Robert F Kennedy, Jr, mounted a passionate defense of his independent campaign in an interview with Dr Phil aired on Thursday, even as he was left off the debate stage.
The environmental lawyer, the son of former US Attorney General and presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy, said he stood by his many controversial positions, often described as conspiracy theories, and downplayed the strident public disapproval many of his famous family members have for his campaign.
“Yeah, I have a perception problem, particularly in the mainstream media,” Kennedy told Dr Phil, describing some potential voters as viewing him as a “lunatic.”
Ultimately, however, he said still supported claims such as insisting federal health officials had compromised motives for approving the Covid vaccines, and said being described as anti-vax is defamation.
He told Dr Phil he’s fully vaccinated aside from Covid, and his children are fully vaccinated as well.
“I’ve always said I’m not anti-vaccine,” he said, adding, “I’m never going to take anybody’s vaccine. If vaccines are working for you, God bless you. I believe in choice and liberty, that government shouldn’t be ordering people to take a product, particularly one that is protected from liability.”
Despite calling for more civility elsewhere in the conversation, Kennedy also offered a biting assessment of Joe Biden’s competence in office so far, calling his performance “heartbreaking” and comparing it to “watching your five-year-old the first time they play on a jungle gym.”
The conversation with Dr Phil came amid the wider context of Kennedy being left off the presidential debate stage, where Donald Trump and Joe Biden are facing off in Atlanta on Thursday evening.
Kennedy also said in the interview he respected the decision of 15 members of the Kennedy family, including his siblings, to support the Biden campaign.
“I love my family, I feel loved by my family and I feel like I can argue with them in a way that is congenial,” Kennedy said. “I wish we could have civil debate again without hating each other.”
Amid the defenses of his campaign, Kennedy outlined a few proactive policy proposals, such as encouraging charter schools, reinstating paper ballots to guard against largely unfounded allegations of election interference, and ending the Ukraine war by negotiating with Vladimir Putin to limit the influence of Nato.
Despite starting on the back foot, and missing out on the more high-profile media appearance of the evening, Kennedy insisted he was still in a strong position.
He pointed to polls showing both Biden and Trump are the least-liked pair of major party presidential candidates in at least three decades.
“I’m in a position no independent has been in history,” Kennedy said, insisting in a head-to-head race he’d beat Donald Trump and vanquish Joe Biden by a “landslide.”
Later in the conversation, Kennedy addressed the much-discussed topic of whether his campaign would play spoiler and pull in enough votes to tip one of the major-party candidate over the finish line.
“I’m not a spoiler,” he said. “A spoiler is somebody who cannot win and stays in, and they stay in and disrupt the expectations of somebody who can.”
Kennedy reiterated his offer to take a poll before election day, measuring whether voters prefer him or Joe Biden to take on Donald Trump, with the results dictating who should be on the ballot in November.
His campaign did have one weakness, however, Kennedy argued, and that was with Baby Boomers.
“They think I’m genuinely a lunatic,” he said.
