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Blake Masters at a "Unite & Win Rally" at Arizona Financial Theatre in Phoenix, August 14, 2022. (Photo: Gage Skidmore)

RFK Operative Props Up Blake Masters Campaign

CD8 hopeful gets a Twitter boost from Kennedy backer Zach Henry

By Arizona Globe Staff, May 8, 2024 4:29 pm

Conservatives are vibrating with anger over the news broken today by the Daily Caller that former Vivek Ramaswamy Deputy Communications Director, Zach Henry is not only working for Robert F Kennedy Jr’s presidential run, but apparently promised the RFK campaign that he could deliver support from important conservative voices, as well.

Here in Arizona, Republican voters in the eighth congressional district may be equally surprised to learn that the same Zach Henry is now apparently also working for CD8 hopeful Blake Masters.

On April 4, Henry tweeted a reference to the mind-boggling fundraising total Masters had posted for the first quarter – a whopping $2.6 million cash on hand, which included a large loan from the wealthy candidate himself. But Henry didn’t simply refer to it as good news from a candidate he favors. He wrote “we are so back.”

 

Later that day, Henry wrote, “Learn more about Blake Masters and why he’s running to serve the people of Arizona’s 8th” and linked to a video of Masters announcing his run.

The next day, Henry posted a 2011 tweet from Masters’ GOP rival Abe Hamadeh that criticized Donald Trump.

These are not the tweets of an ordinary political fan or even former staffer; they profile as a paid operative. Indeed, Henry worked on the Blake Masters campaign when Masters ran for US Senate in Arizona in 2022.

Neither Henry nor his political firm Total Virality appears as an expenditure on Masters’ Q1 financial statements. One source close to one of the candidates in the race told the Arizona Globe, “I think [Zach Henry] started in April, that seems to be when the tweets start and wasn’t on first FEC [report for Q1 2024].

Apparently, Trump has managed to get over Hamadeh’s tweet from 13 years ago—Trump has endorsed Hamadeh in the CD8 race and even held a fundraiser for Hamadeh at Mar-a-Lago. And although Blake Masters has used images of the former president in his own marketing materials, hiring someone who has also worked for a candidate currently running against him—and not even a Republican—will surely catch the attention of Trump world.

As Henry Rodgers reported in his Daily Caller scoop, it already has. “RFK Jr.’s campaign paid Total Virality nearly $8,000 in March for ‘influencer engagement.’” According to a slide from a deck Total Virality prepared to land the RFK contract, that ‘influencer engagement’ includes promises of endorsements and re-tweets from “various prominent Twitter users sharing Kennedy’s State of the Union response video, including avowed Trump supporters and other conservative figures like Scott Adams, Alex Jones, Oli London, Ian Miles Cheong and Joey Mannarino, among others.”

The Daily Caller reports that Ramaswamy “was pissed when he found out in the press Henry was working for RFK. Henry was terminated immediately from the small contract they had based on ‘conflict of interest.’”

Several of the influencers cited in the deck were contacted by Daily Caller and denied being paid or compensated for sharing favorable impressions of RFK, with Florida Republican Lavern Spicer providing perhaps the most colorful dismissal: “RFK can kiss my Black ass and I never been paid to promote RFK in my life.”

Trump World insider Alex Bruesewitz was equally aghast at the Henry’s suggestion that Henry had persuaded members of the MAGA faithful suddenly to support a scion of the most famous Democratic family in America.

“RFK Jr. is a far-left radical nut job who supports ‘sex change surgeries’ for minors, thinks ‘climate change’ is the most important issue we face, and has also called Voter ID laws racist,” Bruesewitz told the Daily Caller. “He is only running to try to sabotage Trump & MAGA. Any ‘conservative’ influencer who takes money to promote this leftist hack should be ashamed of themselves. Saving our country is more important than a few bucks.”

It will be interesting to see how Republicans react to the addition of Henry to the Blake Masters team if Q2 reports reveal the connection that is seeming more tangible with every tweet. Meanwhile, this is hardly Henry’s first brush with controversy. NBC News breathlessly reported today about Henry: “RFK Jr.’s new hire downplayed Jan. 6” and “appears to have been at the Capitol during the attack.”

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