RFK Jr. Just Got the Worst Presidential Endorsement Ever

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. just got a random—and possibly unwelcome—endorsement in the presidential election from Kevin Spacey.

Kennedy’s presidential campaign has been wracked with controversy as of late. In desperate need of a boost six months out from the 2024 election, he is no doubt looking for high-profile backers to rebut criticism from all corners, including his own family. Spacey, however, was probably not high on his list.

That didn’t stop Spacey from tweeting his support for Kennedy on Monday.

“There’s a lot I can learn from this man. When the world turned its back on me, Bobby leaned in. He’s a formidable fighter for justice and a loyal friend that’s not afraid to stand up for what he believes,” the disgraced actor wrote in response to a 30-minute mini-documentary narrated by Woody Harrelson, which Kennedy posted on Saturday.

The endorsement comes as Spacey faces new sexual misconduct allegations, soon to be made public in a Channel 4 documentary. He has previously been accused of sexual assault and battery in 2017, which he has denied. Most recently, Spacey resurfaced to commiserate with Tucker Carlson on the former Fox News host’s interview show on X (formerly Twitter), where he brought back his Frank Underwood character from House of Cards.

Kennedy, despite running well behind Joe Biden, has called on the president to drop out of the presidential race. Spacey’s endorsement isn’t likely to move the needle there.

A group of Republican senators have threatened the International Criminal Court’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, and his family against issuing arrest warrants for any Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

In a letter to ICC chief prosecutor Karim Khan on April 24, 12 Republican senators, including Mitch McConnell, Ted Cruz, Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, and Tim Scott, warned that if an arrest warrant was issued for any Israeli leaders, “We will interpret this not only as a threat to Israel’s sovereignty but to the sovereignty of the United States,” according to a report from Zeteo.

“Target Israel and we will target you,” the letter from April 24 added, noting that the senators would sanction the court’s employees and associates, “and bar you and your families from the United States.”

“You have been warned,” the letter concluded.

Other signatories include Katie Britt, Rick Scott, and Pete Ricketts.

In response, Democratic Senator Chris Van Hollen said that it is “absolutely wrong to interfere in a judicial matter by threatening judicial officers, their family members and their employees with retribution. This thuggery is something befitting the mafia, not U.S. senators.”

On Friday, the office of the chief prosecutor posted a statement on X (formerly Twitter) denouncing threats against it as well as attempts to intimidate and impede its officials.

The GOP senators cited the American Service-Members’ Protection Act, a bill that has been referred to by some as the “Hague Invasion Act” because it could be used to justify a military operation against the ICC in The Hague if it prosecutes American officials or soldiers. In recent years, and especially after the court in 2023 issued an arrest warrant against Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other Russian officials for war crimes issued in the invasion of Ukraine, the Biden administration pledged to help the ICC in its efforts.  

Israel and the United States are not members of the ICC, but the Palestinian territories were admitted with the status of a member state in 2015. A week before Khan, a British attorney, was appointed to the court in 2021, the court ruled unanimously that it had jurisdiction over “Gaza and the West Bank.”

It’s telling that allegations of war crimes by Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu don’t seem to faze leading Republicans in the Senate, even as at least 34,735 people have been killed, including over 14,500 children. Instead, they are attacking anyone who seeks to hold the Israeli government accountable, whether college students or the International Criminal Court, rather than doing so themselves.

Georgia’s former Republican Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan announced Monday that he is endorsing Joe Biden in the 2024 election, a stunning defection that puts him at odds with other leaders in his party.

Countless Republicans who have been personally slighted by Donald Trump, from William Barr to Ted Cruz, have nonetheless pledged their support to him in the upcoming election. But Duncan has drawn a line in the sand. The former Georgia official faced pressure from the Trump campaign to stop the certification of 2020 election results in the crucial swing state.

“The healing of the Republican Party cannot begin with Trump as president (and that’s aside from the untold damage that potentially awaits our country),” Duncan wrote in an op-ed for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “This November, I am voting for a decent person I disagree with on policy over a criminal defendant without a moral compass.”

