon, New York Times national political reporter and host of their Excellent politics podcast, the run up. It is one of my favorites. Instead, thanks for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you listening too.

Yeah. You know, I’m a political junkie. So what can I do?

Yeah. Yeah. That song.

And you get out there. You get out there and talk to people, which is like my favorite thing to do. So I love your work.

I think we share a similar premise of wanting to hear people’s voices and hear them directly. And so I really love the work. That y’all do, and we think of the run up as a opportunity to bring in those voices from the ground and often get left out. So, you know, that’s the whole idea.

Do you know what else I like about the run up is you seem, like, genuinely curious about people and, like, even when people are saying just really, really bad stuff, crazy things. I still think they’re sort of delightful. Yeah. Yeah. And and I like I just I like People are still they’re funny, and they’re quirky and they’re great.

You seem to like people as one of the things that comes through in your work.

Yeah. No. I totally think that that’s shared thing. I I want to hear people talk. I want them to be themselves.

And even if people and I believe that, like, all votes come the same. And so, like, even if the reasoning might not be ideologically consistent or even if it’s someone who doesn’t pay attention, I still wanna find out, like, what their story is and how they kinda fit into this because I think they do.

Yeah. And their votes do, in fact, count the same. And so, like, even when they’re inconsistent, they are often. In fact, they are maybe a majority of the time inconsistent because people don’t spend their lives sitting around being like, oh, In this buffet of ideas that I can choose from, do they all fit in this neat little box the way that we love to talk about them? Yeah.

Anyway, good fun mutual appreciation. So RfK, I’m gonna admit, I have been obsessed with, like, the no labels. Yeah. Because that, for me, it infringes on my work, I guess, like, to the extent that my work is figuring out how to get sort of these right leaning independent soft GOP voters to not vote for Trump, those voters tend to be very susceptible to kind of a Larry Hogan, Joe Manchin, Mitt Romney, labelsy type fantasy centrist candidate. I too would be susceptible to the no labels type fantasy candidate in a different scenario.

The RFP stuff is not. Those voters have much more of a mystery

Mhmm.

To me because I don’t understand why somebody would like RfK, but there’s clearly a constituency out there for him. So I wanted to dig into that, but you talked to him recently.

Yep.

You did an interview with him, and it got a little bit testy. So, like, just tell us what happened what that interview was like and what you sort of brought away from the experience of interviewing him.

Yeah. I mean, we’ve kinda been on this journey of now with the general election set, wanting to set up the broad parameters that are gonna inform the race. And so it was actually a part of a run of episodes where we were focusing on how did this race kind of come to be and answering where I think the question we get most on the road, which is like, how are we back at Biden versus Trump again? So the first thing we did was actually go through that and say, does how Biden happened? Does this sound Trump happen and kind of push the parties respectively or I’m kind of putting voters back into positions that the majority of voters say they don’t wanna be in.

As we were going through that process, to your point, like, With polling right now, RFP is a little bit of an elephant in the room because it’s a big enough number where it can’t be ignored if we’re talking about ten, twelve percent. Even somewhat higher in national surveys. And I think thematically, it fits with what we hear about people wanting other options. Right? And so we reached out under the premise of, like, a open exploration of, like, a, what is this about?

And is this a real effort? Of running for president. Right? And so I guess that’s what I was kind of up to was to kind of gauge not only a life story, but a seriousness of candidacy and not in the do I think you’re gonna win? But do you think you’re gonna win?

Like, are you doing this to try to quote unquote win. Are you doing this for attention? Are you doing this because of your core set of beliefs? And part of doing it in the middle, I was like, oh, this is a true belief. And partially, it’s because it’s so hard to get them to talk about things that aren’t his favorite set of conspiracies.

And so even when you go through his life, you know, talking about his family, talking about, you know, what he, you know, went through and it kind of really publicly tragic events. Uncle killed at nine, father killed at fourteen. He talked about his kind of years long addiction problems that developed after that. But he really says that, like, finding environmentalism saved him. And that quickly transitions though to a belief about mercury and fish and how that impacts vaccine.

And so you cannot separate the person, the candidate, and the beliefs. They are all wrapped in. And I think for me, that became really clear. It’s like, okay. This isn’t just a guy trying to even typically spoil, I think, in the natural ways.

This is a kind of zealot about their message. And is very comfortable playing that role, and he knows that he has a dedicated set of fans from it. And all of that became really clear. And so I think it ended up building to that question of spoiler where we do get really testy at the end where he’s basically saying, I don’t care. Everybody asked me about sport.

And I basically was trying to say, is it convenient for you to not care? It’s kind of a crazy question to make someone try to admit But I’m like, you know, it’s awfully convenient that, you know, if election has the stakes that you’re saying it does, but you’re also someone who will be pretty insulated from the results. Of those things. That makes it pretty easy for you not to care about your impact. That’s where we end up landing, and that’s where we end up fighting on.

Yeah. It’s fascinating. Did you believe him though that he doesn’t care if he’s a spoiler in the sense that If he thought he was gonna be a spoiler for Biden, do you think he would care, or do you think he just doesn’t care if he’s a spoiler for Trump?

I think it’s both way. He’s not a Republican. Right? I think this I’m a who views his identity as democratic.

But Trump’s not a Republican either. Right? Like, I think And also does not care about the Republican Party and doesn’t care about sort of a set of traditional Republican ideas.

