CHICAGO (NewsNation) — NewsNation hosted a live town hall with Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on Wednesday.
The town hall, moderated by NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas, was Kennedy’s first with a national news network.
Kennedy answered questions from a live audience of voters from Illinois, New Hampshire and South Carolina, as well as questions submitted from NewsNation’s online audience.
Kennedy discussed supporting a Democratic nominee, the war in Ukraine, addiction and the opioid crisis, immigration, vaccines and his voice condition during the town hall.
Kennedy is a long-shot candidate as he goes up against incumbent President Joe Biden, but he has drawn some support from Democrats and independent voters.
The presidential hopeful is currently polling at 14%, compared to President Joe Biden’s 64%, according to Real Clear Politics average of polls.
He has been doing everything that he can to differentiate himself from Biden.
While it might seem strange to consider the 69-year-old son of a former U.S. attorney general, nephew of a president and Harvard graduate as a political outsider, Kennedy has positioned himself as a progressive populist answer to the Biden administration.
“Particularly someone who occupies the middle of the field and is recalling our party to traditional values to Kennedy Democrats, FDR Democrats,” he said.
On the campaign trail, Kennedy has hyped his environmentalist bona fides, highlighting his time forming the Waterkeeper Alliance and his efforts to clean up New York’s Hudson River.
He’s promised to make the government more transparent and get money out of politics.
Kennedy’s economic platform includes a broadened social safety net and a crackdown on what he calls “misguided ‘free trade’ schemes.” He’s called for shrinking the military and reducing military spending.
On the topic most Americans say is the biggest problem facing the country, Kennedy blamed government spending and ongoing wars.
“We’re acting like an alcoholic who’s behind on his mortgage and he’s taking the milk money and buying rounds for strangers at the bar,” Kennedy said.
To tackle inflation, he vowed to “wind down the American empire” and pointed to the trillions of dollars spent on the Iraq war.
While his more hawkish stance on the border may attract more moderates than progressives, his anti-war foreign policy is likely to draw more liberal voters to his side.
“It takes courage to make the first move toward peace. Let’s see what happens when we stop the provocation and the escalation and toward peace. Let’s see what happens when we stop the provocation and the escalation and offer instead an olive branch,” Kennedy said.
But one of the key points of Kennedy’s campaign has been his calls for all Americans to come together, regardless of their politics.
The Democratic hopeful said he’s focused on unity, not division.
“I’m not going to attack other people personally,” he said. “What I’m trying to do in this race is bring people together.”
NewsNation digital producer Andrew Dorn contributed to this report.