Despite conservatives’ insistence to the contrary, Trump’s legal troubles are convincing some Republican voters to jump ship ahead of the 2024 presidential election. Duncan, for his part, cited Trump’s criminal case directly: “The alternative is another term of Trump, a man who has disqualified himself through his conduct and his character. The headlines are ablaze with his hush-money trial over allegations of improper record-keeping for payments to conceal an affair with an adult-film star,” he wrote.

Duncan, who also refers to Trump’s chilling Time magazine interview as a reason for his defection, was once considered as a potential challenger to Trump in 2024. In March, Duncan considered and then turned down overtures from No Labels to mount a third-party campaign.

Now Duncan is throwing his support behind Biden, in the hope that it may convince other lifelong conservatives to break with the man who threatened Duncan’s colleague, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, to “find 11,780 votes.”

Duncan is the second high-profile Republican to express support for Biden in recent days. Last week, Trump’s former White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews announced she will vote for Biden because Trump “will not uphold the Constitution.”

At Donald Trump’s hush-money trial Monday, a former Trump Organization executive appears to have, through some handwritten notes, exposed serious tax fraud from the former president.

Jeffrey McConney, the former corporate controller at the Trump Organization, testified in court about a reimbursement payment of $360,000 in 2016 to former Trump attorney and fixer, Michael Cohen. That payment was “grossed up” from a $180,000 expense, to offset income taxes. The details were handwritten on Trump stationary by McConney, who was taking notes while speaking to Allen Weisselberg, the company’s chief financial officer, who told him that Cohen was owed money.

The written notes outlined a $180,000 reimbursement to Cohen, which consisted of a $130,000 wire transfer (the same amount paid to Stormy Daniels) and $50,000 for tech services, plus an additional bonus of $60,000. This total amount of $240,000 was then grossed up 50 percent to $360,000 to offset income taxes, a fact that Trump lawyer Emil Bove unsuccessfully moved to strike from the record.

Prosecutor Matthew Colangelo noted that reimbursement payments usually don’t exceed the amount of expenses, but that Cohen received double the amount of a $180,000 expense. Colangelo asked McConney if he could recall any other instance where an expense reimbursement was doubled for tax purposes. McConney replied no. In other words, a major exception seems to have been made to reimburse Cohen for the hush-money payments.

The prosecution hopes that to the jury, all of this is a convincing paper trail of Trump’s payments to Cohen, and thus to Daniels, in order to cover up Trump’s affair with the adult film actress prior to the 2016 elections.

Trump is facing 34 felony charges for allegedly falsifying business records with the intent to further an underlying crime, and has pleaded not guilty. Daniels and Cohen have yet to testify, and when Cohen takes the stand, prosecutors will not only seek his confirmation of the payments, but also that they lead directly to Daniels.

As his hush-money trial proceeds, Donald Trump has been left searching for new angles with which to claim victimhood. His newest: Gag orders are unconstitutional.

Outside the New York City courthouse where his trial is taking place, Trump answered questions from the press pool on Monday. When reporters asked if he thought Michael Cohen, Trump’s former fixer now set to testify against him, was a liar, and if Trump was going to testify, the former president launched into a tirade against basic courtroom procedures.

“As you know, they’ve taken away my constitutional rights, so I’m not allowed to answer that question. This has never happened in this country before—it’s a ridiculous thing,” he responded.

Trump is referring to the gag order imposed on him by Judge Juan Merchan, which prohibits him from publicly commenting on witnesses and jurors, and was expanded after he attacked Merchan’s daughter. Trump currently owes $10,000 for his gag order violations in this trial alone—not to mention the $15,000 he owes for violating the gag order in his civil fraud trial—and could face jail time if he keeps breaking the order.

The former president is correct that the order prevents him from opining on Cohen publicly. But publicly impugning witnesses’ credibility during a trial is not a constitutional right, and Trump is hardly the first defendant to have had a gag order issued against them.

Trump has frequently claimed that the legal proceedings against him, from his impeachments to his postpresidency trials, constitute a “witch hunt.” But claiming that a prohibition on his ability to post on Truth Social or answer press poolers’ questions about key witnesses is an unprecedented violation of his rights strains credulity, to say the least.