Yeah. It’s clear that COVID is his democratic problem. Right? He thinks that the party got overtaken by science and medical elite in COVID and that the vaccine backlash wave is happening now. He has not really articulate a problem with the Democratic party outside of how I handle COVID.

And its relationship to big pharma backseeks. There’s not, like, some, like, principled ideological problem with most of the democratic agenda. You know?

Yeah.

And so I think there’s a difference between him personally and who he pulls from and who the message is for. Because it’s not as if he’s making overt overtures to, like, young people upset about Gaza. You know? He’s not making big overtures to the climate activists. Upset with Biden.

And so I don’t really take him seriously or on that front because it’s not as if there’s a campaign that’s trying to cobble together even the upset unenthusiastic parts of the electorate. That’s why I say it’s message driven. It’s only about vaccine. It’s only about, you know, Yeah. You either have to know him nothing about him, which I think a lot of people still don’t, and it’s just name ID, or you gotta like the beliefs.

Because when he’s gonna talk, he’s gonna talk about that. And so I think one thing I thought during it is it’s not clear to me that this is someone who as they hear more of them, their support gains. Right?

You mean, as you watch the focus groups.

Yeah. Yeah. I’m like, Laura r of k does not inherently seem to me better for him.

Yeah. So I agree with this. And let’s start listening to the voters because I think that this is, like, really a big piece of the question is, like, Do they know him? What do they know about him? And what do they think about him once they know more about him?

So we did two focus groups to prepare for this episode. And we did twenty twenty trump voters who are leaning toward RFK, if the election were today, and twenty twenty Biden voters also leaning toward RFP. So I wanna start with the Trump voters and their interests. Let’s listen.

From a rhetoric standpoint, I think he’s displayed already that he’s not willing to go to either side, and he’s willing to say that he’s been wrong on some issues. He’s been willing to say that the right has been correct on some issues, including Donald Trump. I mean, he’s a lifelong Democrat. He’s a my hope is that he doesn’t get into the name calling and the voice of speech that we’re so used to now that it’s media driven, and I think he could cut through that. He yeah.

He’s conservative on some things, but he’s like a true liberal. We need good liberals in this country. We need good conservatives, but we need to have that conversation.

I think he has a lot more knowledge of maneuverability in politics that say, what? Trump had? So he’d be able to maneuver a little bit better than what? Trump you know, had to deal with where there was always somebody trying to make it so he wasn’t successful.

I don’t do respect to Donald Trump. I mean, let’s face it. He’s not a glad hander. He’s he’s he’s a he’s a he’s a pretty strong personality. So when you look at Kennedy and he talks about bipartisanship, I’m like, you know, look, finally that somebody that is like gonna walk the walk and talk the talk, and not just use it as a bunch of rhetoric.

Although, I I do think Trump, I agree with all his policies, foreign policies as well as economic policies. I thought he did a great job. Unfortunately, I do feel like he’s so polarizing now that it is very hard for him to be, as effective as I think he could be it is nice to have a refreshing, like, kind of like breath of air with the RfK who knows that the government is corrupt. Right? I mean, they killed his uncle and they basically have his family cell that’s just somebody who knows that an a government that’s too big is not good for any country.

A Kennedy position that I like is, he says he wants to get pesticides and chemicals out of food, look at sperm count in men. Over the last few decades, look at average testosterone levels, Look at your young American men. It’s a problem. Do wonder, like, why are young men depressed? Well, before you give them an SSRI, I don’t know.

Check their testosterone level. There’s zener estrogens and phytoestrogens in food and in packaging, chemicals, plastics, whatever.

Okay. So those were the trump voters. There’s a bunch of things that they say about Kennedy that just aren’t true. And that was just a smattering to sound like, this is a thing with third parties in general, which is when you don’t like either of your choices, What you do is you impute, you, like, project your hopes and dreams and wishes

Mhmm.

Onto this third party idea. And so with the no labels candidacy, everybody is just like no labels because putting out these polls that are like you know, sixty percent of Americans want this other thing. And you’re like, yeah. They want whatever their ideal version is. And then here, listening to these trunk voters, it’s a little bit wild what some of them think.

Like, he’s gonna be hugely bipartisan. Yeah. Yeah. There’s no evidence that this is a guy that’s gonna be hugely bipartisan. What he’s doing is actually being, like, anti partisan on either side.

And I guess First of all, just give me your reaction overall to sort of what you feel like you’ve heard from those voters about why they like Kennedy.

I definitely agree that, like, It’s like when people say that they’re independents and they’ll ask, okay. Have you do actually vote for both parties? And they actually when you ask the follow-up question, it’s often not true. Right? Like, they like the idea of bipartisanship.

And so oftentimes when we talk to voters, they will say that they’re looking for someone who speaks in that language even if they can’t really tell you on what issue they want that compromise to be on. And I think it’s the branding of independent. Two, allows Rfk to, like, exist as some idea of him, like, floating above the system in both parties. And if I do think I hear something consistently, I’m like, I do think there is a system distaste that Trump obviously speaks to, but he speaks to also. And so I think if you are looking for someone who talks in that language but exists above the parties as an actual structure.

