Washington — Attempts by former President Donald Trump and independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ‘s appeal to the Libertarian Party fell on deaf ears over the weekend, and the crowd of third parties interrupted and mocked them at the party’s conference in Washington. DIRECT CURRENT.
A chaotic scene spread as Trump took the stage on Saturday, when libertarians clashed with pro-Trump attendees at his speech, resulting in several more people being ejected from the room and the crowd split between boos, boos and chants directed at Trump.
“They can nominate us and give us the job, or they can give us their votes,” Trump said to boos as he left the stage.
Trump continually responded to the crowd and their hostility, telling them at one point that they will “continue to get their 3% [of the national vote] every four years,” adding, “maybe they don’t need to win. ”
Jo Jorgensen, the Libertarian Party’s candidate in 2020, garnered 1. 85 million votes, less than 1. 2% of the popular vote. And in 2016, Gary Johnson, the party’s nominee for that cycle, garnered 4. 48 million votes, or about 3. 3% of the popular vote. vote. Although the party has a tendency to win low percentages of votes, in states where Presidents Joe Biden and Trump are separated by tens of thousands of votes, for third-party applicants it may simply be the difference between winning or wasting the election.
In his speech to libertarian voters, Trump called for the commutation of Ross Ulbricht’s life sentence. Ulbricht, the founder of the website Silk Road, convicted of several crimes similar to the black market site. Silk Road allowed users to buy and sell products anonymously. adding fake medicines and government documents. The Libertarian Party included Ulbricht’s release in its program.
However, when he delivered his 2024 re-election crusade two years ago, Trump called on Congress to pass a law imposing the death penalty for drug traffickers.
On Friday, Kennedy, who received a warmer welcome than Trump, tried to rally libertarians to his side by promising to pardon government whistleblower Edward Snowden, who has lately been in exile in Russia, and to scrap spy fees opposed to Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder who is fighting U. S. attempts to extradite him from Britain. two personalities respected by libertarians. He has also continually criticized Trump for his handling of the pandemic, saying Trump violated the Constitution by allowing shutdowns and restrictions.
Kennedy’s comments about Snowden and Assange drew applause. Although his audience included many former Democrats and Republicans, some libertarians felt that he was not a genuine candidate for their party.
The decision by Libertarian Party leadership to host Trump and Kennedy divided the party and prompted aggressive reactions from some delegates who sought to exclude both candidates from the event.
Even if Trump didn’t seek the Libertarian nomination, he hoped to convince some libertarian electorate that wasn’t very committed.
Convention organizers also invited President Biden, but he declined to comment.
Libertarian Party leaders said they chose to invite the applicants to allow members to speak with those who could win the White House in November.
“We’re denied a position at the debate level, so we have to make our own level the focal point of the world’s eyes,” said Brian McWilliams, communications director for the National Libertarian Party.
On Friday, during a race session, several delegates were heard shouting insults at Libertarian Party Chair Angela McArdle to oppose Trump and Kennedy taking the lead at the convention.
Several booed and shouted obscenities at McArdle as he tried to calm the crowd. Security then escorted a boy out of the session.
Arielle Shack, a Libertarian voter at Friday’s conference, told CBS News that she attended Kennedy’s speech in protest, which took place at the same time as the raucous painting session.
Shack said he traveled to the conference from New Jersey to meet with another New Jersey libertarian electorate who felt Kennedy and Trump had not been invited because they were not genuine libertarians.
“We don’t need other people here who aren’t libertarians. If they don’t adhere to our principles, we’re not going to vote for them,” Shack said. “We probably wouldn’t see libertarians voting for a Kennedy, a Democratic Kennedy. ” “He didn’t get the Democratic nomination, so now he needs to be independent. But I think we can see the solution. “
Another libertarian voter, Richard Edgar of New Jersey, said he felt Trump and Kennedy’s invitation was a “slap in the face” to libertarian voters, who were waiting to hear libertarian applicants make their point.
Michael Reeves, a Libertarian delegate from Daphne, Alabama, who said he has been a member of the party for about 25 years, said the presence of Trump and Kennedy at the conference “is a testament to the influence we can have in an election at this point, that they feel they have to take care of us in some way. “
Reeves said he would likely vote for the Libertarian candidate after being absent in 2020. Reeves said Kennedy’s speech is “not ambitious enough” and that he is “disappointed” with Trump’s first term in the White House.
“I think he had an opportunity to make genuine adjustments in Washington, but he didn’t,” Reeves said of Trump. “The most productive thing we can say is that he didn’t start any new wars, and that’s a pretty low bar. “.
He added that Democrats and Republicans were moving the country toward a “more collectivist and authoritarian state. “
“To me, they necessarily constitute the same thing, the things they disagree on are quite minor compared to the things they agree on,” Reeves said. “And they make all the decisions about the things they agree on. “