Democrat turned independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. charges that President Biden and former President Trump ‘are trying to exclude me from their debate because they are afraid I would win.’
Kennedy fired back in a social media posting hours after the Democratic president and his Republican predecessor in the White House agreed to face off in showdowns in June and early September.
A debate proposal from Biden that triggered the cascade of developments on Wednesday morning stated that ‘the debates should be one-on-one, allowing voters to compare the only two candidates with any statistical chance of prevailing in the Electoral College.’
Kennedy argued that ‘Presidents Trump and Biden are colluding to lock America into a head-to-head match-up that 70% say they do not want,’ as he referred to numerous national polls indicating many voters are far from thrilled with the 2024 election rematch between the 81-year-old president and his 77-year-old predecessor.
‘These are the two most unpopular candidates in living memory. By excluding me from the stage, Presidents Biden and Trump seek to avoid discussion of their eight years of mutual failure including deficits, wars, lockdowns, chronic disease, and inflation,’ claimed Kennedy, the longtime environmental activist and high-profile vaccine skeptic, who is the scion of the nation’s most storied political dynasty.
And he emphasized that ‘keeping viable candidates off the debate stage undermines democracy. Forty-three percent of Americans identify as independents. If Americans are ever going to escape the hammerlock of the two-party system, now is the time to do it.’
The Biden campaign and the Democratic National Committee have repeatedly slammed Kennedy as a potential spoiler whose supporters could hand Trump a presidential election victory in November.
Plenty of pundits and pollsters are making the case that Kennedy also could pose a similar problem for Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. And as Kennedy has increased his appearances on conservative media the past couple of months, the former president and his campaign have increasingly characterized Kennedy, whose populism on some issues seems similar to Trump’s, as a far-left politician.
At a campaign event in New York City two weeks ago, Kennedy disputed the repeated claims that he’s a spoiler.
And he once again argued that he, rather than Biden, is the only candidate who can defeat Trump in November – and showcased a new internal poll conducted by his campaign to make his point – as he announced an unusual ‘no-spoiler pledge.’