Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. pledged to take on Presidents Biden and Trump directly on key issues if he were permitted to debate them, telling Fox News both politicians, despite their polar opposite ideologies, matched each other in exacerbating the national debt.
Kennedy also responded to criticisms he flip-flopped on key issues such as voter ID laws, saying he has gone through a political "evolution" that is common among other Americans.
He told "Jesse Watters Primetime" on Wednesday he condemns the burglary and intimidation tactics of anti-Israel protesters on college campuses, saying he supports the right to protest but not the other behavior of the demonstrators.
"It's very, very alarming. It's puzzling because it's happening on the private campuses, and they actually have a lot more leeway for controlling this. I'm all for peaceful protest, for freedom of speech. You can't threaten people. You can't intimidate people. You can't trespass," he said.
RFK JR: JILL SHOULD SUGGEST JOE STEP ASIDE IF HIS COGNITIVE ABILITIES ARE DIMINISHED
"You know, all the private campuses want to have open debate. But, you know, if people are being racist, if they're being antisemitic. And I've heard the shouts from these crowds and they're appalling."
On the election front, Kennedy revealed his campaign sanctioned a massively-sampled poll that he said projects him winning 39 states in a head-to-head matchup with Biden, while claiming a narrower win head-to-head with Trump.
Kennedy said the poll sampled 26,000 people, more than ten times the typical polls reported on. However, he said the same poll showed him losing in a three-way race, chalking it up to voters' fear that supporting a third-party candidate would serve as a spoiler for the candidate they actually despise on the other side of the aisle.
He also lamented the lack of a "compulsory" debate between general election candidates, pledging that if he appeared on the dais with Biden and Trump, he would call them out for running up nearly half of the $34 trillion estimated national debt.
While three debates – plus a vice presidential debate in Northampton County, Pa., – have been scheduled, Trump has lambasted the timing of them as falling after the point many early-voting states allow people to cast ballots.
"I should have a spot in those debates, because my polling up until now has beaten those metrics," Kennedy said. "I'm going to say, ‘what were the two of you doing when you ran up $34 trillion debt – you two alone ran up half of it?’"
A chart on the U.S. Treasury's Fiscal Data website reflects a $19.573 trillion national debt as of one month before Trump's election, and a $33.167 trillion debt as of September 30, 2023.
"We're now paying more than our defense budget to service that, within five years, we'll be paying $0.50 out of every tax dollar to service the debt," Kennedy added.
He also said while Trump pledged to end foreign wars, Biden "loves every war that he sees" – blaming Trump in part for the House approving $61 billion in Ukraine aid.
As for his change in view on issues including voter ID laws – which he once called "racially rancid," Kennedy said civil rights leaders would support his current position that in order to have a clean election, there must be such laws on the books.
"I went through an evolution like many people in this country… I had positions years ago that I look back on and say there was nothing good about that."
