Democrat-turned-Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. endorsed President Donald Trump for president on Friday, ripping his former party for the undemocratic way in which it made Kamala Harris its nominee.
The Democratic National Committee (DNC), he said, “installed a candidate who was so unpopular with voters that she dropped out in 2020 without winning a single delegate.”
The party did so after “a sham primary that was rigged to prevent any serious challenge to President Biden,” he said.
Democrats had prevented Kennedy from competing on a level playing field within the party, then sued him in many states to force him off the ballot, giving the lie to their claims that they were running a campaign to save democracy.
At the Democratic National Convention in Chicago this week, Kennedy said, “instead of showing us her substance and character, the DNC and its media organs engineered a surge of popularity for Vice President Harris. based on — nothing.”
Kennedy noted that the Democrats delivered a convention that had almost no policy content at all, while focusing on attacking former President Donald Trump. “Who needs a policy if you have Trump to hate?” he asked, rhetorically.
He also noted the absurdity of running a candidate who refused to debate or to sit down for media interviews. He said that while President Joe Biden mocked Russian President Vladimir Putin for winning his elections with 88% of the vote, the Democratic Party and “the DNC-aligned mainstream media networks” operated in the same way.
The Democratic Party, he said, which had once stood for democracy, had become its opponent. “In the name of saving democracy, the Democratic Party set itself to dismantling it,” he said.
“They did it by weaponizing the government agencies. They did it by weaponizing the government agencies. They did it by suing the opposition, and disenfranchising the voters.”
Later, Kennedy said that the three issues that had motivated him to run for president were free speech, children’s health, and the war in Ukraine. And he said that Harris’s speech to the Democratic convention had convinced him that she would continue the war in Ukraine, whereas former President Trump had promised to negotiate its end.
“Judging by [Harris’s] bellicose, belligerent speech last night in Chicago, we can assume that ‘President Harris’ will be an enthusiastic advocate for this and other neocon military adventures. (Harris had boasted to the convention: “I helped mobilize a global response — over 50 countries — to defend against Putin’s aggression. And as president, I will stand strong with Ukraine and our NATO allies.”)
Kennedy said that Trump had offered him the opportunity to work in his administration to solve the problems facing American public health and nutrition, and restore science to what he said had become a regulatory process dominated by the pharmaceutical industry. He said that despite the political and personal difficulty he would face as a result of supporting Trump, he felt that he had to do whatever he could to help save the lives of children in America.
Kennedy explained that he would remain on the ballot in “blue” and “red” states, but would withdraw from ten “battleground” states in which he would be a “spoiler,” letting Kamala Harris win, if he remained on the ballot.
Democrats had treated Kennedy extremely poorly: censoring his free speech on social media; smearing him as an antisemite; denying him Secret Service protection, despite threats; and having his own family publicly denounce him.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of “”The Agenda: What Trump Should Do in His First 100 Days,” available for pre-order on Amazon. He is also the author of “The Trumpian Virtues: The Lessons and Legacy of Donald Trump’s Presidency,” now available on Audible. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.