COLLUSION Keeping Him From Debate Stage? | Robert F. Kennedy Jr. x Megyn Kelly

Megyn Kelly
Welcome to the Megyn Kelly show live on SiriusXM channel 111. Every weekday at noon East.

Robert F. Kennedy junior filing a complaint with the Federal Elections Commission accusing President Biden, former President Trump and CNN of colluding to keep him out of CNN's upcoming presidential debate. It has been over 30 years since an independent presidential candidate appeared in a general election debate. And RFKJ is vowing to make this stage. This is RFKJ's fifth time, fifth on our show. Back in March of 2022, we did a two part in depth series with Bobby that is a must listen. We did 2 hours on vaccines and then we did a full 2 hours on his amazing background. Tackled it all a lot on Anthony Fauci. It was just so good. Everybody loved these episodes. You will, too, if you want to check them out. They're numbers 282 and 283. Bobby Kennedy, welcome back to the show.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Thank you, Megan. And, yeah, thanks for putting me on back in.

Was it March of 2022?

Megyn Kelly
Yeah, that's right.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Because you were one of the first people to let me on at a time when it was, you know, very dangerous for other outlets to give me a platform. And I've always been very grateful to you.

Megyn Kelly
Oh, that was all so silly. And I'm thrilled to see you out there with your message and doing so well as, as you should be. That whole thing was so not nonsensical.

Okay, let me jump right back, right into some of the issues. So this is interesting that you want into this debate. I would love to see you in this debate personally, but they're doing their level best to keep you out. Both Trump Biden have said the terms are the terms. It's a two man debate. That's it. And so what can the FEc, do? You want them to bar CNN from holding it if they don't let you in?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Well, the FEC rules say that any, that they can, that candidates can't collude, particularly with the network, to exclude other candidates. Otherwise, it becomes an illegal campaign contribution.

So what we know from the accounts, both from our conversations with CNN and also from the accounts in the Washington Post and other press outlets, just to back up for a second, what the FEC rules require is that the rules for the debate be pre existing. In other words, the candidates have no input in them and also that they be objective, so they can't be designed to exclude somebody.

But in the conversations that were reported by the Washington Post between the Biden administration, between the Biden White House, President Trump's staff, and CNN, President Biden's staff was adamant that the rules needed to be designed to keep me off the platform. They said, if he's going to be on, we're not going to be on. He has to be off.

President Biden said the same thing.

Now, when we asked CNN, did you, after hearing that, did you then create the rules? And CNN said, that's privileged, which, of course, it's not privilege. There's right. It's the opposite of privilege. It should be very transparent and, you know, and available to the public.

So, you know, if you do collude with them, it becomes, as I said, an illegal campaign contribution.

And, you know, and where we filed a complaint with the FEC to address that and to, you know, to make rules that allow me into the debate. The other thing is, Megan, at the rules that they came up with is ironic.

There's two rules that are designed to exclude other candidates.

One of those rules is that each candidate has to have polls from four separate firms that are on a list of twelve polling firms, an approved list of twelve polling firms, that four of those polls need to show me at 15% or more of the public.

And I think CNN assumed that I did not have the polls. But we submitted five polls, including their own poll from last month, which showed me at 16%.

And the other polls all from the list. And since then, another poll has come out from that list.

It has me at 15%.

The final rule that they used to try to exclude me, there's a rule that says that you have to be on the ballot in enough states to get 270 electoral votes by June 20.

So we are now, we have enough signet, we're on the ballot in the seven states.

We have enough signatures now as of today for 17 states.

By June 20, we will have enough signatures for 343 electoral votes. Today we have, I think, 225, but ironically, we are the only one who's on a ballot anywhere because President Trump and President Biden are not on any ballots anywhere. They are, people presume they're going to be the nominees for the Democratic Republican Party, but that is not locked in yet.

So I'm the only one who will qualify for that requirement.

And so CNN is kind of in a jam. And, you know, we think that if FEC acts, that we won't win this.