I can hear that. And the other thing I heard is, like, you do hear trump voters often say, they think he has a lot of baggage. Yeah. And so the idea of, like, them as completely ignoring Trump baggage isn’t fully true. And for some people, I do think, like, the when we talked to type of Haley voters, when we talked to people who were, like, looking for other options, A lot of them were satisfied with Donald Trump as a policy maker.

They just were kind of sick of the other stuff. When we talk about who Kennedy’s audience is, He does rogan’s podcast, all that kind of manosphere language. And so when the guy’s talking about testosterone levels and and, you know, taking toxins out of food, those are things that overlap with that world. And I hear that really clearly too.

Yeah. I mean, I knew Ron DeSantis was toast when I started to hear voters say in the groups, he’s just a regular politician. Because the thing that voters really love about an RfK or even a Donald Trump is they want somebody who’s not a regular politician. Yeah.

I

think the through line for both parties here. And when somebody says breath of fresh air, like, what they really mean is, like, I want somebody anti establishment And some people, it’s like almost destructive. Like, I want someone who’s gonna burn it all down.

Yep.

And then other people, it’s actually more conciliatory. It’s like I want compromised, and I want people to work together and sick of the way the two parties Mhmm. Are at each other’s throats, but, like, RFK is not both of those things.

Right.

Exactly. As people learn more about him, something’s gotta give in terms of, like, who this guy is at a at this point in the race where things are still pretty low info on a brand new candidate you can get, as we did, two groups, both Dems and Republicans to say roughly similar things about this random third party guy, or to be pulling out the things that they like. But over time, I think that has to diminish. So let’s go into that. Otherwise, we’re just gonna get ahead of ourselves.

So I wanna talk to, these twenty twenty Biden voters who are leaning RfK. Let’s listen to how they talked about him.

I think that he’s pro health, not just pro health care. You know, I think that he wants people to live healthy lives. I think that he’s pro science. He wants to follow the science. I think that he wants to cut down on spending, especially on foreign wars and things like that.

I think he’s for more transparency.

I have heard, of course, on the news, negativity, but people can change. And regardless of what he did, in his past. You know, I give him a pass that he corrected that and has become a better person. You’re gonna find something wrong in everything, but that’s one positive thing. He’s bettered himself, and I think he wants to better our country.

As opposed to the other two that are more obsessed with being a politician and the attention. And I think he really wants to do something good for us?

You know, his conservation work is to be admired, plenty of waterways, has a lot of pluses But depending how hard you dig, though, it’s not exactly, you know, it’s pretty much cropped, either. Wherever you look, you do not get to find problems or issues with all candidates that if you take deep snap.

I don’t agree with all of the things he stands for, but one thing I do like are his motions towards environmental justice.

I think the main drawing point for me is that He’s not super old. Like, I agree with, like, some of his points, but, like, some of them I don’t. There’s actually, like, some glaring ones that I, like, definitely disagree with, but I don’t know. I can say that about any candidate, really. So, like, as a chemist, I have my doctorate, like, in researching medicine, And I feel like it’s difficult for me to sit here.

And, like, one of y’all said how, like, he’s following the science. And I’m like, who as someone who can actually, like, read, like, scientific literature, he’s not. I like that he’s trying to take power out of the corporation’s hands. I like that he’s trying to spread truth about the vaccinations. I have concerns that He’s, gonna be edged out.

He’s, not gonna get close enough. They’re gonna propagandize him and or assassinate him before or after the election.

So it seems like right now, he’s like a living Worshock test. For, like, what voters want him to be. And so the Democrats, you can just hear clearly. Like, they hear, okay, this has got fighting big corporations. He’s an environmentalist.

T loves conservation. You’re right though. There’s this, like, through line of, like, dudes who are thinking about how I’ve seen just a handful of videos of him doing many push ups being that I’m sure of.

The appeal, kind of

the quick. Yep. There’s certainly the Joe rogan bar stool sports set that, like, right now has been moving more and more trumpy. There’s just like a section of those guys that seem ready to sort of break off However, there was one of those guys in the Biden group and one of those guys in the Trump group.

Mhmm.

So the question that we were getting at after the first set that I wanna ask again and get, like, a pretty direct answer on his, like, can he keep drawing from both? Or is at some point it going to be like, no. This guy is a much better fit for sort of the barstool sports. Trump side of things? Or is he going to be a place for disaffected Democrats to stash their vote feeling like, yeah, Biden hasn’t done enough on the environment and they forgive all the anti vaccine hypermasculinity.

Like, which way does it go?

Mhmm. I think one scrutiny is gonna hurt him. As he gets closer, I think more people start learning about his beliefs. I think if our interviews any clue, I don’t think he’s a figure who’s gonna take scrutiny well. And so I think that that’s gonna mess up some of that.

But I do say that, like, When you think about the vaccine, there was a lot of what we would consider, like, disaffected democratic areas that was actually the a big issue. I think about in New York. Right? Like, my neighbors hate the Vacs. Like, they, like, talk about it all the time.

And I think legitimately, have become less democratic as an identity because they feel a thing was pushed on them. Now I think that type of person is in both parties. And I think Republicans obviously had a much larger language and, like, big advocacy around that. And I remember somebody telling me their breaking point with Donald Trump was his push of vaccine. I think his, like, anti vax message is actually a bipartisan, disaffected message.

But I think there’s a limit to the seriousness of it. Right? So I’m like, is he gonna be Ross Perot? I’m not sure. But Can he pull in certain places?

