Former Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said Friday that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign has been “taken over by MAGA.”
In a statement Thursday, President Kennedy called the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, “activists” and suggested they were the victims of an “outrageous miscarriage of justice.”
“His campaign has been taken over by MAGA,” Kinzinger told CNN’s Caitlan Collins in an interview Friday.
“Maybe it wasn’t ‘hijacked’ but it happened voluntarily. And we’ll start to see more and more of this kind of thing. [former President Trump] He either follows it because it helps him raise money and gain notoriety, or he really believes it. Either way, he’s completely wrong, and this is horrifying,” Kinzinger added.
Kennedy’s email compared the charges against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange to the charges against the defendant on January 6, saying, “Opposites rarely attract, especially in Washington.”
“However, in the case of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is facing extradition to the United States, both parties are far-right [Rep.] marjorie taylor green [R-Ga.] and the far left [Rep.] Ilhan Omar [D-Minn.] Agree: We must free Assange now! ” The email continued.
“The British want to make sure the government doesn’t kill Assange. This means everything from Ed Snowden to Julian Assange to the J6 activists who sit in jail cells in Washington DC, stripped of their constitutional freedoms. “This is a reality facing all Americans,” the newspaper said.
Kennedy campaign spokeswoman Stephanie Speer later said in a statement obtained by The Hill that the wording in the email was incorrect.
“That comment was an error that did not reflect Mr. Kennedy’s views,” Speer’s statement, first reported by NBC News, said. “This was inserted by a new marketing contractor and was able to bypass the normal approval process.”
Kinzinger also responded Friday to recent comments Kennedy made on CNN in which he argued that President Biden is a greater threat to democracy than former President Trump.
“You can hate Joe Biden, but you can’t do it with a straight face. This is…I mean, it’s not even subjective, this is like a fact,” Kinzinger said.
“You can’t say with a straight face that Joe Biden is a greater danger to democracy. As president, Joe Biden has walked with democracy and followed the rules of democracy. He has tried to overturn the results of the election. Not that there are any,” Kinzinger continued.
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