Megyn Kelly
They don't want you, ABC doesn't want you, Trump and Biden don't want you. And right now, given the bypassing of the commission on presidential debates, they're calling the shots. So this will be interesting to watch unfold. I think you'd be a great addition up there. I think it'd be fascinating to watch them respond to you and some of your issues, which are important. That's why you're polling well with a certain segment of the population. Let me ask you, Donald Trump quickly is on trial. The jury is deliberating the charges against him right now.

We have read this week in Politico that President Biden intends to address the verdict when it comes down, we presume, assuming it's guilty. I don't know if he's going to do anything if it's not guilty from the White House, that he's going to comment on a criminal case from the White House. Do you think that's appropriate?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
You know, I try to stay away from commenting on these cases because I think it feeds into this national polarization. And I don't comment on President Trump's personal issues, on Hunter Biden or any of the Biden administration's personal interviews. And I try to really talk about the economy, about the fact that we've got a $34 trillion debt that nobody's talking about, the fact that 60% of our kids are sick with chronic disease, the fact that 57% of Americans can't put their hands on $1,000 if they have an emergency, on the forever wars that both President Trump and President Biden support, and on this polarization that they both feed into, which is toxic and is more dangerous, I think, to our country than any time since the American Civil War.

What I've tried to do, what I said when I declared a year ago, is I'm going to stay away from these little cultural war issues that are designed, are orchestrated to keep us all at each other's throats and to focus instead on the values that keep us together and the issues that are critical to us, healing our country, both economically, spiritually, culturally, and healing the rift.

I've been pretty disciplined about not commenting on the legal case. I don't.

Megyn Kelly
Well, this isn't an ask for that. This is a question about whether you think it's appropriate, you're running for president, for the president of the United States, to comment on an individual criminal matter, even one that involves a former president and not for nothing, his chief political rival.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
I don't think that I would comment if I were president. I don't think I would comment on this particular case.

This is the weakest of the case against President Trump, and it's not kind of an existential case. I mean, maybe it's appropriate to comment if the case about the January 6 election. If that came down, it may be appropriate to make a comment about it.

If it were me, I would try to focus on making healing comments rather than comments that demonize President Trump, who's likely to be the nominee of the republican party, or that demonize people who vote for him and support him. I would really try to do something that was going to heal our country rather than increase the division.

Megyn Kelly
It looks like it's going another way, but we'll see. First, we have to see what this jury does. And as I say, I'd be surprised if he said as anything, if Trump gets acquitted and hung jury, we'll find out. I guess we'll find out. All right, so I've got to ask you a couple questions. Last time we spoke, I asked you about your stance on legislation banning puberty blockers, cross sex hormones and these gender reassignment procedures for minors. And you said that you would support a ban if the minor didn't have parental permission, but you weren't sure about an outright ban, even where there's parental.

Have you given any more thought to this issue?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Yeah, I have. My stance now is that I'm against them altogether for people under 18. And a lot of that is, you know, a lot of.

Megyn Kelly
Against the bans or against the procedures?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Against the procedure. I would ban them in kids under 18.

And I would say this. I think people who have gender confusion, that they need to be treated with compassion, with kindness, with utmost respect, and that any kind of bullying or vilification of people who are struggling with those issues should be itself contemptible.

But there are a lot of. There's this recent study in Europe, particularly from the UK, that throws water on a lot of the claims that were being made by the pharmaceutical industry and by the proponents of these gender blockers. Yeah.

And having looked at that report, the results of that report, with some horror, I became convinced that this is something that shouldn't happen.

We stop kids from driving.

We don't allow children to drink until they're 18.

And these decisions.

18 or 21.

My kids used to drive up to Montreal and I grew up in, when.

Megyn Kelly
It was way back when we were little. Yeah, that's right.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
So, yeah, the 21. So the decision to do this, these puberty blockers is consequential, and it has lifetime consequences. And a lot of people are remorseful about the results, who make those decisions when they're young, are later on remorseful about the results.

I, you know, my, my position is that we shouldn't allow them at all for kids under 18.

