Jesse Ventura, the former governor of Minnesota who was elected on neither the Democratic nor Republican ticket, confidently declared Thursday that, if given ballot access nationally and a spot in the presidential debates, he could actually beat not only Donald Trump but President Joe Biden.
On CNN’s Out Front, Ventura, who hasn’t held elected office since 2003, was first asked about Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and whether he would vote for him.
“I don’t know yet,” Ventura told anchor Erin Burnett, before praising the vaccine skeptic whose candidacy has spurred many family members to endorse Biden. “RFK and I have our differences. I met with him about the VP job. We met one evening for over two hours and discussed it, and I have all the admiration in the world for him. He has every right to run, and he’s probably going to get a lot of votes.”
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Kennedy, who has secured a spot on the ballot in the battleground state of Michigan in November, is not a “spoiler” candidate, Ventura also insisted.
As for Trump, who flirted with a presidential campaign under the Reform Party ticket while Ventura was governor, Ventura was much less kind.
“Donald Trump of 2000 is not Donald Trump today—plain and simple,” he said. “Back then, he was a Democrat and was pro-choice. Today he’s ultra-right, and anti-choice. You know, he ain’t the same guy… and the fact is Donald Trump, because he changes, he doesn’t ever tell the truth.”
Ventura ruled out being selected as Trump’s running mate.
The former governor and professional wrestler, who endorsed the Green Party in the 2020 election and explored a presidential bid on that ticket before deciding against it, then envisioned a truly unlikely scenario.
“If I had ballot access in all 50 states and I were allowed to debate, I could beat these two major party candidates,” Ventura claimed. Doing so would be easier than his gubernatorial win in 1998 because Trump and Biden, he said, are disliked more than his opponents in Minnesota were.