And I think should they be legitimately worried that that can come from either bucket? Yes. Yes. And I don’t think that’s changing. Because I actually do think he is right that the sentiment that has been fringy of his, he can repackage in a slightly less frenchie.

Right? So he doesn’t have to talk about autism. He doesn’t talk about mercury and fish. It’s gonna be auchy.

Yeah.

It’s gonna be lab leak. You know, it’s gonna be they weren’t honest with you. And so I don’t think that is a mass galvanizing thing, but I think that’s a little more bipartisan. Then we might sometimes like to think of it. Like, when I’m thinking about Democrats, there’s a certain type of Democrats who will never hear that message.

Right. But I don’t think that’s who he’s talking to.

Yeah. I agree with that. I do wonder because I think there’s been a political realignment going on for a while now that has consolidated the sort of anti vax broe barstool sports

Within truck. Within

truck. Not fully consolidated. But I don’t know that I think it’s fifty fifty. My colleague, J. B.

Last makes this point, that there’s sort of like, I don’t know if he was calling it horseshoe, but basically that, like, that used to be evenly distributed among both parties because there’s, like, a cookie lefty, you know, I live in the hills of Arizona and this trailer with sundials, and I’m a lefty, and I don’t, like, GMOs in my food, even though they’re all in everything. Then his point is that they’ve now consolidated in a Republican party, And I think that’s directionally correct. I’m not as definitive as he is about it because I still hear it in the dem groups.

Mhmm.

But I

guess if I went through these people in the groups. I was doing this exercise in my head. I thought which of these people as they learned more real things about Kennedy.

Mhmm.

That’s a good question to ask.

Would want to vote for him? And would want to vote for him more or less. And, like, the science girl, the girl who was, like, She was like this guy’s an anti vaxxer. The fact that she’s considering voting for him, I cannot explain right now other than she thinks they’re both old and doesn’t like that doesn’t wanna vote for Biden clearly because he’s old and maybe she’s got some other issues with him. But, like, she’s not gonna vote for Kennedy.

Ultimately, it was my thought. And I sort of started to feel after listening to these groups that I did feel like it’s weird because Trump wants him in the race. Clearly, But I’m not sure ultimately once the education has been done by sort of like the Liz Smith part of the damn operative world that I felt like the dens could be pulled back to Biden in a way that the Republicans would still vote for Kennedy.

I totally think that if I were placing bets, I would place on him taking more trump voters than Biden voters right now. But it’s partially because I remember, like, that Ron Paul e lane of Republicans that Trump did consolidate.

Yeah. Totally.

And I remember being in Arizona and people talking to me about JOK assassination, vaccines. It was this Ram Paul. Was it it was like, it’s just that whole world, that crowd really did line up behind Trump. There is actually a funky relationship he has with those type of people when both seeing Trump as a vessel and I think have grown. Increasingly seeing him as an establishment Republican figure in the last couple of years.

And so they were like, we see ourselves as a movement in which he is best of love, not that he controls. And, like, a lot of that language has become more clear. And so I’m, like, I do think that there are growing gaps between Trump and Republicans that someone like RfK can cease on. And so if I’m the Trump campaign, I would not be encouraging of RfK in this race.

Yeah.

I don’t think they’ve woken up to that yet. But, like, I’m surprised they don’t have a Lizmith operation too.

And do you think since many of the people in these groups were were pretty hot on a lot of conspiracies? Let me introduce my own conspiracy into this, which is, like, Is it possible that Trump and RfK, like, are sympatico on this and that RfK drops out and endorses Trump eventually? Because, like, if I were Looking at Kennedy right now, he dropped out. I bet he would endorse Trump over Biden being like, we need somebody to go after the system, and at least Trump will do that, buy this to establishment.

It was interesting because in the interview, I asked him, what is your problem with Trump? Like, he swims a lot of anti system language right now. I don’t think he’s, like, some hot believer in big farm like, I don’t know. Like, seems like he can do what you’re trying to do. And he just dismissed it really offhand.

But I have the same question. Like Yeah. There’s a way that he could just become a Trump Republican and, like, have these same beliefs and continue on. I really do think the family matters. Like, I really do think he will never not be a democrat.

So it’s clear the name Kennedy has elevated his campaign, but like not always in the way you might expect. I wanna listen to how Biden voters largely brush off the fact that Kennedy’s family isn’t supporting him.

It’s almost a positive because I think that the Kennedy family is so entrenched in politics. And, like, I don’t want someone like that. You know what I mean? Like, I want someone coming in fresh and with new bold ideas. I don’t want the same old politics, you know, which the Kennedy’s have obviously been a part of for decades.

I honestly, I appreciate it because I feel like nepotism is not involved at all. And also it distinguishes him from the Trump party in which he, like, came with a lot of money and, like, running a political, like, agenda is very costly. And so the fact that he’s even made it this far, running his own campaign is honestly a pro for me.

I mean, it’s probably something personal, family level that has nothing to do with his political stance and what he would like to do for our country. To be a jealousy thing, who knows?

Now, definitely think that it had an impact on how I think about it. It’s just family members taking a step back. Make sure it was a little bit closer. It’s maybe what I’m thinking. But, you know, may my my brother don’t get along?