Megyn Kelly
Well, this makes perfect sense to me, much more sense than before, because you. One of the things people love about you is how you are totally unafraid to call out the medical industrial complex, and that's why you were so vocal during the COVID lockdowns and about the vaccines and how we were being misled. And this, to me, seems like yet another area in which we could really use your honest voice. You touched on it in your answer there about how that same complex is making money hand over fist off of hurting children, off of chopping off the body parts of 14 year old kids. It's nuts, and it's completely backwards to what the hippocratic oath requires of them. And yet we're seeing for ourselves now, in this one example, some of the things you've been saying for years, which is they. They don't care about you. They care about themselves and their bottom line.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Yeah, I mean, I would agree with that. You know, the last. What I always say to people is, you can't convince me of anything by, you know, by defaming me or calling me names. But if you show me facts, I'm going to, you know, that I will change my policies or my worldview if I see facts that are not consistent with it. And, you know, since the last time I've talked to you, I've done more research, and that report had a. I would say, transformative effect on me. And I just, you know, the revulsion of just reading a couple pages of it, I think anybody who reads that is going to be. Is going to come to the same conclusion that I did.

Megyn Kelly
All right. What do you make of President Biden's changes to Title Ix?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
I don't really understand exactly what the implications are.

Why don't you tell me? I know that they have.

That he's giving more. He's opening it up to people who are transgender.

Position on that has been very, very clear.

My uncle wrote Title ix, Senator Ted Kennedy.

He wrote it because women.

Women's sports were not being recognized or funded by the colleges. And women had been fighting for years and years to get those rights, and he was very, very proud of that. We were all proud of. Of that accomplishment. I have right now, Megan, a niece, Zoe Hines, who is one of the star softball players on the BC college team.

She's on a full scholarship.

When she was growing up, Cheryl and I would invite her and her twin brother, who's also not athlete, to come skiing every year and to come visit us at the Cape in the summer, she really wanted to do it, but she would never do it because she was devoting her life to trying to get these scholarships so she could go to college.

It would be really ironic and tragic, in my view, if she could lose her place on that team to a boy who walks off of a boys softball field and just says, well, I'm a girl now, and knocks her out of competitive plays. I don't think that's a good result.

To the extent that president Biden's changes to Title IX would allow a result like that, I would oppose it, but I don't really know exactly what those changes are. I'd love to hear from you if you have better knowledge than I.

Megyn Kelly
Well, I mean, this is a big issue for me, and I think a lot of my audience.

He's changed Title Ix with the stroke of his pen, with his administrative agency, to redefine who's protected by it. It's no longer just girls and women. It's now trans girls and women who. Which means men. Men are now protected by Title IX. And Title IX was a response to what had already been men's rights in the school setting, right to create, at the time, equal sports and equal facilities and that kind of thing. But now, because of his changes, men have the right to use women's locker rooms and women's bathrooms. Girls bathrooms. K through college. K through college. And they can't say no. So if you have some hulking 275 pound man who last week ran as a male runner and he decides he's a girl now and he wants to run against the female runners, he can do it. And he can use their restroom, and he can do it. You know, full man. Full. Full genitalia. No hormone therapy, no dress, nothing he can parade around. You know, I went to college when I was 17. A 17 year old girl's locker room in college, or beneath that, with impunity. And on top of that, at the college level, a young man who gets accused, and I know you are related to Michael Skakel, and that's a case I have a lot of interest in because I'm a true crime lover. Anyway, he's Kennedy, who was accused of killing a young girl in a Connecticut neighborhood, and anybody. And you had another family member who was accused down in Florida of a sexual sort of me, too situation. In any event, my point of raising this is not to bring up the family tragedies, but these young men in college campuses, thanks to his changes, are no longer going to be afforded due process now.

They no longer have the right to counsel, the right to cross examine. They now have the hearings held, their trials, their kangaroo courts by the same person who investigated them. So the prosecutor winds up being their judge. They have no right to demand evidence. So if this girl's been texting her roommates, I was totally into it. It was consensual. These guys will never know that. All because of President Biden's stroke of the pen.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Just in defense of my cousin Michael Skake. I did do a book on that.

