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A guide for Robert Kennedy Jr.’s 2024 marketing campaign registered the web site for Kennedy and his potential vice presidential choice, New York Jets quarterback and fellow vaccine skeptic Aaron Rodgers, based on digital information reviewed by Rolling Stone.
Kennedy not too long ago informed The New York Occasions that Rodgers was on his shortlist for vice chairman — although he appeared to pop that trial balloon on Friday. “We now have a rare individual, I can’t let you know who it’s, but it surely’s not any of the folks they’ve been speaking about,” the candidate informed supporters.
RFK Jr. plans to announce his working mate on March 26. On Saturday, Mediaite reported that Kennedy is predicted to pick Nicole Shanahan, a California-based lawyer who helped fund the controversial Tremendous Bowl advert selling his candidacy.
Digital footprints counsel the Kennedy marketing campaign’s Rodgers speak was comparatively severe, a prospect that reportedly anxious Kennedy’s donors and would have represented an unbelievable new twist in Rodgers’ already-confounding trajectory — from the affable Tremendous Bowl-winner who guest-hosted “Jeopardy,” to a man best-known for spouting conspiracy theories on TV.
Whereas Kennedy’s marketing campaign is taken into account a longshot, Democrats imagine his presence within the race poses a significant risk to President Joe Biden’s reelection effort towards former President Donald Trump.
DomainTools, a database of web site registration and different info, reveals the area kennedyrodgers.com was created on March 4 — eight days earlier than the Occasions reported that Kennedy was contemplating Rodgers.
The proprietor of kennedyrodgers.com has not created a homepage for the area. Guests are greeted with a typical touchdown web page from its registrar, GoDaddy.
Nonetheless, Rolling Stone found a working subdomain of the location, pay.kennedyrodgers.com, which allowed customers to submit a cost by way of GoDaddy. A $1 check donation by Rolling Stone produced a bank card cost receipt bearing the title of GOP strategist Doug Stafford — a longtime adviser to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) who not too long ago joined the RFK Jr. marketing campaign as a guide.
The web site was taken offline Friday night after Rolling Stone contacted Stafford.
In latest days, Stafford has repeatedly touted and defended Rodgers on X (previously Twitter). “I’d moderately have Aaron Rodgers on Ayahuasca as VP than Mike Pence or God forbid Dick Cheney or another neocon like them,” Stafford posted Wednesday, after the Each day Mail reported that the quarterback was on an ayahuasca journey in Costa Rica when the Occasions broke the information that he might be Kennedy’s VP choice.
In a put up about Kennedy’s deliberate vice presidential announcement, scheduled for March 26, Stafford wrote: “Oakland, CA. I’m wondering what’s close to there… 👀🤔🧐.”
Rodgers performed faculty soccer close by on the College of California, Berkeley, and grew up just a few hours away in Chico.
Stafford additionally defended Rodgers within the wake of a report from CNN that the quarterback has privately shared false conspiracy theories concerning the Sandy Hook bloodbath — a declare that Rodgers denied on Thursday.
“Can’t let you know how shocked I’m to see @cnn simply fucking lied to smear @AaronRodgers12 as a result of they assume they will and that nobody will hear the reality later,” Stafford posted at 3:14 am ET on Friday.
Kennedy informed supporters at a dinner Friday that he’s going with another person for VP, in a video posted on X. “It’s any person that’s going to shock folks, and I believe that the nation is de facto going to fall in love with” he mentioned.
Mediaite reported Saturday that Kennedy is predicted to call Shanahan for his VP selection, based on a supply shut with the marketing campaign. The outlet used the identical digital cost technique employed by Rolling Stone to establish Kennedy senior advisor Hyperlink Lipsitz as the one who registered the web site kennedyshanahan.com.
Be aware: This story was up to date to incorporate new reporting by Mediaite.