Trump and RFK aren’t Libertarians, but are speaking at the party’s convention : NPR

AILSA CHANG, HOST:

Republicans and Democrats won’t hold their party conventions until later this summer. But this weekend, another political party, the Libertarian Party, is holding its national convention to select its presidential nominee for November. That person will likely be upstaged by former President Trump and independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Both are invited to speak, and both are not libertarian in their views. NPR’s Stephen Fowler covers third-party presidential campaigns and joins us now. Hi, Stephen.

STEPHEN FOWLER, BYLINE: Hey there.

CHANG: OK. So why has the Libertarian Party invited these two presidential candidates to give these prominent speeches at their convention when neither is libertarian?

FOWLER: Well, it’s attention first and foremost. I mean, look. There’s going to be way more people tuning in at the convention and more media covering it because of Trump and RFK Jr.

CHANG: OK.

FOWLER: The Libertarian Party does have ballot access in 37 states, including battlegrounds like Georgia. So they do have some influence over who wins, even though it won’t be a Libertarian. Here’s Megan McArdle (ph), chair of the Libertarian Party, in a recent podcast interview explaining her logic and having Kennedy and Trump speak.

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ANGELA MCARDLE: They need us. And so we have a lot of bargaining chips right now, and there’s so much that we can do without compromise and without ceding any ground. It’s literally just inviting them to share the stage with us.

FOWLER: Basically, she says, it’s about power and getting these major candidates to engage with and maybe one day adopt libertarian viewpoints.

CHANG: OK. I hear her point of view. But what’s been the reaction within the party to inviting non-libertarians to take the stage at the convention?

FOWLER: Well, it’s a bit of a mixed review. Libertarians have a bit of an identity crisis right now. There’s this faction called the Mises Caucus that’s kind of taken over with this aggressive, hardline and sometimes isolating stance on the party and its future. In many ways, they align more with the far-right of the GOP. Then there’s this Classical Liberal Caucus, which is exactly what it sounds like. Some people in that group point out that Trump and Kennedy don’t align with libertarian values, and bringing them includes increases the likelihood they poach voters from the Libertarian candidate. I mean, at the convention today, there were several futile attempts to give that time back to actual libertarians in a bit of a chaotic manner.

That’s the main point of all of this, though. It’s kind of like that meme of Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man pointing at Spider-Man…

CHANG: (Laughter).

FOWLER: …Because at the end of the day, everybody mentioned here – the libertarians, RFK and Donald Trump – they’re all competing for the same pool of voters.

CHANG: I guess so. But tell me. How could this greater attention on third-party candidates affect the presidential race in November, you think?

FOWLER: Well, like I said before, Libertarians have ballot access in most states, which, for now, RFK Jr. does not. So it’s another chance for his campaign to reach out to more people with this message. That, in turn, could help him get on more ballots. Libertarians do usually only get a percent or two of the popular vote, which matters in key swing states that’ll probably be decided by narrow margins. And that is why Trump is there – to try and win these voters back into his camp and to show them that he shares at least some of their values and can act on them as president.

I’ll end with this thought, though. In this election cycle, where an appetite for third-party support could be at an all-time high, there’s also potential for pretty low support between RFK’s polarizing views on vaccines, libertarian infighting and voters thinking strategically about how their vote counts. There’s also this cliche, Ailsa, about it all coming down to turnout.

CHANG: Sure.

FOWLER: I mean, we can’t know who’s going to show up, where and for whom until the actual election.

CHANG: That is NPR’s Stephen Fowler in Atlanta. Thank you so much, Stephen.

FOWLER: Thank you.

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