Running on a platform that is centered on “healing the divide,” 2024 Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. chastised Republicans who participated in the first presidential primary debate for their on-stage conduct.
Minus former President Donald Trump, who opted for an interview with Tucker Carlson instead of attending the debate, eight Republicans seeking the party’s 2024 presidential nomination took the stage in Milwaukee.
The event featured an array of heated exchanges, many of which included Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, former Vice President Mike Pence, former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie.
Mr. Kennedy, who finished a town hall in Richmond, Virginia, an hour before the debate started, later released a statement with his reaction to the debate.
Response to Debate
“The GOP debate last night was out of sync with the mood of the country,” Mr. Kennedy said in his statement.“It began with a request for comment on Oliver Anthony’s song, ‘Rich Men North of Richmond.' Now that is an extraordinary song—raw, yet intelligent; defiant, yet compassionate. It’s about working-class hardship. It is about low wages. ... It’s about degraded food supply, elite corruption, obesity, homelessness, despair.
“The candidates could have talked about these things. But they said nothing about the desperation and hardship working people face in this country. They said nothing about wages, housing costs, food costs, child care costs, and medical costs, or what we can do about it. They said nothing about the systemic corruption that enriches corporations and the elites as swaths of the former middle class fall into poverty,” Mr. Kennedy added.
The candidates chose to use “recycled Reagan-era cliches” about issues like cutting spending; being tough on crime, drugs, and China; and ending abortion, Mr. Kennedy wrote.
Mr. Kennedy criticized the participants for being “obsessed with America’s adversaries” but not recognizing “how our policies have been deliberately constructed to create adversaries and enrich the defense industry while bankrupting the nation,” he added.
The candidates were also “obsessed” with closing the border, an issue with which Mr. Kennedy said he agrees, but they “have no proposals to expand legal immigration or address the conditions that drive migration,” he said.
Mr. Kennedy also called out the debate participants regarding their insistence on cutting spending but offering “no innovative proposals to address the decay of our infrastructure, wages, and environment.”
He noted that they want to increase military spending.
“Our nation deserves better than posturing and bickering masquerading as debate. Instead of arguing, we can tap into the swelling popular will to turn this country around,” Mr. Kennedy added.
‘A Peaceful Insurgency’
Mr. Kennedy, who entered the 2024 presidential race in April to challenge President Joe Biden, has called his campaign a “peaceful insurgency.” His stop in Richmond concluded a town hall tour to multiple cities in South Carolina, which is set to lead off the 2024 Democrat presidential primary season in February.“I’m talking about issues that I think most Americans and probably most Democrats are concerned about, which is the systematic gutting of the middle class,” Mr. Kennedy told The Epoch Times.
He acknowledged that there are Republican voters who disagree with his pro-choice stance on abortion and Democrat voters who disagree with his commitment to secure the southern border.
“I respect people who have different points of view, and for people who say that ‘it’s the only issue that I care about,’ they will likely vote for someone else because of my beliefs,” he said.
“I think most Americans have a range of issues they’re concerned about, and they’re mostly concerned about the current state of our country and the direction it is heading, and they want somebody who’s going to listen to them,” Mr. Kennedy noted. “I will talk to people regardless of their views and will assure them that I will listen to them, even if they don’t vote for me.”
Mr. Kennedy has frequently criticized the Biden administration’s response to the war in Ukraine, saying that it is one of the root causes of America’s current economic problems.
“One of the big problems we have in our federal government is the addiction to war,” Mr. Kennedy said at a town hall stop in Greenville, South Carolina. “President Biden went to Congress and asked for another $25 billion for the Ukraine War.
Ending the War Machine
Mr. Kennedy said that he is the candidate who will achieve a resolution to the Ukraine war and reduce inflation.“Both President Trump and President Biden are running on platforms that they’ve brought prosperity to this country. But when I travel around South Carolina and other states, I’m not seeing that,” Mr. Kennedy told an audience in Charleston, South Carolina. “I’m seeing people who are living at a level of desperation that I have not seen in this country ever.”
“I am the only choice that is going to end the war machine, that is going to really focus on rebuilding the American middle class, taming inflation,” Mr. Kennedy said.
Hours before the Republican presidential debate sparked contentious discussion about Ukraine, Mr. Kennedy criticized President Biden on social media about his plan to compensate victims of the fires in Maui, Hawaii.
“President Biden just offered a $700 payment per household to Maui residents. He’s also asking for $25 billion for Ukraine. Let’s do a little math,” he wrote.
“There are about 50,000 households in Maui. $25 billion adds up to $500,000 per household. That gives you some idea of what this nation is sacrificing to fund the war machine,” Mr. Kennedy added before wrapping up his thread, promising that, if elected, “I’m going to scale down the military, end the forever wars, and bring our resources back home where they are needed.
