RFK Jr. praises Trump as ‘greatest debater in modern American history’, rips CNN as COVID lockdown ‘cheerleaders’
Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ripped CNN debate moderators Dana Bash and Jake Tapper Tuesday for “cheerleading” COVID lockdowns — before praising former President Donald Trump as the “greatest debater in modern American history.”
Kennedy, 70, predicted on “Piers Morgan Uncensored” that neither Bash nor Tapper would ask “tough questions” of either the 45th or 46th US presidents due to their support for both administrations’ pandemic-era policies.
“On some of the biggest, most monumental decisions during their presidency, like the lockdown of the American public, the CNN announcers were cheerleaders for those lockdowns,” RFK Jr. told host Piers Morgan.
“That shifted $4.3 trillion in wealth to this new oligarchy of billionaires, that destroyed the middle class in this country, that shut down 3.3 million businesses with no due process — our churches — made us wear masks,” he went on.
“Jake Tapper was cheerleading for that. So do you think he’s gonna ask them any of the tough questions?” Kennedy asked.
“You know what? I actually do,” Morgan interrupted. “I think Jake’s a great journalist. I’ve worked with him for CNN. I think Dana Bash is, too. I think that, yeah, of course they can. I think they’ll actually do a very good job.”
Asked later who he thought would win, Kennedy answered: “I don’t like to make predictions, but I would predict that Trump will win.”
“I think Donald Trump is good,” he went on, before comparing the 78-year-old’s verbal sparring prowess with former President Abraham Lincoln.
“He could win a prize for the greatest debater in modern American history, probably since Lincoln-Douglas,” Kennedy said, referring to the epochal 1858 showdowns between Lincoln, then a Republican candidate for Senate from Illinois, and his Democratic opponent, Stephen Douglas.
“I’m saying that based upon watching him run through 16 Republicans one at a time [in 2016] and just demolish them,” he explained. “He’s extremely entertaining to watch. He has an ability to make up facts and then believe them absolutely — and to sell them to the crowd.”
“He’s a brilliant entertainer and nothing fazes him,” Kennedy added. “I don’t think it’s possible for President Biden to beat him in that debate.”
Morgan then asked whether, in the event of a “train wreck” debate, it would be likely that Biden will be removed and another Democrat sent to “parachute” in before the party’s August nominating convention.
“I think that’s possible,” responded RFK Jr., who left the Democratic Party to run for president as an independent. “The convention would be the place to do it.”
“They have the super-delegates who are in line, basically. And they are the ones who would choose the next nominee,” he said. “So I think, you know, they would probably — some of them would welcome that chance.”
The Kennedy scion had earlier said that “nobody” should be attending the debate under the criteria that CNN established — and claimed that the cable network “colluded” with Trump and Biden “to exclude the Presidential Debate Commission” from running the event.
“Since my uncle’s premier debate with Nixon, this has never happened,” RFK Jr. lamented, referring to the first televised debate in 1960 between the Democrat then-Sen. John F. Kennedy and Republican then-Vice President Richard Nixon.
“And the worrying thing is that the [Democratic National Committee] and the [Republican National Committee] are putting tens of millions of dollars into CNN,” he added. “So there’s a conflict there.”
Asked whether he would take a job in either a Trump or Biden administration, Kennedy told Morgan later that “I intend to win the race.”
“I’m not looking for a job in government,” he added, as polls show him in a distant third place nationally, according to the RealClearPolitics survey aggregator.
