RFK Jr. Says Mainstream Media Criticizing Him More Than They Did to Trump

Robert Kennedy Jr., 2024 presidential hopeful, arrives to testify before the "Weaponization of the Federal Government" hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington on July 20, 2023. Jim Watson/AFP via Getty Images

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said he has been a greater victim of mainstream media bias than former President Donald Trump.

Mr. Kennedy, speaking to Maria Bartiromo on Fox News’ “Sunday Morning Futures,” was asked if he was concerned about not being able to communicate his message, particularly how he is unable to take on President Joe Biden in a primary debate.

“It’s interesting to me, because I have been really slammed in a way that I think is unprecedented, even more than President Trump was slammed by the mainstream, by the corporate media,” Mr. Kennedy responded.

He went on to comment on a Harvard-Harris poll on July 21, saying that he has the highest favorability rating than any other presidential hopeful in 2024.

“So, somehow, the American people are hearing what I’m saying. I don’t know whether it’s through the podcasts or through social media,” Mr. Kennedy said.

He said he “would definitely not vote” for himself if he believed the news provided by the mainstream media.

“If I believe the stuff that’s written about me in the papers and reported about me on the mainstream sites … I would definitely not vote for me … I would think I was a very despicable person,” he added.

Poll

The poll (pdf), conducted on July 19 and July 20 and which surveyed 2,068 registered voters, found that 47 percent of respondents had a favorable view of Mr. Kennedy, and 26 percent had an unfavorable opinion. In second place was Mr. Trump, who picked up a 45 percent favorable rating and a 49 percent unfavorable rating.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis was in fifth place, with 40 percent favorable and 37 unfavorable, followed by Mr. Biden with a favorable to unfavorable rating of 39 percent to 53 percent.

The poll also found that Mr. Biden would win with 62 percent of voters, if the 2024 Democratic presidential primary were held today. Mr. Kennedy picked up 16 percent support, with 11 percent of voters undecided.

Mr. Kennedy also took to Twitter on Sunday to comment on his low unfavorable rating.

“That shows that the relentless media attacks just aren’t working. People don’t believe the media anymore—with good reason,” he wrote. “What will they do? Intensify the attacks? There is an alternative. How about launching a new era of civil, respectful, and substantive political discourse.”

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Mr. Kennedy, who announced his 2024 White House bid in April, has recently been criticized over his comments on COVID-19 in a secretly recorded video. In the recording, he described how research showed the virus causing COVID-19 disproportionately affected Caucasian and black people, while being comparably mild for Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.

He has denied allegations of racism and anti-Semitism, saying that he “never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews.”

Durham Report

Mr. Kennedy’s remarks on Sunday are not the first time he has criticized the mainstream media.

In May, following the release of the Durham report, he took to Twitter to criticize the FBI, while calling out legacy media outlets.

“This is no partisan skirmish. It is about the political weaponization of the FBI to destroy a candidate and then a sitting President,” he wrote on May 22. “It’s about a matrix of lies so elaborate as to make a mockery of the democratic ideal of an informed citizenry.”

Special Counsel John Durham leafs through his report while testifying to the House Judiciary Committee in the Rayburn House Office Building on Capitol Hill in Washington on June 21, 2023. Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Special Counsel John Durham, appointed by then-Attorney General William Barr in 2020 to review the 2016–2017 FBI investigation of alleged ties between Mr. Trump and Russia, concluded in a report that authorities had no basis to launch the probe.

“[N]either U.S. law enforcement nor the Intelligence Community appears to have possessed any actual evidence of collusion in their holdings at the commencement of the Crossfire Hurricane investigation,” Mr. Durham wrote in the report. Crossfire Hurricane is the FBI codename for the agency’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s alleged ties to Russia.

Mr. Durham also wrote that the FBI relied on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence” for its investigation. “The objective facts show that the FBI’s handling of important aspects of the Crossfire Hurricane matter were seriously deficient,” he added.

“Maybe most alarming of all, the Durham investigation reveals the abject complicity of the mainstream press, which has yet to admit they were taken in by the big lie, propagated it, and now continues to permit those lies to stand as truth,” Mr. Kennedy added.