US Independent presidential candidate, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has claimed that President Joe Biden is a greater threat to democracy than former President Donald Trump.
His references being blocked on social media platforms during the Biden administration, which he labeled as an effort to “censor political speech” and undermine the First Amendment.
“I can make the argument that President Biden is the much worse threat to democracy, and the reason for that is President Biden is the first candidate in history – the first president in history that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech, so to censor his opponent,” he said on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront”.
Kennedy pointed to his removal from social media platforms, which he attributes to pressure from the Biden administration, as evidence of the president’s efforts to censor political speech.
Kennedy’s Instagram account was suspended in 2021 “for repeatedly sharing debunked claims about the coronavirus or vaccines” but was reinstated last year shortly after he announced his presidential campaign. Meta, Instagram’s parent company, cited his White House bid as the reason for restoring Kennedy’s account in a statement.
In December, the Supreme Court blocked Kennedy from joining a challenge to a case brought by the Missouri and Louisiana’s attorneys general concerning the Biden administration’s communications with social media companies about posts the government views as disinformation. Kennedy currently has a similar case pending in a lower court.
Kennedy, who has made freedom of speech issues a central focus of his campaign, testified last year before the House Judiciary’s subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government.
Kennedy said that while he believes Biden and Trump are both ill-suited to be reelected in November, he does not believe rhetoric suggesting either candidate would “destroy democracy.
He added that if he had to label one a greater threat to democracy than the other, he’d choose Biden because he feels the president has been “weaponizing the federal agencies” against his opponents.
RFK Jr. acknowledged that Trump’s attempt to overthrow the results of the 2020 presidential election “clearly is a threat to democracy,” but maintained his belief that Biden is the greater threat.
“I think that is a threat to democracy, (Trump) overthrowing — trying to overthrow the election clearly is threat to democracy,” Kennedy said. “But the question was, who is a worse threat to democracy? And what I would say is … I’m not going to answer that question. But I can argue that President Biden is because the First Amendment, Erin, is the most important.”
“I’m not going to defend President Trump on that, and it was appalling. And there’s many things that President Trump has done that that are appalling,” he added.
The Democratic National Committee responded to Kennedy, saying in a statement that “there is no comparison” between Biden and Trump.
“With a straight face Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that Joe Biden is a bigger threat to democracy than Donald Trump because he was barred from pushing conspiracy theories online,” DNC senior adviser Mary Beth Cahill said in a statement. “There is no comparison to summoning a mob to the Capitol and promising to be a dictator on day one. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. laid to rest tonight any doubts that he’s a spoiler candidate by pushing his MAGA talking points in prime time.”
In the interview, Kennedy said he feels it’s important for voters who believe the election was stolen to not be persecuted for their belief.
“People who say that the election is stolen… we shouldn’t make pariahs of those people. We shouldn’t demonize them. We shouldn’t vilify them. What we should be doing is saying, let’s all get together, Republicans and Democrats, and fix the election system,” he said.
Kennedy said during the interview he believes the 2000 presidential election was “stolen,” and cited a Rolling Stone article he wrote in 2006 in which he questioned whether the 2004 presidential election was stolen.
Kennedy, 70, initially launched his presidential campaign as a Democrat challenging Biden in the primary last year, before changing party to run as an independent in October. Last month, he announced attorney Nicole Shanahan, 38, as his vice presidential nominee at a campaign rally in Oakland, California.
Kennedy told Burnett on Monday that he grew up disagreeing with members of his family regularly and still loves his family members who support Biden for president.
“I have a big family, about 105 cousins on the last time we counted,” Kennedy said. “I have a big family. I don’t know anybody in America who’s got a family who agrees with him on everything.”
“I come from a family, from a milieu where we came home at night, and ate dinner with my father and he would orchestrate debates between us and we were – in the same way that his father did with him. And we could disagree on issues, and we could disagree with passion and information, but we still loved each other. And I love Rory. I love my family. I feel loved by them.”
CNN: “When people talk about the threat to democracy that Trump poses, do you really think that is equal to Biden?”
RFK JR: “Biden is much worse threat to democracy.. President Biden is the first president history that has used the federal agencies to censor political speech” pic.twitter.com/zmtgNGn6Ke— Benny Johnson (@bennyjohnson) April 2, 2024
