Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. argued Monday that President Joe Biden is a greater threat to democracy than former President Trump because Kennedy was blocked on social media platforms during the Biden administration, which he labeled as an effort to “censor political speech” and undermine the First Amendment.
Kennedy said on CNN’s “Erin Burnett OutFront” 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.
“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.
“He’s weaponizing the federal agencies. Those are really critical threats,” he added.
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.
The independent candidate 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.
Kennedy went on to minimize the potential risks of questioning the integrity of elections, as he’s done in previous presidential elections, but 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.