Yeah, I read it on that. And I was able to track down the people who actually were responsible for the murder, which was not my cousin. And he was then released from prison because of that investigation. So I just want to say a.

Megyn Kelly
Word about questions lingered to be fair. Go ahead.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Yeah, so, yeah, I mean, I agree. I agree that what you're saying, if those are the results, they're not good results.

And I'm very, like I said, I'm against allowing males, biologically born males, to participate in consequential female sports.

Megyn Kelly
Right. But this goes beyond that. We're talking about locker rooms and bathrooms now in the school setting.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Yeah, that probably doesn't make any sense either.

Megyn Kelly
Ok.

While we're on the topic of women's rights, let's talk about abortion. That's another issue that you've sent some mixed signals on. And I want to ask you about your position. Last August, you were speaking to reporters at the Iowa State Fair and you said you'd sign a federal abortion ban after 15 weeks or 21 weeks if you were elected. Then your campaign came out and said you misunderstood the question and that your position on abortion is that, quote, it is always the woman's right to choose. He does not support legislation banning abortion, period.

Then this month, you sat down with our pal sage Steele, who has her own podcast. She just launched. And you said that women should have the right to an abortion even if full term. Which is, which lines up with your campaign's statement after your own spoken words at the Iowa State fair saying 15 or 21 week ban. They said no. When you spoke to stage, you seem to be saying no bans. Woman should have the right to choose even if full term, quote, we shouldn't have government involved even if it's full term. Then there was outcry and you reversed yourself there saying in a tweet, once the baby's viable outside the womb, it should have rights. It deserves society's protection. So at this point in your campaign, isn't it fair to say you should have a phone position on this and be able to espouse it clearly and uniformly.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
I suppose I should. I'll tell you what my own evolution was on this.

I've been a medical freedom activist for my entire life. So my inclination is that government should stay out of medical procedures and that with abortions, that we should trust women. We should just trust the judgment of a mother.

My understanding was that, well, my initial understanding when I gave that interview in Iowa was the same as Roe v. Wade, which protects mothers and the woman's choice during the early part of pregnancy, but then later on in pregnancy, after viability, that the state has an increasing interest in regulating and protecting that unborn child, and that interest would increase up to the day of pregnancy, of birth.

I got blowback on that position, and particularly from my wife and her sisters, who are very close advisors to me. And one of the points that they made is that there's no woman who wants to get pregnant and then carry that pregnancy for nine months and then at the last minute abort it.

That just doesn't happen. And indeed, there's a lot of advocacy groups that say that that literally never happens, that the choices that are made at the end of pregnancy to abort are choices that are made usually on dire medical emergencies that involve either the health of the child or the health of the mother.

And to me, it seemed like that's the last place that we want to bring in bureaucrats or government officials to make decisions. That's when you really want to leave the decision to a mother.

When I gave that decision on stage, when I gave that, I talked about that position on Sage Steel's program, I got a lot of blowback from people and some data that indicated that actually there are a lot of, not a, not a dramatic number, but in the thousands of births each year that are elective abortions during the final month of, of pregnancy.

And in my view, those should not happen.

And I've seen the pictures that are very gruesome, as I'm sure you have.

So I changed my position. Again, I'll change my position always based upon, if I was wrong on the facts, I'm not going to dig in, defend a position where factually I believe that my initial position was wrong. So that's my position now, is basically the same position as Nairobi Wade, that the government does have at the end of pregnancy after viability, that the government does have an interest in protecting the unborn child.

Megyn Kelly
So you say the final month of pregnancy, you saw gruesome photos about abortions there, which would be 36 weeks to 40 weeks. A pregnancy lasts 40 weeks.

Are you saying that you would allow abortions all the way up to 36 weeks because viability happens a lot earlier. Happens in the low twenties. Depends on who you ask. But between the low twenties to 28.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Weeks, yeah, I wouldn't pick a week, Megan. I would say that my policy would be the same as under Roe v. Wade at the state. After viability, the state has an interest in protecting the baby.

