Trump accuses Robert F Kennedy Jr of being most Left-wing election candidate

Donald Trump has accused Robert F Kennedy Jr of being the most Left-wing of all the presidential candidates - as the latest batch of polls show the independent threatening his campaign.

The war of words between the two men has escalated, with the 70-year-old nephew of President John F Kennedy accusing Mr Trump of being “frightened” and “unhinged”.

Mr Kennedy, who is running as an independent, appears to be taking more votes away from Mr Trump than Mr Biden.

An NBC poll last week showed Mr Trump’s two-point lead over Mr Biden in a head-to-head race would be reversed if Mr Kennedy and Left-wing candidates Jill Stein and Cornel West entered the fray.

According to Politico, Mr Kennedy is also attracting more interest from former Trump donors than those who previously supported Mr Biden.

Against this backdrop, Mr Trump has intensified the attacks against his rival on his Truth Social channel.

On Friday, he described Mr Kennedy as “a Radical Left Liberal who’s been put in place to help Crooked Joe Biden, the Worst President in the History of the United States, get Re-Elected”.

Mr Trump continued the attacks on Sunday. He said Mr Kennedy “was far more LIBERAL than anyone running as a Democrat, including West and Stein.”

Mr Trump added: “So now, Juniors’ a so-called Independent, but he’s not, he’s a Radical Left Lunatic ... No Republican can vote for this guy.”

It marks a sharp turn in Mr Trump’s approach to the Kennedy family scion, who he previously privately considered as a pick for his vice president, according to the New York Times.

In turn, Mr Kennedy accused Mr Trump of “lobbing poisonous bombs from the safety of his bunker.”

He added: “When frightened men take to social media they risk descending into vitriol, which makes them sound unhinged.

“President Trump’s rant against me is a barely coherent barrage of wild and inaccurate claims that should best be resolved in the American tradition of presidential debate.”

The son of Bobby Kennedy, who was assassinated in June 1968 while running for president, Robert Kennedy Jr has the advantage of name recognition.

However, he has been disowned by the rest of his wider family, who are backing Joe Biden.

An environmental lawyer, Mr Kennedy has been accused of promoting conspiracy theories.

He was caught on a microphone saying Covid-19 targeted “Caucasians and Black people” and “the people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”

Mr Kennedy is regarded as an “anti-vaxxer”, an allegation he denies, insisting he has only demanded additional safety trials and for parents to be allowed to decide whether they wanted to inoculate their children.

His other policies include breaking up major banks and monopolies.

Mr Kennedy has said he would bring peace to Ukraine by withdrawing US troops and missiles from Russia’s borders - which in turn would result in Moscow ending its invasion.

Robert Shapiro, Professor of Government at Columbia University, told The Telegraph: “Somehow Trump, either based on his campaign polling or other information or on his own perceptions, now thinks RFK [Mr Kennedy] can hurt him in the election overall or in the key states of Michigan, Pennsylvania, [and] Wisconsin.

“So Trump is attacking him to try to keep the support of voters who prefer or are leaning toward or might vote for RFK.”

He added: “Trump thinks he does best against Biden in a two-candidate race or just with Jill Stein and Cornell West taking votes from Biden.

“It is also a way for Trump to keep the media focused on his campaign and not on him in the trial in New York City.”

Prof Shapiro’s analysis was borne out in Michigan, where Mr Kennedy recently hosted a comedy benefit night.

Mike Panza, 44, who voted for Mr Trump in 2020, said he was veering towards backing Mr Kennedy.

“I’d like a return to the middle of the road,” he told the BBC. “His stance on health care is really appealing. Kennedy wants to make people healthy, he wants to make the country healthy.”

Corwin Smidt, a politics professor at Michigan State University, added: “Given the status of politics in Michigan right now, I would say he’s probably more damaging to Trump.”

Jeff Lord, who served in Ronald Reagan’s White House, said he believed the attacks from the Trump camp had been inevitable.

He told The Telegraph: “In my lifetime George Wallace, the governor of Alabama, ran in 1968 and did some real damage to the Democratic candidate Hubert Humphrey. How much damage Kennedy he will do it is hard to tell.

“The fact that Trump is taking time to attack him [Mr Kennedy] shows he doesn’t want him to get any traction. I can’t blame him for that.”