In a conversation with Mika Brzezinski, co-host of MSNBC's "Morning Joe", Psaki expressed her concerns about the potential impact of these candidates.
Psaki stated, "These third-party candidates are a huge, huge, huge problem, and there’s a number of them." She further emphasized the threat posed by Kennedy, citing his significant name recognition in certain regions of the country.
Despite acknowledging the extensive support for former President Donald Trump within his base, Psaki asserted that candidates like Kennedy pose a more significant challenge to Biden. "If you look at RFK Jr., it's the name recognition issue, as Tom was just talking about. And there are still states in this country, obviously — I mean, Georgia is one of them, I will name, where the Kennedy name is beloved, right?" she explained.
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Psaki also criticized Kennedy, suggesting that his followers might be too enamored with his family name to recognize his "conspiracy theorist" beliefs. "People may just not still — where they may just not know a lot about the fact that he is an anti-vaxxer, who's a conspiracy theorist. They don't know that yet," she added.
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The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) are reportedly focusing their efforts on countering this third-party threat. Psaki noted, "There is an aggressive effort that the campaign has been working with the Democratic National Committee on to run on this, but it needs to be broad, people need to be shouting it from the rooftops because this is one of the biggest threats to Joe Biden being re-elected — is these third-party candidates."
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Joe Trippi, a seasoned Democratic strategist, echoed Psaki's sentiments in an interview with NBC News last week. "The single biggest threat that helps put Trump back in the White House is third-party candidates. It’s not Biden’s age. It’s not whether Trump gets convicted. It’s not any of that stuff," he said.
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In response to this perceived threat, the DNC is reportedly establishing an official committee, led by Lis Smith, a former staffer for Pete Buttigieg's campaign and a Democratic operative. This move was reported by NBC News.
Pat Dennis, President of the Democratic opposition research group American Bridge, told NBC News, "We see [Kennedy and No Labels] essentially as an arm of the Trump campaign, and we intend to treat it as such." Former Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill also expressed her concerns, stating, "The Biden campaign is going to have to spend a boatload of money educating people about the danger of a third-party vote. Biden will have to spend money explaining there’s no vote for anyone else that’s not a vote for Trump."
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