Megyn Kelly
Okay. So. Cause under Roe v. Wade, that's where we did have third term abortions happening in some places because they would leave it in various states up to the woman. And there. While it's true that it's rare for babies to be aborted in the third trimester, in that final month, it does happen. That's how we wound up with Kermit Gosnell in Pennsylvania. I mean, there are some brutal butchers out there, and there are some negligent women who don't pay attention to their menstrual cycle, who will find themselves pregnant and who abort a perfectly healthy baby under the auspices of mental health. Mental health. Should that be banned?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Well, as I said, I would get, I would leave it to the states during to make their determination about when viability happens and what kind of regulation. I'm not going to dictate to the states where know exactly what kind of regulation. I think that should, that should be up to the people of that state.

Megyn Kelly
That position you just espoused is currently Trump's position that it should be left to the states. It's the state's issue and it's the default constitutional provision. Post Dobbs, which got rid of Roe.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Versus Wade, said, I think president, I think President Trump would give no protection to, as I understand its position, to the women's right to choose even early on in the pregnancy. And that's not what I'm saying.

Megyn Kelly
He says it's a state's rights issue. He says it's a state's rights issue.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Yeah, it's states rights issue. And I would say that women should have federal protection up until viability, that it's woman's shoes up to that.

Megyn Kelly
So because President Biden wants to codify Roe and Roe, I mean, you know, Roe is kind of loose, right? Like you could use Roe to say a woman has the right to choose all the way through the 9th month, if her health depends on it, is how they use it. And when you think about, okay, the mother's life, that's one thing, of course, the life that's here and existing always gets precedence over the unborn life. But what they do is they create health exceptions. And then a mother, an irresponsible one, a person who doesn't care about her unborn fetus, says, it's my mental health. And there are some ethical doctors who will perform abortion on a totally viable, healthy baby as late as 38 weeks because of that. Like, that doesn't seem to me like it should be allowed. All right, I think we've beaten that one. We got it.

Let's talk about immigration, because that's another one that's very important to, I know, right leaning and now even left leaning audiences and voters, more and more, this is the number one issue for democrats, which is really telling. I've never seen that so high up on the issue ranking for Democrat voters. But it's there now.

In October, you went to a rally and admitted that in the past you believed in an open border and that you felt that if a person was for sealing the border, it meant you were probably a xenophobe or a racist. You admitted that that's how you used to feel. Then you said you went to the border in Arizona and Yuma, and you called that border crisis. You saw unsustainable and said a person's not bigoted for wanting a secure border. But then this month at a rally in Austin, you said the border issue is not an existential issue. Use that term in our interview today. It's not an existential issue. So how can you say that when we're looking at over 8 million illegal immigrants coming into this country under Joe Biden's presidency alone? How is that not existential for life?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
I don't think. Yeah, I don't think that that was my characterization. If it was, then I would not make that characterization.

I think what I was doing was talking about a number of culture war issues that generally are very important issues. That's right.

Megyn Kelly
Here, I'll play it. We have the sound bad. I'll play it so the audience knows what you're talking about. 22.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
We have two presidents who are running today, two ex president. One is the current president.

They both had four years in office.

They couldn't be more different than each other. But the issues that they're actually disputing on are a very narrow Overton window. It's, what Nicole was saying is guns.

It's abortion, it's the border, it's trans rights. These issues are all important, but none of them are existential.

None of them are the issues that really matter to you, to me, to.

Megyn Kelly
Our children, the border.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Yeah, well, you know, I was talking about another class of issues that are actually existential.

I think arguably, the border is existential, and maybe more than arguably, it just may be. What I saw on the border was, was cataclysmic.

And I never thought that people who oppose, I never thought we should have an open border. By the way, Megan, I thought that I opposed for a time President Trump's wall. And I said I was wrong about that. We do need a wall. We don't need a wall.

2200 miles all the way from Brownsville, Texas, to San Diego. But we do need a wall in the populated places that, where immigrants can, undocumented immigrants can disappear very, very quickly.

