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Joining me now is independent presidential candidate Robert Francis Kennedy Junior. And well, it is a pleasure to have him back on the show. It's great to see you.
Sir Suger.
Thanks for having me absolutely so. You know, we watched your real debate. It was garnered views by millions of people. We have some video from that actually, and we wanted to talk to you a little bit about your decision to participate and to hold this event which happened outside of the mainstream media system, which consequent Quentley was still watched by millions, and what it was like to be excluded then from the CNA debate and what you why you decided to throw that independent event.
Well, you know, there was seventy one percent of the American people wanted me on that debate stage, and and I qualified for the debate by the right here, I qualified better than any other candidate, let me put it that way, by the criteria that CNN established. We think that that debate was an illegal campaign contribution by CNN
to those two candidates. I don't know if the FEC will hold them responsible or not, since it's dominated by those two parties, but we thought Americans deserve another another choice, and uh, you know, and and a view of the of the issues that really should be talked about, the issues that those that these two candidates will never talk about. The debate vision in our country which is tearing our country apart, which they can't address because they're feeding on
it and they're products of it. This huge budget deficit that the two of them, thirty four trillion dollars that it is now threatening its existential threat for our country. Within five years, fifty cents out of every dollar that we collect in taxes is going to go to servicing the dead within ten years, one hundred percent. And these two candidates can't talk about it because both of them promised to balance the budget and both of them ran
up the biggest deficits in history. They can't talk about winding down the wars because both of them are feeding into them. They can't talk about the chronic disease epidemic, which it is now absorbing five times our military budget and has affected sixty percent of our kids. We're the sickest country in the world, and they presided over it. Oh, they can't talk about ending the corrupt merger of state and corporate or because both of them are part of
the part of the swamp. And they can't talk about making government honest again. And you know, I said this Sagre during the debate that the day I get into office, I'm going to issue an executive order that any federal official who lies to the American people will immediately lose their job. President Drum can't do that. They were both up there telling lies. So I thought the Americans deserved something other than the debate they were going to get
from CNN. And by the way, CNN during COVID, which was the most momentous and consequential political decision over the past many decades, the lockdowns that shut down all of our businesses, shut down our schools, et cetera. CNN was the biggest cheerleader for that. So I don't think Jake Tapper is really capable of confronting these candidates on terrible consequences that those decisions had on the American playlic.
Bobby, one of the things that we do, I mean, I appreciate and obviously we what genuinely wanted you to be on the debate stage, which we said in our coverage as well. I do think it was a very consequential decision to exclude you, given.
The fallout from that.
I'm curious to get your reaction to President Biden's performance. I mean, do you think that he's currently fit to serve as president after the performance that he gave.
I don't think he's fit to serve as president.
I think, you know, the thing that frightens me's sake or is if we are if we're in a situation where he gets that call at three o'clock in the morning and he's woken up, He's got six minutes to make the decision about whether to retaliate and to unleash
our nuclear power on the Russians the Chinese. During that six minutes, he's been pushed down corridors and tunnels under the White House and the bunker by five or six Secret Service, and I just I don't, you know, he's got to make a decision that's going to affect the lives of our children, that's going to affect the welfare of all of humanity, right, and I want somebody who's
on the ball making that decision. I don't know, you know, even I'll say this theater and I don't want to make this personal about me, but I've known Joe Biden for forty years and he's just a completely different person now. And even this little decision of him not providing me with the Secret Service protection, I don't think that Joe Biden, I knew, would do that. I don't believe he's making that decision. I believe he probably doesn't even know about it,
because I think he seems unaware. And I know that, you know, Joe Biden has has a bus my father sitting behind him at the Oval office. He knew what he knows what happened to my dad, And you know, he was the person I knew that Joe Biden, I knew was a decent man. He would not make this kind of decisions. So what I think is there's you know, there's somebody sitting there, some kid in a lanyard, some anonymous man in a lanyard was sitting with his feet up on the desk of the Oval office saying, I'm
the real president. Nobody knows about it, but there is somebody else. I just believe that there's somebody else making these decisions because I think that Joe Biden, I know, would not be making that kind of decision.
A whole bunch of them right.
Well, but since you were the highest polling Democrat in the race other than Joe Biden before you decided to run as an independent, have any Democrats or major donors reached out to you to ask you to become standard bearer and replace him.
We haven't heard from anybody yet. I'm sure they're looking at polls, and you know the polls. We did this Zugby pole, which is the biggest pole ever taken in this race, one of the biggest poles ever taken. Twenty six thousand people. So the typical poll Sayer has about by twinnipeac or Harvard Harris or Gallup has one thousand to.
