Robert F. Kennedy Jr. sought to make the case on Sunday that he can do one thing no third-party or unbiased candidate has come near doing in trendy U.S. historical past: win a presidential election. Though polls present him far behind, each major-party campaigns, these of President Biden and former President Donald J. Trump, view Mr. Kennedy as a possible spoiler.
Talking at a rally on Lengthy Island exterior New York Metropolis, Mr. Kennedy cited polls that he stated his marketing campaign had performed, displaying him profitable in two situations: one by which he confronted solely Mr. Biden with out Mr. Trump within the race, and one by which he confronted Mr. Trump with out Mr. Biden.
The explanation he’s behind in a three-way race, he maintained, is that “so many People are voting out of worry.”
“Their solely technique is to attempt to preserve me off the poll after which to make everyone scared of Donald Trump,” he stated of Democrats, “and on the opposite facet, they do the identical factor,” he added of Republicans. “When any person is telling you to vote out of worry, they’re making an attempt to govern you into abandoning your values,” he stated.
Mr. Kennedy acknowledged to the gang in Holbrook, N.Y., that Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump differed in quite a few methods.
“When you have a look at their personalities, their inclinations, their presentation, their ideology, their lifestyle, their interactions with different individuals, there’s an enormous, enormous distinction,” he stated.
However he argued that points on which Mr. Biden and Mr. Trump held starkly totally different positions — like abortion, border safety, weapons and transgender rights — have been “tradition warfare points” that “are used to divide us all.” He stated that on the nationwide debt and continual illness — points he known as “existential for our nation” — their positions weren’t materially totally different.
In discussing the prevalence of continual illness, Mr. Kennedy lamented the USA’ disproportionately excessive loss of life price from the coronavirus in contrast with the loss of life price skilled by different developed nations, a disparity attributable partly to the comparatively low uptake of vaccines that Mr. Kennedy has campaigned towards.
He prompt — in contradiction of scientific proof of the protection and efficacy of Covid vaccines, and knowledge displaying greater loss of life charges in states with decrease vaccination charges — that the nation’s poor Covid efficiency was a mark towards vaccines.
“No matter we’re doing, no matter we did, it was improper,” Mr. Kennedy stated, referring to vaccine mandates, lockdowns and different pandemic responses.