I think it was a huge, not just a mistake, but a catastrophe that President Biden suspended the construction on the wall when he first came into office and also began tearing down a lot of the infrastructure for making sure that didn't happen and essentially implemented an open border policy. Although President Biden's administration denies that everybody border knows that to be true. But I watched 300 immigrants come across the border at between 02:00 a.m. and 04:00 a.m. the first time I was there. I've been back, et cetera. But they were coming from all over the world. They were coming on buses that were owned by the Sinaloa drug cartel that was bringing them from the airport in Mexicali to the border in Yuma and then allowing them 105 people on each bus.

The first two buses that came were West Africans. There were only that whole evening. I only saw two latin american families, one from Colombia, one from Peru.

The rest of the immigrants were coming from Asia, from Ukraine, from China, from Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Nepal, Tibet, India, Bangladesh.

And they were responding to advertisements that the drug cartels put on TikTok and YouTube, where they offer immigration to the United States for ten thousand dollars to fifteen thousand dollars per person.

And they all knew exactly what was going to happen to them when they crossed the border.

The border patrol had been reduced. Instead of defending the border, to processing all these new immigrants coming across, they give them a fingerprint check to see if they have a criminal record. If they don't have a criminal record, they bring them to the Yuma airport and put them on an airplane to any destination in the United States with no.

With a court date in the asylum court seven years in the future.

And 9 million, up to 9 million people have come across that way in the past three and a half years.

And yeah, I would say that is existential. There is no nation that can survive if it doesnt protect its borders. So my bad.

Megyn Kelly
Okay, let's talk about an issue that's somewhat obscure, but I think our audience is going to remember this. So way back in, we just celebrated our 800th episode. But way back in episode 125 of this show, before we'd even added video we had on a rancher, she was from Wyoming, and she was objecting at the time to this, built this law that President Biden had pushed through, which sought to give black farmers federal financial assistance based solely on their race, not on their financial condition, not on any suffering they may have had economically, based totally on their melanin. And the farmers didn't wind up getting the financial relief because several lawsuits were filed claiming that's race discrimination. That's illegal under the Constitution. And so the program was frozen after an injunction. So I want to play the soundbite of this rancher who we interviewed. Take a listen.

Zoe Hines
It's basically a slap in the face saying, hey, just because you're white, you can't apply. And you know it's wrong. And you've been talking about the USDA's past discrimination. Well, a big part of it is women like me have been discriminated against.

Not me specifically, but women in the past. And they're completely overlooking that aspect of it. And so being a white woman who's recognized as being socially disadvantaged, it does humiliate me because I should be a part of that group. And then I look down at my neighbors who are struggling, who are barely getting by, and I don't know if they're going to make it another year. And it's humiliating to them because they don't feel like they deserve it enough either. And it's just completely wrong.

Megyn Kelly
Okay, now you were recently on a podcast with a black farmer and vowed to give black farmers this money. Now, I've just outlaid for you why it's so controversial. Do you stand by that pledge?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Yeah. And I think the woman that you talk to does not have the whole story.

Here's what happened, Megan. There was a, you know, there's a, there's a program within the USDA and the department of agriculture that is designed to help small farmers across this country, which was the reason that the USDA was launched in the first place. USDa now does the opposite of that. It protects big agricultural, industrial, agricultural production and basically enables a war against small farmers.

But there is a program that still exists within USDA thats designed to give low interest loans and grants to small farmers.

As it turns out, the man who was running that program for many men for decades, was a man who was intensely racist.

Megyn Kelly
There is a racist history within the group, conceded, but I want to get to present day because I will, I will, I will. Ive been letting you finish to make sure that we were on point here, because under our us constitution, it's unconstitutional to discriminate on the basis of race. You can't do it to whites, just like you can't do it to blacks.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Yeah, and if you let me finish what I'm saying, and I agree with you that you can't have, particularly under the Harvard decision that the Supreme Court Judge Roberts just issued, there is no affirmative action or race based affirmative action legal in this country. But that's not what this is.