So

Okay. So that’s the Democrats basically being, like, I don’t care if his family disavows him because me and my brother don’t like each other either, and or family spite. And, actually, it’s good because the legacy, the establishment, the Kennedy’s, then that’s not, you know, all over him. But then let’s listen to how the Trump voters talk about it.

Even though he came from a political family, I see him coming in as an outsider and not entrenched in the you scratch my back. I’ll scratch yours. What can I get out of this? You know, what can my buddies and my cronies get out of this? But I see him coming in with sort of, like, fresh face and What can I do to make the country better?

Like, when Trump first ran, I saw him as an outsider coming in. He was a businessman and not a politician, and he came into office to run the country, sort of like a business, but to look out for our best in trust.

I saw the Super Bowl ad, and I loved it. I know that his campaign didn’t run it. He didn’t endorse it. But I loved it. I love that vintage feel.

You know, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, Kennedy, you know, like and I think RfK junior is leaning more conservative than the party of his forebears. The Democrats, as I see them, are not your classic liberal. When I say liberal, I don’t mean, like, leftist, but there’s a leftist element entrenched in the Democrat party. And it’s not JfK’s Democrat Party.

Okay. So just like the Rorshark thing, it’s like the Kennedy name of lets him have it both ways. Right? Because For some, he can project the sort of camelot sheen name ID, brand on the whole thing. But for those who like the more skeptical you know, conspiracy minded part of his brand.

It’s a feature that the whole family’s against him.

Yes.

Do you think he’s trying to have it both ways and which of these will ultimately be more important.

He’s definitely trying to have it both ways. He knows the power of the name, and he loves it. I mean, I think it’s his identity. So Sure. You know, when we talk about him and his positioning in this race or why he decided to even start I was like, why did you have to become the anti vax guy?

Like, you could’ve just had these beliefs privately. You know? Like, why did you have to make this thing? And he talks about his father. And, like, how I think that my father would be proud of, like, going up against, you know, taking on and speaking out and blah blah blah blah blah.

I didn’t believe him. Actually that he sees this as a legacy piece. Even the stories he would tell about when he was thinking about running and not running Like, he’s very clearly been moving in democrat Ozzles for a while. Cause with Hillary Clinton. Well, maybe I will get this open sentence.

He wanted his father’s seat. And so I’m like, He invokes it enough where I know that he is conscious of how it brings people to him. At the same time, he invokes the outsiderness. And so it is trump liked in the most insider outsider ever, you know? And That is a quality I think people like because people do like the idea of an outsider because the worst villain in this scenario is the political system itself.

Like, no one is in favor of the status quo. And so he gets to pitch himself as both rule breaker. And I mean, we talk to people who just assume he has some intimate knowledge of the political system and how Washington works because his uncle was president. And I’m like, I guess. Like, I don’t really think that’s true.

It was a long time ago. And he was Long

time ago.

Like Wow.

But what has happened to him since then?

Yeah. But people just say that. They’ll be like, oh, he’ll know how to work with both parties. And he I’m sure he knows how, you know

They said it in these groups. There was people in the groups who were saying, you know, like, He’s just sort of got more experience and, kind of, sort of, when? When did he get the experience? But I gotta tell you, you know, this is replete. Through focus groups, but it was acute in the people who were leaning Kennedy.

Mhmm.

Which is the sense that all politics is corrupt All politicians and especially the establishment is corrupt and corrupting. This idea of that insider outsider formulation you just said is exactly right. They feel like everything’s so corrupt. But what they liked about Trump was that Trump understood the him.

Yes.

But said he was gonna, like, drain the swamp. Right? So they understand they don’t know everything that’s going on. They’re very sure that there’s so much going on below surface that is just there to pull the wool over their eyes. So they want somebody who knows the system, but they also want somebody who comes from the outside.

And this is where Kennedy and Trump are like, perfect circle in the Venn diagram.

I’m sure they say this to you, but the amount of times I’ve heard that Trump knows where the bodies are buried over the last two years. It’s like a favorite phrase. And I’m not talking about, like, kinda twenty seventeen when he was, like, trying to cosplay as normal politician sometimes. I’m saying they think, like, he’s done doing that. He now knows how to operate.

But mostly, like that underlying belief of corruption, I do think it’s who acknowledges that for a lot of people is like a core checklist. Yes. You know? And so Joe Biden is never going to set. Doesn’t believe that the government is that they’ll top you know, like, you know, what I’m saying?

But Donald Trump is gonna say that every debt. And Rf k is frankly gonna say that every day. And, like, I do think that’s the core of this election, honestly. You can probably make it more complicated and all of that. But, like, That’s gonna be the tonal difference.

And I think political dividing line, because I do think there’s a sense of unjustness in the air or or wrongness. Right? I remember this guy we talked to end of last year who I think about all the time who’s told me, like, If these are the two candidates the parties produce, I just think that just reflects on them. Clearly, we have a systemic problem. If so intuitively obvious to someone, that’s why the uniqueness of the rematch I think really matters.

It’s because for a lot of people, it’s a confirming belief of a broken system.

Yeah. And if you believe that it is just deeply broken, that’s when it gets easy to be, like, just burn it down, guys. Yes. Just give me someone who’s gonna burn this thing to the ground. And then it’s like, do you think that guy is Trump or Kennedy?