Twenty two hundred people in it.
This was a poll of twenty six thousand, and it shows clearly that I'm the only person who can beat Donald Trump, including President Biden. If I'm in the race, President Biden loses. If I'm out of the race, he loves even worse. And I had to have me against Donald Trump, I win. And it had to have me against President Biden. I went in a landslide. I win
thirty nine states. He only wins eleven. My numbers. I'm the only candidate who can take who can cut it into Donald Trump's base, and if they want to, if they're if the objective, which I think is true. There's two parts of the Democratic Party. There's the Donor Glass, which I think would would like to keep me out of the would rather have.
Donald Trump than me in office, okay.
And then there's the rank and file Democrats who are so terrified of Donald Trump that they would much rather have me as their candidate because I'm the only one who can win.
Is it something you would even consider, Bobby at this point, you've run as an independent, You've picked your vice president. Would you even consider running for the nomination at the DNC if they were offering me.
I think that that because me running is an independent is going to cut away from you know, from from votes or the Democratic and Republican Party. So the clearest path for me to the White House is through the Democratic Party. I don't have to do that, but I think that would be probably the best choice for everybody, and it's certainly something that I would consider.
Well, I'm curious to then find out, because one of the things that you're often accused of is being a Maga sympathizer or some sort of agent for Donald Trump. What did you disagree with about Trump most on the debate stage.
Oh, you know, I think Donald Trump was a terrible president. I think a lot of the things he talks about. He talks about winding down the military industrial complex, but he didn't do that. He gave the first billion and a half to Ukraine to buy for the first time offensive weapons. He was the one who sent Pompeo over there in twenty nineteen and said, you know, we're going to mix Ato into U Graine. And he walked away
from intermediate nuclear weapons, treated unilaterally with the Russians. And if you look at the way he governed, he said he was going to train this one. He brought a pharmaceutical industry lobby is in to run a JHS. He brought out oil obbyous in to run the Interior Department. He bought an old lobbyist into run the e BA. He bought a Verizon executive in to run the FCC he ran, he brought a banker in to run the Treasury Department, and and so you know. And he brought
John Bolton and to run the NSA. And he bought an oil executive and to run the State Department. So these are swamp creatures. He wasn't training the swamp. He was turning the government over to corporate pirates, and and so everything he did in governing in that way. I think a lot of the rhetoric that he talks about I agree with. I think we need to wind down,
you know, the swamp. But he wasn't doing that. I don't think he's capable of governing, of meeting the expectations and fulfilling the promises that he raises with his rhetoric.
Returning then to the possibility of running as a Democrat, do you still think that well? I mean, one of the criticisms I've seen is that you're too far apart from the Democratic Party. Do you think that you're in line with the majority of Democrats, you know on several of these issues.
I think that I am the classic Democrat. I'm the you know, I'm Kennedy Democrat. If you go down all of a checklist of all of the important priorities for my father, my uncle, I would check off everyone, you know, protecting our Constitution, protecting our Bill of Rights, decoupling corporate control from our from our regulatory agencies, which should become sock puppets for the industries they're supposed to regulate, winding down the war machine using diplomacy instead of war, all
of the things personal freedoms, medical ausmotomy, bodily at autonomy, all the things that the Democratic Party has traditionally represented and fought for. Those are the issues that you know that are my priorities.
Bobby, what did you make of the Supreme Court decision yesterday on presidential immunities?
It something you agreed with or disagreed with.
I think it's horrifying, I think, and I you know, I'm not partisan about this. It helped Donald Trump, but that's not what I care about. I care about the fact that we now you know, the executive now has this enormous power that I don't think was contemplated by the framers of our constitution, and I think it in
the hands of Democrats or Republicans. At some point our country is going to land in the hand there's going to be a demagogue who is occupying the Oval office, and the and the tools and the weapons that the Supreme Court have now put at that person's disposal are are They're breathtaking, And I don't think and I think it would be it would be challenging for our democracy
to survive. And it's in any form that we recognize if those you know, every power that an executive is given will ultimately be abused in the maximum of percent possible. And I think, you know, I think we all have to contemplate what happens when you unleash executive power to that extent. And I think it's very, very alarming.
What will your criteria be for appointing a Scotis Justice. I don't believe I've seen you expound on that before, Like, what would you look at in terms of Roe versus weight, let's say, in terms of Chevron this immunity case and others? How would you evaluate considering that the next president is likely to appoint at least two Supreme Court justices.
