Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis on Wednesday addressed the notion of bringing Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on the ticket with him.
While Kennedy Jr. remains a long-shot Democratic candidate against Joe Biden, according to recent polling, he beats both Biden and former President Donald Trump in favorability ratings, leading Newsweek to declare that if the 2024 election were a popularity contest, RFK Jr. would be winning. It's not, of course, and DeSantis knows that if elected, he would need to deliver on the many conservative promises he's made to supporters. Even if there are points of agreement, Kennedy is still a Democrat on most issues, DeSantis said.
"I'm aligned with him on Fauci and the corruption in the health bureaucracies 100 percent," DeSantis told OutKick host Clay Travis.
"But at the end of the day, he's more liberal … he used to say — and I don't know if he still believes this — that if you deny climate change, you should go to jail. Things like that," the Florida Republican noted.
In a 2014 article the environmental lawyer wrote for EcoWatch, which is now only available on an archived page, Kennedy denies arguing that climate deniers should be jailed but said he believes "corporations which deliberately, purposefully, maliciously and systematically sponsor climate lies should be given the death penalty. This can be accomplished through an existing legal proceeding known as 'charter revocation.' State Attorneys General can invoke this remedy whenever corporations put their profit-making before the 'public welfare.'"
Video from 2014 shared by the New York Post appears to show otherwise, however.
"Do I think the Koch brothers should be prosecuted for reckless endangerment? Absolutely. That's a criminal offense, and they ought to be serving time for it," he said.
DeSantis also pointed to Kennedy's view on the Supreme Court's affirmative action decision.
"Regarding the Supreme Court banning affirmative action in higher ed — I know many Americans feel that purely race-based decisions are unfair. However, this feeling misses important context. The effects of racist policies going back centuries are now self-perpetuating," he wrote on Twitter. "Affirmative action understands this and uses race-based policies to undo the effects of racist policies."
DeSantis said there are many other issues "that he'd probably be out of step with" but argued he could be useful in some regards.
"If you're president, sic him on the FDA if he'd be willing to serve or sic him on CDC," the Republican said.
"In terms of being veep, there's 70 percent of the issues that he may be averse to our base on," DeSantis added.
Republican presidential candidate Ron DeSantis shoots down the idea of having Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr. be his vice-presidential pick.
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) July 26, 2023
There also seems to be the notion that he suggested RFK Jr. could lead the CDC or FDA but that's not what the transcript suggests:
CLAY… pic.twitter.com/Huu8m96XsB