Like, you don’t care about spoilers at that point. You’re just like, give me the biggest hammer to hit this thing with. And I I think that that sensibility is really fundamental to our politics right now. Even the disconnect between, like, the actual economy and people’s perceptions of the economy even though I think an argue constantly that I think there are real issues that still plague people in the economy despite the fact that on paper, it’s doing great. But, like, there is just this sense of, like, everything is broken.

When you ask people, like, how are things going in the country? Like, that the top, we ask this question at every focus group at the top. And it’s getting a little better among Democrats. Like, I’m starting to hear things about, like, the economy turning around, like, just for such a long time now, I’ve heard people be like, it’s a disaster. It’s a catastrophe.

It is the worst. It’s like the great depression. You know, it’s just like the worst we’ve ever seen. And if you feel that way, then, like, you have no interest in preserving systems, which is I think Absolutely. When Joe Biden makes an argument for democracy, I think this is always, like, It’s not wrong to wanna protect democracy.

I just think it sort of misses the thing where it’s like people who want things to work and to continue and actually like institutions and like them to work versus people who were like, no. This stuff’s all broken and I want to, like, crush it.

I think it’s interesting because I too think the democracy language I get why they do it because I think in a kinda super voter way, and the people most likely to come out, it’s still a fifty five forty five argument. They do mostly want things to work. Yes. And I think it’s frankly a electoral problem for Donald Trump. Like, I don’t wanna overdo it because I’m like, it is a problem that your promise is breaking thing.

Yeah. Like, that isn’t popular. But what I do think what Biden folks have to acknowledge is that there is a forty five percent or or some percentage that does wanna break. And so I’m like, I both get the argument of why they go for it, but it to your point, what I think frustrates me about Democrats, based just based on reporting and, like, what I hear from. It’s like, they’re not making arguments about improving as much more preservation.

Yes. Because they could say We get this isn’t working. Yeah. And actually, but there’s ways to do it that our what Donald Trump, our Robert of Kennedy, our promise.

Yeah. There’s a way to make an argument for more perfect. Right? Yes. Like, we need to make things more perfect because they are not perfect yet.

And that is our job as progressives. Whatever. But, like, he just wants to tear the whole thing down. Yeah.

Yeah. And I I don’t think they’ve mastered how to do it. Be friendly, because I don’t think that there’s full acknowledgment of the brokenness among, I think, top levels of democratic party. I think that they recognize things are broken when they’re not winning. Like Yeah.

Twenty sixteen, that causes a soul surge. Yeah. And so I think if they were to lose, we would hear a lot of that. Yeah. But I think There’s no incentive to just yet because they’re doing pretty well on the bottom levels and, like, they’re really confident in the plan that the choice will eventually do the work for it.

I want to talk about his VP pick, r f k as VP pick, who he announced on March twenty six. Nicole, Shanahan, who is someone I basically had never heard of before he picked her as her VP as a Silicon Valley lawyer and was previously a donor to a broke entity Superback, and she funded that JFK throwback Super Bowl commercial. Got that mention of the group. By the way, I just if you watch both these groups, one of the funniest parts to me, was everyone in the Trump group saw the Kennedy ad because they were watching the Super Bowl. The Libbs, not watching the Super Bowl, like only one person had seen that ad.

It’s just such a perfect cultural moment. So I just wanna play the snap judgments. Like, I haven’t heard of her. None of these people have really heard of her either. So let’s listen to the snap judgments of Shannon Hand from the Biden voters and then two trump voters.

As far as what I understand, I think It’s gonna take a lot of money to get him on the ballot everywhere. And so I think he didn’t have a lot of choice, but to go with someone to add a lot of resources,

That’s pretty much the way America works. The people with the most money eventually have the most power, you know, and and I I don’t know that there’s anything inherently wrong with it. I mean, if she can take a good man with good policies, and use her money to lift him into a position where he can actually make some good things happen. I’m all for it.

I’m wary of the VP with the Silicon Valley connections because it was Silicon Valley that was to be passed to the White House that was suppressing what they called misinformation. How dare somebody have differing opinion. So I’m kinda skeptical of that.

I just wanna call it that middle person who after all the talk about how mad people were about corruption, and they didn’t want it was basically like, well, that’s how America You got

a lot of money.

You get all the power, and that’s probably fine. Yeah. Just okay.

You’re

like, honestly, I’m not mad at it.

Yeah. That’s right. I’m not mad about it. So your interview with him took place before he added.

Right. Before he was teasing it at the time.

Right. Why do you think he chose her?

Well, by sense of them talking to our folks who do some reporting with them is that, there’s, like, a personal connection that I think he wanted to seem softer. There was some, like, kind of identity, gender appeal there. She talks a lot about vaccines causing autism. She has a child who is autistic, and I think that mattered a lot. And I think, you know, money help.

And so they are in this race. As you know, they get on these ballots, and that’s gonna require a lot of money. And I think a easy way to secure some of that keep rolling in is to make sure that person’s on the ticket too. But, you know, I don’t think it was, like, a, you know, vetted operation of like, whole testing appeal. Like, I think based on the list that we saw with Aaron Rogers and other folks to I think it was people he likes and knows likes him, and, who would be most useful.

