Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is encouraging Democrats to have an “open process” to pick their presidential nominee after President Biden announced that he is not seeking re-election.
“The Democrats really need to do what President Obama said, which is to have an open process, a genuinely open process. So much of the primary process was rigged,” Kennedy said on “Fox & Friends” Monday.
However, the independent presidential candidate believes there is no evidence of the Democratic Party planning to do so.
“It has to be some kind of fair process because it looks to the American public that the system is just rigged, which it is,” said Kennedy, who was blocked by the party from challenging the president in the primaries.
Kennedy, who previously ran as a Democrat before switching to independent, said he will not seek the party’s nomination.
“I’m not going to get into the Democratic Party as long as the system seems rigged. If they had a fair system, I would. I would definitely look at it.”
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Kennedy added, “if they [Democrats] looked at the polling, I’m the only candidate who can beat Donald Trump.”
With VP Kamala Harris now in the running with Biden’s backing, Kennedy said she has some “explaining to do” about why she helped hide the true nature of the president’s condition.
“She was seeing the president every day, and she was telling the American public again and again, ‘he is completely capable of running the country. There’s no signs of a deterioration. There’s no signs of cognitive impairment.’ And that clearly was not true.”
He added, “Whoever she runs against, she has a big vulnerability … because she’s been the concealer in chief.”
Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. makes a campaign announcement at a press conference on October 9, 2023 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Kennedy announced he will end his Democratic primary bid and will run for president as an independent. ((Photo by Jessica Kourkounis/Getty Images))
Speaking Sunday at a hastily called press conference from his family’s storied compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, Kennedy praised Biden while simultaneously blaming Democratic Party leaders for “hiding” his mental decline.
“I want to begin by commending President Biden for a career in public service: a long, long career and representing and serving our country and for his handling of the many difficulties and challenges, personal challenges and tragedies that he suffered during his life with so much admirable conduct and the empathy that he derives from those experiences,” Kennedy said.
Kennedy, who left the party his family once ruled after it blocked his bid to challenge Biden in primaries, said the Democratic National Committee created a mess by covering for Biden.
“The reaction of the DNC to that obvious condition was to hide it from the American public and to use their power over the Democratic Party nomination process to make sure that nobody could compete with President Biden in a way that would expose his deficiencies,” Kennedy argued.
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Fox News’ Landon Mion contributed to this report.
Elizabeth Heckman is a digital production assistant with Fox News.