The Black Farmers association, this individual within USDA simply cut off all grants to black people because of their skin color. But he gave the money to whites and to white farmers. And I think most Americans would agree that that was wrong, that you can't, of course, you can't have race based benefits, but you also shouldn't suffer, offer race based deprivations of grants which you're entitled to.

And this association, the association of black Farmers, sued the USDA and they won in court.

And the court quantified exactly how much money that black farmers had been deprived of during that period since this guy started running the program. So it was a specific amount of money at a court and a jury had decided on, and they awarded it to the black farmers. It was just a class action suit. Well, because the suit is against the government, Congress has to appropriate that money. And although the money was would in the presidential budget, Congress refuse to appropriate it. So that's the issue. Would you, you know, should that money be paid out to people to whom it is owed or should it not be? This is not a race based benefit. Yes, it is a benefit. Well, that's what you say. You know what I would say it is?

Megyn Kelly
We looked, we took a hard look at this bill at the time, and you could get it irrespective of your financial condition. Meghan Markle could go out there and say, I just bought a ranch, Oprah, she has a ranch in California. She could say, I am black and I want the assistance. And she could get it. It was irrespective of financial condition.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Well, then you're talking about a different instance than I was talking about, because the instance I was talking about was specifically related to this case.

Megyn Kelly
I know this case that happened 30 years ago. And typically, the remedy would be, you know, you sue for damages, and then you try to get your damages, and then you don't take the money out of the taxpayers wallets 30 years later, who had nothing to do with what happened.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Well, except back in the day, it was litigation that they won 30 years ago, and that simply was not. I don't know if it was 30 years ago.

Megyn Kelly
There's a reason we have those caps on what the federal government can pay, because it's the taxpayer who winds up having to pay these judgments.

I don't have empathy for the black farmers. I'm just saying the program that was shut down was not remedy for a judgment. The government never paid. It was a giveaway to black farmers and ranchers when whites wanted to apply, they were told no.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
And, Megan, then you're talking about a different issue than I was talking about when I said that I would make sure that that money was paid. The money I was talking about was the money that was owed to black farmers.

And a court had said it was owed to black farmers. And there is no cap on federal recoveries.

There was just a refusal because Congress has to approve any appropriation, including an appropriation or lawsuits that the federal government lost engaging in negligent or reckless or malicious behavior.

Congress still has to appropriate it.

And the person who bought that lawsuit at the outset, who was a farmer who was continually denied grants and loans, that other farmers, he was sitting in the office, sometimes for days at a time, and white farmers were walking past him picking up their loans and leaving after six or eight minutes.

Megyn Kelly
Got it. No one's defending that. I understand. No one's defending.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
You seem to be defending it.

Megyn Kelly
I'm not defending it at all.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Okay.

Megyn Kelly
I'm objecting to race based relief for farmers and ranchers in 2024. It's illegal, period. Okay, I got to take a break.

We'll be right back. I know, I got it. You're suggesting. I am defending no relief to any farmers who have been aggrieved by the us government. The way you handle that is you file a lawsuit the way they did. I understand they didn't get the relief they wanted. It's unfortunate, but that doesn't necessarily mean 30 years later you create an unfair program to remedy these past wrongs in which white, economically disadvantaged ranchers get screwed. We've gone through it. We've spent far too much time on it. I've got to take a break. I'll be right back. Stand by on the topic of Trump and Biden and where you fit in is, you know, you got to take votes from both of those guys in order to make this happen. You're starting to get the attention of the Trump campaign, which is probably a good sign for you. And the Trump spokesperson, Steve Chung, came out and said the voter should not be deceived by you, suggesting that this is a, quote, vanity project for you, for a liberal Kennedy looking to cash in on his family's name. Now, it is true, according to you, that you voted for Barack Obama in 2008, and you voted for Hillary Clinton in 2016, and you voted for President Biden in 2020. So why shouldn't republican voters have some doubts about you?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Well, you know, I mean, I would say, first of all, that, you know, if you're, you know, my promise when I announced this was that I was going to try to persuade Americans that they weren't Republicans or Democrats anymore and that they were Americans and that they're Americans first.

