Kennedy’s ex-environmental colleagues sign letter urging him to drop White House bid

Dozens of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s former colleagues at an environmental defense giant are calling on the independent presidential candidate to drop out of the race.

Several current and former Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) staffers, including co-founder John Adams and president and CEO Manish Bapna, threw their support behind President Biden in the new ad.

“In nothing more than a vanity candidacy, RFK Jr. has chosen to play the role of election spoiler to the benefit of Donald Trump — the single worst environmental president our country has ever had,” the ad says.

A dozen environmental advocacy groups including the Sierra Club and Sunrise Movement published a separate open letter Friday calling Kennedy a “dangerous conspiracy theorist and a science denier” and “denouncing RFK Jr.’s false environmentalist claims.”

“We can’t, in good conscience, let him continue co-opting the credibility and successes of our movement for his own personal benefit,” the groups wrote, “calling on Americans to reject RFK Jr. and the toxic beliefs he promotes before it’s too late.”

Kennedy spent nearly three decades at the NRDC as a senior attorney, experience he has repeatedly invoked to bolster his environmental platform. He has said he would be the “best environment president in American history,” promising to curb logging, mining and oil drilling and floating a nationwide ban on fracking.

Nicole Shanahan, who Kennedy tapped last month to be his running mate, said she saw in Kennedy “a fellow lawyer who had committed himself to finding the truth and fighting for the environment and for people.”

But Kennedy’s campaign has touted misleading and debunked conspiracy theories, including his longstanding belief that vaccines cause autism.

The Hill has contacted Kennedy’s campaign for comment.

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Both the ad and open letter suggest Kennedy has no hope of winning and would only succeed in taking votes away from Biden, which could ultimately help Trump win in November. 

“President Biden does not need my help to lose to Donald Trump,” Kennedy told the New York Times when asked about the new ad and letter, adding the environmental movement “is making a mistake to settle for crumbs that have been given to us by the Biden administration.”

Trump leads Biden by less than a percentage point in a hypothetical three-way match up with Kennedy, who is polling at 7 percent, according to The Hill/Decision Desk HQ polling averages.