To the court. Yeah, I mean saying it's hard.
You know, I would really Vlleyway based upon character and a commitment to the Constitution. Chevron cuts both. My Chevron was really you know, I spent forty years in the trenches fighting both you know, assuing administrative agencies right and also suing large corporations. And Chevron was an important weapon for us because it gave the the regulatory agency the capacity to fill the kind of interstitial places in the statutes that Congress just will never answer.
And now that.
Has gone and every decision by the regulatory agency can now be litigated, which is going to enormously weaken the regulatory agencies. Chevron did was a two edge stord because when the regulatory agency becomes captured by corporations, it also
functions to widen corporate power. So I unfortunately, I think we're in a place in American history where, you know, I'm kind of I'm kind of neutral on the Chevron issue because I see, you know, the really good things that it did in the past, but I also see the very bad potential that it has right now where we're living in a situation where our regulatory agencies are just indentured sermons and really subsidiaries of the corporations that they're supposed to regulate.
Returning to the campaign issue, if the Democrats do swap out Joe Biden for somebody else, would there be a criteria? What would your decision making process be? Would you possibly drop out of the race? Are you going to stay in this race no matter what unless it's you? How would you evaluate that scenario?
Oh, I'm going to stay in the race, I think, you know, I mean unless unless they appointed to somebody who was who shared exactly, you know, all of my ambitions for the men and for dismantling.
Is there anyone not you that you could point to that represents somebody like that.
And not among the not among the contenders, you know, I think I think we all know who the contenders are, and there's six or seven people who they could pick, and I think among those people there is nobody that would lead me to drop out of the race.
Let's say that they I'm probably the most likely is the current Vice president Kamala Harris. If you were up against her, what would your campaign message be as to why you're better than Kamala Harris.
I think Amala has the same issues that President Biden has without the.
Of cognitive issues. Is that she's very pro war.
She is she's supported censorship, she supported this, you know, this unpresident assault on our constitution where they close all the churches for a year without without regulatory process, without scientific citation, without you know, public hearings or notice and comment rulemaking or environmental impact statements or anything, and all of the other issues, shutting down jury trials, the Seventh Amendment, closing three point three million businesses with no due process,
no just compensation. You know, the Constitution is critically important right now, particularly SEG because you have the rise of all these very intrusive surveillance technologies like AI facial recognition systems, like low altitude satellites that can look at every inch of the world every day, digital currencies, all these things that can be used number one, by corporations to maximize their profits and to commoditize it's all and commoditize everything
we think or do or say to each other every interaction. But also they can be used by government to surveil and control the populations and to actually with AI to alter our reality and really control ultimately control our minds. I think it's really critically important at this point in the history to raise the blow works, the bar areas of the Constitution and the Bill of Price to make them impervious and impermeable. And I don't think that that's something that Kamela really grasps.
What's your plan for the next ABC News debate scheduled in September. I'm sure you've looked at the qualifications, any legal you know, ways that you be able to get on the ballot, perhaps by suing ABC. Have you've been in contact tell us about that, because that possibly could be even more important than the previous debate that we just saw.
Yeah, I mean, we're hoping that they let me on the debate stage as time. So you know, I think I'm going to qualify by all the traditional I will be on the ballot in every state at that point, and my poll numbers are good enough. Any I think if the Presidential Debating Commission, if they were still running it, I would definitely be on the stage. So you know, I need to look at their criteria and how that was selected, and then you know, make a decision about
what to do. Unfortunately, you say, are the FEC Federal Election Commission is a very weak agency. It's unresponsive, it doesn't is captured by the political parties. Oh, it is another captured agency and the parties that's supposed to regulate. Interestingly, the Gallup poll came out this week that show that independent voters are now by far the biggest political demographic
in our country. Fifty of Americans self identified as independent is only twenty three percent say they are Democrats, twenty five percent say they are Republicans. So you have these two minority parties who are running our whole political system, and most Americans do not feel like those parties represent
their interests. I'm doing better among independence than either President Biden or President Trump, and it's kind of a it's kind of a joke to say that those voices should not be represented in the national stage, and I think we have to make that point. I'm grateful to you and to this show for giving you an alternative narrative that is, I think the closest to the truth of you know, what's happening in our political system right now.
Because the mainstream media is also you know, has been captured by the Democratic.
Oh, we appreciate that.
It's very obviously ridiculous, you know, not to have one of the highest pulling independent candidates in decades not on the stage. And I think it genuinely could have change history. Ryan grim made that point on our show, because you would have been the contrast to President Biden as opposed to just President Trump. This does matter though in the ballot context. So as of six days ago, for your campaign said you're on the ballot in eight separate states.
