Republican Mega Donor Rips Trump for Embracing RFK Jr.: ‘Self-Destructive’

Republican mega-donor Eric Levine is criticizing former President Donald Trump for embracing Robert F. Kennedy Jr., calling it a “self-destructive” move for Trump’s campaign.
The Trump campaign announced Wednesday that Kennedy, along with former Democratic Representative Tulsi Gabbard, had been added to Trump’s transition team after they both publicly endorsed the GOP nominee. Kennedy, who was running as an independent candidate, threw his support behind Trump on Friday after suspending his own bid for the White House.
In a new email obtained by Newsweek, Levine said of the additions to Trump’s team, “It is hard to imagine a more self-destructive announcement.”
“RFK is an anti-vax kook who sees conspiracies behind every tree and under every bed, and Gabbard is the former vice-chair of the DNC and co-chair of the 2016 Bernie Sanders for President campaign,” Levine wrote in an email sent to thousands of people, which include donors in his core fundraising group.
In a statement shared with Newsweek, Trump campaign senior adviser Brian Hughes said, “As President Trump’s broad coalition of supporters and endorsers expands across partisan lines, we are proud that Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tulsi Gabbard have been added to the Trump/Vance Transition team. We look forward to having their powerful voices on the team as we work to restore America’s greatness.”
Levine, who backed former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley in the primaries, had been critical of Trump since the January 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol. But in March, he said that he would “reluctantly and with reservations” switch his support to the former president given “dramatic change in circumstances.”
Yet Levine did not hold back after learning that Kennedy and Gabbard were being added to the Trump team. He took issue with the fact that Haley still has not been brought into the fold and warned that Trump’s failure to appeal to former Haley supporters and other “Reagan Republicans” could hurt the GOP ticket in November.
“Rather than seeking and coveting the endorsement of fringe candidates with fringe policy positions that offend most Republicans and Independents, Trump would be better served by announcing he has added Nikki Haley to his transition team. It is her voters he should be focusing on,” Levine said.
The top GOP donor told his fundraising circle that Vice President Kamala Harris’ “entire campaign strategy is to appeal to Haley voters, independents, and women; Reagan voters,” who should be solidly for Trump.
“Yet, they are up for grabs because Trump seems to be laser focused on narrowing his base rather than expanding it,” Levine wrote. “Trump only helps Harris in her orchestrated act of national deception when he embraces fringe candidates like RFK and Gabbard.”
Speaking directly to Trump, Levine said, “Speak to me and my fellow Republicans. Reject the fringes. Fight for the middle. If you do not, you will forever be known from this day forward, as the ‘Former President.'”
David Faris, an associate professor of political science at Roosevelt University, predicted Wednesday that Kennedy’s addition to the Trump team would do little to help the former president in November.
In an op-ed published by Newsweek, Faris wrote, “Trump backers are patting themselves on the back for this strategic coup when they really should be thinking about how Kennedy reinforces all the most damaging perceptions of the Trump-Vance ticket.”
“While [Kennedy] might add roughly half a point to Trump’s polling today, as Nate Silver suggests, that doesn’t factor in what will happen when Kennedy opens his mouth in front of people who are suddenly paying attention to him as a MAGA media surrogate,” Faris said.
“Now he’s just another exotic animal in Donald Trump’s menagerie of opportunists who will ultimately be humiliated and discarded, just like everyone else who has ever gotten within a foot of the 45th president.”