I mean, maybe you’re right. Maybe with the money. I just I was having a conversation with with somebody, and they were asking me about what it would mean if he chose Rogers versus if he chose Shannon. And, like, the takeaway from the conversation, and then this was more of this person’s impression and maybe not mine because I hadn’t thought that much about it was that if he’d picked Aaron Rogers, that would look like a straight play for those Trump barstool sports bro types that Yep. You know, I think really would have ultimately eaten into trump.

And it’s just he’s got the celebrity angle and the football angle. Whereas going with the sort of the crunchy woman does seem to be maybe slightly more like this would help me pull more from the Biden side of things. Does that sound true at all?

I thought the interesting leak of the list Right? Like, you know, it’s not usually you get a ESPN alert about

Yeah. Right.

VP shortlist. Right? So when I got the alert, I was like, well, that’s a win for him. Like, Yeah. Like, already, I’m thinking about him in a way I wasn’t thinking about him before and from an unexpected huge source.

Right? I was always skeptical. Like, Aaron Rogers has a lot of money to make. His, like, careers are the very interesting crossroads. I was like, but he’s not about the rougher residency busy, but, like, I I think money matters.

I think the ballot access stuff matters. I think it’s gonna be expensive. And I think more than Flash, they need to get on these ballots.

Yeah. I think that’s right.

Like, I see her as the logical most logical choice to help that app.

Yeah. Alright. So I wanna just do this spoiler Yep. Thing. Because one thing, Raff Gala, you mentioned this, really took exception to, in your conversation, was the idea that he was a spoiler.

You can find get what you called it, don’t ask RfK junior about being a spoiler. Like, it’s literally what you called it. So that concern was real for some of his backers too that we talked to. For instance, one said that he would only vote for RfK if Trump looks like a shoo in. It’s like if he was sure Trump was gonna win, then he would vote for RfK because

he Interesting.

He knew that RfK would be a spoiler. But then there’s others who are ready to just burn it all down. Right? They’re ready to vote for him. So let’s hear from a twenty twenty Biden voter.

Again, followed by two Trump voters talking about the spoiler effect.

Like, if I actually like the third party candidate, I’m gonna vote for him regardless of I know people say, like, you’re just throwing road away, or it’s gonna help this person or that person, like, that doesn’t matter to me if I actually like the third party candidate. And especially in this case, where I like RfK and really don’t care about Biden or Trump. To me, like, even if people are gonna say that’s throwing your vote away, I’m fine with that. If I wanna support the person that I actually, you know, approve of.

Listen, do I believe he’s gonna be, you know, win the the election now? But I’m at the point now where I don’t think that it’s a to vote. I think we all need to show that the two party system in its current state is not working. So I I hope that that’s what it would look like under him where he could cut through the middle of all of it.

But he can be a dark horse, and it’s not just a Ross Perot thing. Taking boats away from Al Gore or whatever it was, the last time. I don’t think he’s a Ross Perot, but I also think that he has more of a cut through the narrative and straight talk. Like, there’s some bits and pieces where he’s not just a straight Democrat

So one thing that was interesting to me listening to the Trump guys talk about r f k is, again, how much They really hate Democrats, but they love a democrat who’s kind of running against other Democrats.

Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. That is where these Trump guys really

standing up to their own party Yes. Telling it like it is.

He’s a real liberal.

Yep.

In the real sense, not like these guys who have gone super far left. And so to them, they there actually was They made some remarks about how he actually seemed conservative, not because he was a conservative, but because the party had gone so crazy and far left. That he was, like, rational and sane Give me.

Which

I think was interesting. But the other thing in these clips that was interesting is I think for most people, nobody really thought he could win. Even that guy who was talking about parole, I think he was talking about him, like, he couldn’t be as big as parole or get as many votes as parole. Right. Like, their point is they all acknowledge he can’t win, but they seemed I think for the most part, interested in him getting his message out there.

Yeah.

And so you said he doesn’t wanna be a spoiler, but these guys, like, they don’t care if he’s a spoiler that much.

I don’t think RFP cares.

Yeah.

But I’m saying It’s not a question. If you can’t win, you’re a your b will be spoiled. Whether you want to be or not, the question is, like, kind of irrelevant, because can you win?

Yeah.

Is the only measure of viability, and I don’t think he can, nor does he like, that’s what RfK was saying. Was that I’m not gonna be a spoiler because I’m gonna win. And I was like, okay. I don’t know really what to do with that. But I do think that it’s interesting to hear that because I would say we just did an episode by people think about not voting.

And one of the things I’ve been talking to people is, like, a part of that active choice And I remember someone telling me when we were doing anything on Bulwark voters, like, they were talking about how they’re not gonna vote in twenty four. And the people around them were really got upset. You know, like, you’re wasting your vote, like, la la la, like, someone’s gonna win either way. And the person responded, like, I know that. It just won’t be because of me.

Yes. And I do think that’s a feeling. I hear more. Not that people don’t know that there is might be a parole effect or a twenty sixteen Jill Steying or a they are kind of aware of in it, but I think to the point about distaste, of system and candidate. There’s more of a active, like, okay.

And more so than voting for someone, they were fusing to aid someone they don’t like.

Yes.

And so I think when we think about, you know, whether it’s young folks in Tamagazah, whether it’s people interested in RfK, That’s an energy I’m really wanna track through the year. Yeah. It’s like, does this bring you back to a candidate? Are you still comfortable sitting out? And are you still comfortable regardless of the impact of those actions?