So you said you're going to be on the ballot in all or No, you have an account for only one hundred and thirty eight electoral votes that's currently but you said just now you're going to be on the ballot all fifty by September. Can you assure us of that, because as I understand it, there have been some ballot challenges and others. Tell us about that process as it's arguably the biggest obstacle to your campaign right now.
Yeah, I mean they people say we're only about I think in eight or nine of the stage, which it's true, but we have enough signatures to get on the ballot in more than half the states.
Already and they're all the hard states.
So the easy states that you know, are the ones that are left, and we will be on all those ballots by the end of this month. They we're not going to let me let me edit that remarks. We won't be on the ballot because there are many of these states where the state will not let you get on the ballot even if you have all the signatures. They won't process your application until the end of August.
We have in most states, we have two to three times the number of signatures that we need and they're you know, these are not going to be susceptible to any authentic challenge. The d n C is probably going to make frivolous challenges to us in every state. So far, we've won every single one of their those lawsuits. We have a now awar chest to fight those lawsuits against the d n C, and we're going to fight them all.
But we will have all the ballot signatures that we need by as I said, by by the end of June or the end of July or the I mean the end of June or the first week of the end. Sorry, I'm getting mixed up about what month time I think it was in three weeks, Okay, the third week of Jill, I will be on the ballot. We'll have enough signature, just again on the ballot in every state.
And this is critical because, as I understand, this is part of the way that CNN excluded you from the debate is even though you had the ballots to qualify, even though you technically weren't on the ballot, they were saying that you didn't even though, as you pointed out, President Biden and Trump, neither of them were officially on the ballot either, because neither of them actually been nominated. So that was a real view I think into the way that the current process is rigged. I'm curious on
your fundraising numbers. Have you seen a major increase? I believe your campaign just said you've raised will fit at forty six million dollars currently about ten million dollars of that from your vice president. Can you give us any insight into post debate considering the amount of political interest that spiked in this country?
Since I don't, I honestly don't know numbers, I do know this that on the day of the debate that we had a record day fundraising. So and I've heard, but I can't guarantee you this. I've heard that the fundraising has been very very good since the since of the debate. Okay, all right, well, and I think and the other thing is that you know, the political parties can raise over a million dollars per donor and we're only we're restricted to sixty six hundred dollars per donor.
But because we are now on the ballot for existing political parties, with the Natural Law Party, with the People Party, or it gives us now the capacity to raise that limit to forty seven I think it's forty seven dollars and maybe forty three thousand dollars per donor. So it allows us note now to go back to our donors and our maximum donors and tell them that you know, there's a new maximum. And so I think our fundraising is going to is going to be fine.
All right.
Last question for you, sir, because I know that you're running on a short time. Vanity Fair came out with a major profile today. I want to give you a chance to respond to this. There's a photo circulating, I believe, of you posing uh with what looks like a dog and also in a barbecue dog I'm not going to show the picture as a dog lover. I know you have pets yourself, and also a sexual assault allegation from one of your former nannies.
So I want to give you a chance to respond to that.
Yeah, all right, you know the article is it is a lot of garbage. The picture that they said is of me eating a dog. It's actually me eating a goat in Patagonia and on a whitewater.
Trip many years ago on the fudal A food River.
They say there's an expert, they have an expert that has identified that as a dog carcass. Yeah, it's just not true. Oh and you know, in terms of the the other allegations, I listen, I've said this from the beginning. I am not a church boy. I am not running like that. I said it in my I had a very very rambunctious youth. I said in my announcement speech that I have I have if I have so many skeletons in my closet that if that, if they could all vote, I could run for a gig of the world.
So you know, there is vanity Fair is recycling the thirty year old stories and I'm not you know, going to comment on the details of any of them.
But it's you know, I am, I am.
You're talking there about the nanny situation. I mean I do have to ask her. I mean you're denying it or.
Not, I'm not going to comment on it.
All right, Well, I gave you the opportunity, and officially it's a goat.
Uh.
I don't I didn't know necessarily about what What did they say is a spare rib of a canine.
I think that's what they said for their identification. But we've got it from you.
I'll let the anatomy experts be the ones who can determine that. Sir, I very much appreciate you joining us for these questions. It's been a big interview for us, and we wish to see you on all fifty ballots and including on the debate stage, because that's what the American people deserve.
So thank you, Thank you very much. Segar absolutely