What I would say to you is, you know, I'm not going to characterize, characterize myself as a conservative or liberal.

I'm neither a Democrat or Republican.

Listen to the issues. And if you don't agree with my issues, then you should vote for somebody else the way that I handle the issues.

If you have a candidate who agrees with you more, who thinks it's okay to be at war in the Ukraine, who is okay with the $34 trillion debt, who's okay with having 60% of american kids have chronic disease, and who's okay with the regulatory agencies in our country being run by the industries they're supposed to regulate, and this corrupt merger of state and corporate power that President Biden, President Trump, have presided over, then if you're okay with all that, then you should vote for one of them.

If you're tired of those things and want to do something different, if you want to change, if I get elected president, all that's going to change.

The government's going to stop lying to you. Why? Because on my first day in office, I'm going to issue an executive order saying that any federal employee who lies to the american public in conjunction with his job will be fired.

I'm going to stop the CIA from propagandizing Americans and from censoring Americans. I'm going to fire any federal employee who participates with the mainstream media or the social media in censorship.

I'm going to stop the chronic disease epidemic and save this country. $4.3 trillion we're now spending on chronic disease when my uncle is president, 6% of Americans have chronic disease today. It's 60% diabetes in this country.

When I was a kid, a typical pediatrician would see one diabetes case in his lifetime.

Today, one out of every three kids who walk through his office door is either pre diabetic or diabetic. And it's causing us more than the defense budget to deal with diabetes.

President Trump have never mentioned that issue. Theyre never going to, theyre never going to fix the budget deficit. Why? Because they ran it up. President Trump, in four short years, ran up $8 trillion in debt, more than all the presidents combined, from George Washington to George W. Bush.

And President Biden is trying to beat them on that. And neither of them are going to deal with the existential issues that are actually threatening our country.

So if you want to label me as a conservative or as a liberal, I don't think it's accurate. I think I'm trying to have a common sense solutions to what's happening in this country. I promise to listen to people, to change my mind when I'm wrong on the facts, to not demonize and marginalize and vilify other Americans, but to try to find the common ground that we all share in common, rather than focusing on the trials and the culture war issue and the race issues that Republicans and Democrats are all trying to get us to focus on. And it's like jangling the keys.

Even the issues that you focus on today, Megan, are all culture war issues.

Megyn Kelly
It's like, these are important. These are important.

I have a huge audience, Bobby, as you know, I have a huge audience. And these. But listen, no, no, no. That's not fair. Don't go there. I know the issues that interest my audience, and there's a reason this is one of the top shows in the nation, so don't disparage what matters to them, okay? The issue about young women and young girls and our rights and due process on college campuses and the right of the unborn and the immigration issue and race baiting by our highest officials. Those matter. Those matter. Your issues matter, too. I love what you just said. It was the best answer you gave the whole interview. But don't diminish what matters to my audience, because that's also important. I'll give you the last word. I blew my last commercial break for you. I'll give you the last 40 seconds.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Yeah, I say, you know, focusing on, there's certain issues that are allowed in the political dialogue. And I didn't mean to disparage your issues. I'm just saying those are the issues that everybody talks about and then you look around and you say, but, you know, there's all these other issues like the, the continual wars and nobody's talking about and.

Megyn Kelly
No, you're right.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Those are the ones I get trying to find.

Megyn Kelly
I gotta cut you off because the computer's gonna. It's gonna end us in 10 seconds. Those are important, and we've discussed those on some of your earlier appearances, and I hope there'll be another one. You know, I admire you. Thank you so much for being here. Bobby Kennedy back tomorrow.

Thanks for listening to the Megyn Kelly show. No B's, no agenda, and no, no fear.

COLLUSION Keeping Him From Debate Stage? | Robert F. Kennedy Jr. x Megyn Kelly - The FULL Interview

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1: Introduction and Background

2: Allegations of Collusion

3: Political and Social Commentary

4: Legal and Advocacy Efforts

5: Closing Remarks

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