Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whose pitch to voters has centered around his relative youth and mental sharpness, made a gaffe of his own Sunday when he suggested that whoever wins the White House in November should be sitting down with a laundry list of authoritarian leaders from around the world—including former Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has not held office in more than 10 years.
“We need to be sitting down with other world leaders, with people like President Xi and President Putin and President Ahmadinejad, the prime minister, all the people—we can’t afford to be at war anymore,” Kennedy said during a speech focusing on artificial intelligence technology.
The timing of RFK Jr.’s gaffe was also unfortunate—coming just hours after news that the current president of Iran, Ebrahim Raisi, was involved in a helicopter crash near the country’s border with Azerbaijan. It was later reported that Raisi died in the incident.
