Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said Monday that President Biden may be a “greater threat to democracy” than former President Trump, citing his own legal battle against the Biden administration over social media censorship.
Kennedy said in a CNN interview with Erin Burnett on Monday that he could “make an argument” that Biden is worse, although he acknowledged that Trump is also a threat.
“President Biden is a much worse threat to democracy,” he said. “And the reasons 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.”
Kennedy is suing the Biden administration over the administration’s request that his social media accounts be restricted in 2021. He posted misinformation claiming that baseball legend Hank Aaron died from complications of the COVID vaccine, which is not true, according to medical experts.
He won an injunction on the case last month, but it was stayed to await a pair of Supreme Court cases ruling on the executive branch’s authority to urge social media censorship brought by GOP attorneys general.
The Supreme Court heard oral arguments for two social media cases last month, which claim the Biden White House illegally coerced social media companies to censor accounts because they were spreading misinformation about COVID-19.
Kennedy argued that the alleged censorship makes Biden the greatest threat.
“I can argue that President Biden is [the greatest threat] because the First Amendment, Erin, is the most important,” he said. “Adams and Hamilton and Madison said we put a guarantee of freedom of expression in the First Amendment because all of our other constitutional rights depend on it.”
The comments attacking Biden come as the president and Democrats increase criticism of Kennedy, as concerns rise over his possible impact on the 2024 election.
While Kennedy is not in contention to win any states in November, Democratic analysts fear he could take votes away from Biden in key states and lead to a Trump victory.
Kennedy did add criticism of Trump as well, when pushed by Burnett, noting that Trump’s attempts to overturn the 2020 election were “appalling” and made the former president also a threat.
The independent has been averaging close to 10 percent in polling from The Hill/Decision Desk HQ, making him the highest polling third-party candidate in a presidential race since businessman Ross Perot in 1992. In a five-way race that includes Jill Stein and Cornel West, Kennedy is at 10 percent in the RealClearPolitics national average.
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