Trump battered by conservative for welcoming 'Blame America first' politicians to campaign

At the conservative National Review, Donald Trump was taken to task for making Robert Kennedy Jr. and former Democratic Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii major players in his campaign for re-election.

According to columnist Noah Rothman, the two former Democrats fall into what he calls the "Blame America first" wing of the Democratic party that has already made them outcasts, and their baggage could weigh down the former president's already struggling campaign.

As he pointed out, there are few Democratic voters they will bring to the table and some of their views may not be palatable to more moderate Republicans who might be on the fence with the election looming.

ALSO READ: Trump’s RFK Jr. endorsement actually helps Harris

Writing, "Both Kennedy and Gabbard were politically homeless well before Trump folded them under his wing, but not because they reluctantly finalized the divorce from a party that long ago left them behind. They got the boot," Rothman added, "... there is another side to that coin that has gone relatively unremarked upon. Embracing the paranoia these two one-time Democrats court — an agitated unease that leads them both to conclude that America and Americans are the problem — is not a risk-free proposition."

Noting that he personally believes RFK Jr. is a "crank" who seems to think there are "malign forces at work in America," Rothman suggested that Kennedy seems to believe "that Americans are the problem — either because they’re too cowed and complacent to know what’s good for them or because they’re consciously wicked."

As for Gabbard, he made the case that she is increasingly seen as a puppet of the Kremlin — and for good reason.

"Gabbard has continued to retail the dubious narratives promulgated by the Kremlin — among them, the debunked notion that the U.S. maintained biological warfare laboratories developing 'deadly pathogens' inside Ukraine. The implication being that the existence of these facilities compelled Moscow to engage in an uncommonly brutal war of conquest and subjugation," he wrote.

Citing the description of former Ronald Reagan administration official Jean Kirkpatrick who railed against "blame America first" Democrats at the 1984 Republican Part Convention, Rothman issues a warning to other conservatives.

"There may be a price to pay for abandoning all discretion in the effort to craft a durable coalition of disaffected voters, he admitted. "Yes, Gabbard and Kennedy speak to an unenthusiastic subset of voters who don’t believe either party is capable of producing meaningful (read, radical) change. But their absorption into the Republican coalition risks alienating a galactically larger host of voters who turn out to vote for establishmentarian figures regular basis."

You can read more here.