Robert F Kennedy Jr., the independent US presidential candidate with about 8% of the vote, will not attend the Biden-Trump TV smackdown in Atlanta tonight. But he is not taking the diss quietly and has accused debate host CNN of working with major party campaigns to exclude him.
In an email statement on Wednesday, the Kennedy campaign claimed that 71% of Americans want to see him on the debate stage, and as counterprogramming, he is planning an alternative “real” debate on Elon Musk’s Twitter/X platform at the same time.
“The American people want leaders who trust them to form their own opinions,” Kennedy said. “Instead, our last two presidents restrict voters from choosing anyone other than themselves. Presidents Biden and Trump have sucked trillions of dollars out of the pockets of working people and Americans deserve to hear from the only candidate who can hold them accountable.”
Kennedy’s anger and frustration over what he describes as his exclusion despite six qualifying polls and confirmed access to ballots in five states — with Democratic legal challenges to his inclusion in five others, including one in New Jersey under the state’s “sore loser law” – comes as Democrats accuse him of being a political stooge for Republicans.
“RFK Jr. was recruited to be led by Maga Republicans, is backed by Trump’s largest donor, and his own campaign staff has said their goal is to hurt President Biden,” Matt Corridoni, a spokesman for the Democratic National Committee, to CBS News. .
Corridoni said Kennedy had “no real grassroots support, no path to 270 electoral votes, and his campaign is resorting to a pattern of deception and shortcuts to circumvent state rules on ballot access for independent candidates.”
Biden supporters worry Kennedy’s famous name and his history of environmental policies could sway voters on the left. His family members are largely against his candidacy, which they have made clear in public statements and by visiting the Biden White House en masse on St Patrick’s Day in March.
Related: Robert F Kennedy Jr. does not meet the requirements to participate in the CNN debate
But Republicans also have not welcomed his quixotic intervention in a tight race that could lead to crucial votes being siphoned away from both candidates. Donald Trump has described him as “much MORE LIBERAL than anyone running for Democrat, including West and Stein,” referring to third-party candidates Cornel West and Jill Stein.
But Kennedy, who filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission in April alleging that the Biden and Trump campaigns and CNN violated federal campaign laws in scheduling the debate, has predicted that Trump will win the 90-minute debate, and told Piers Morgan this week that the ex-president could in fact “win an award for the greatest debater in modern American history, probably since Lincoln-Douglas”.
Many of Kennedy’s supporters come from the “double haters” — polls show that about one in four voters dislike either Biden or Trump — including a growing share of American adults who identify as independents, from both sides of the political spectrum, and from what have been described as “welfare elites” attracted to conspiracy-minded views on health and medicine, and environmentalists.
Christy Jones, 54, a holistic health and mindfulness coach from Glendora, California, told the Associated Press that she worries people won’t know Kennedy is running if he’s not on the debate stage.
“He could still win if people chose to be brave,” she said. “If all the people who actually wanted change voted for him, he would run. People are asking for change.”
Sujat Desai, a 20-year-old college student from California, told the AP that Kennedy’s absence from the debate is a major hurdle for him to overcome. “I think it would be a pretty fatal blow not to be at this debate, and it would be damaging not to be at the next debate.”
On Thursday, TV’s Dr. Phil previewed an interview with Kennedy that will also air tonight, in which Kennedy said he had invited Biden to co-sponsor a poll in October “and whoever is least likely to beat Donald Trump will withdraw.”
But this wave of publicity surrounding the debate can only serve to obscure another reality: Kennedy, after months of campaigning and fundraising, is approaching a lull in events, and he has no money for television commercials while he’s fighting for access to the ballots.
A Kennedy campaign spokesman said the candidate had “a full schedule for July with many public events, particularly on the East Coast and including one major rally” that would be announced next week.