Which I do think it’s easier to be now. Or

I agree with this.

A month ago, then a month before the election. Yeah.

I mean, because look, if if where people are right now holds, Biden’s in huge trouble. Because the negative energy I see towards where they’re like, no. I hate trump. I really hate him. But I am not this is like, if you believe Gaza is evil, this thing that you just said where it’s like, but it won’t be through me.

Like, I will not contribute to this. That is a real thing I hear from young progressives.

Yeah.

And that, like, an affirmative vote for Biden means they’re supporting that activity and they absolutely morally cannot do that. I think there’s a question to me then of, like, how is that situation resolved or not over the next seven months.

What happens factually really matters here? Yeah. And then the pressure will get more real. Yeah. No matter what happens, actually.

I do think the political pressure will get more real, but I do think the factual resolution or non resolution or

that in

Yahoo Biden relationship The facts are gonna impact this too.

And also how trump is Trump looks extra cozy with Net Yahoo. And they’re like, actually, I can see a difference here about how things go. Anyway, I got one more thing to do here. I wanna close with what we heard from our Trump to Biden voters. This is a different group that we talked to about Kennedy in recent months.

These are people who tend to be most interested in Kennedy or no labels or just like other third party efforts. These are just, like, the epoxy on both their houses, double haters.

Yep. Yep.

But these guys are interesting because while we hear some interest, we’ve started to hear more sour assessments of Kennedy and just a voting third party in recent months. Let’s listen.

Like, I am not trying to be rude or anything, and I try to be so inclusive, but I I can’t stand the way he speaks. The raspiness, the hoarseness, the stambra, all of it. He just sounds like creepy, grandpa, Joe in the corner that you shouldn’t go next to?

If there’s other people out there, I’m definitely gonna look at them. However, I also feel like a lot of times it’s a throwaway vote then. That if I vote for independent the last time I checked, like, a ten percent of the population would vote for him, well, then your vote is basically a throwaway. Of course, we can’t all think that, but it wouldn’t be a throwaway, and then maybe Trump would get in.

His vaccination, speak, just seems to be based on absolutely nothing. So I haven’t even listen to anything else he has talked about. And I’m pretty open minded about that kind of stuff, but just because it’s based on nothing. I I can’t even take him seriously.

My father was a John Kennedy appointee, so I have loved the Kennedy family. We’ve got the Christmas cards from them the whole bit. But, I just can’t put my name in association with this one. I just don’t think he’s ready. I don’t think he’s proven himself.

Had he been a democrat up against Joe Biden? I would’ve probably thrown my head with him, but, as an independent, I’m just really not sure that he’s going to be able to make it.

And you had to look at some of the people who are backing him and why they backing him. Three of them will be backing Trump or backing him. That it’s just too scary. There’s no whamable frame.

He lost credibility with me when he was pushing this conspiracy theory. So can’t even remember exactly what it was. There’s something that has been absolutely proven to be untrue. Even with that, even with me thinking that he’s not a great candidate, I might even throw a vote his way just because I really am not impressed at all provided, and I’m definitely not voting for Trump.

So you heard a lot of different things in there, but I will say these tend to be the highly engaged voters. Right? They they cared enough that they went from Trump to Biden and they made that active choice to switch. And Biden needs to hold on to these people. And the third party guys are a real threat to this type of voter.

Yep. But I will say, to me, I have seen an education effect, even as we’ve gotten disclosed, which is still pretty far away. Of people both learning more about Kennedy and being like, actually, no. Guys, kind of a nut. Yep.

But also just generally of the spoiler effect. And because their votes are not for Biden. They’re against Trump. Yep. These are the types that I think Kennedy might appeal to for a little bit because they’re like, I want an off ramp.

Don’t wanna vote for either of these guys that ultimately come home to Biden. What do you think about that?

Yeah. I I I totally see that scenario. I think that, like, Kennedy as a more appealing political figure could make all that work. I think he’s gonna have a hard time keeping those folks. Because to your point, you have to hear him out on the vaccines to have a starting point with the candidacy if you get the information.

Yeah.

Right? And I think closer and closer, more information will become more available. More people will start becoming more like these people in tuning in. And I do think it becomes hard because that is such a forefront of his advocacy. It is such a definitional piece of how he got here, and it will be a big piece of what he’s talking about.

So, I mean, this is why I say I get why the Biden campaign is doing what they’re doing is because I think when we think, like, what is the goal of the the kind of You were talking about Liz Smith and DNC’s operation kind of against Kennedy right now. It’s to bring those people home.

Yeah.

And They got some time, but that’s who they will be concerned about. Yeah. Because those persuaded people from sixteen to twenty Boy, I do think he’s too old. The type of people who, like, is the reason why Nikki Haley in polling against Biden is up by whatever You know? Like, those people would totally vote for someone else if they added them over.

Double digits. Yeah.

But in this match up, I see the kidd of the interest and I see the Biden ability to pull them back. Yeah. You know, the thing that DNC pulled from our interview was not even about conspiracy. It was about him on abortion. Yeah.

And that’s what they’re gonna do.

Alright. This was awesome. I really appreciate you on and do this. Instead Herndon, thank you so much for joining us today, and thanks to all of you for listening to this episode of the Focus Secret Podcast. Remember to rate, review us, and send mail back questions to focus group at the Bulwark dot com, we will see you next week.