2024 presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. warned that Trump’s conviction could backfire on Democrats and be seen as politicizing the justice system.
Kennedy argued Trump’s approval ratings may increase as some see it as targeting a political opponent.
He emphasized the importance of impartiality in the legal system to maintain faith in democracy.
“This conviction is going to backfire on the Democrats,” Kennedy said. “I think every time that President Trump has been indicted, that his approval ratings actually increase, his popularity increases. I think there’s a large number of Americans who are going to see this as the politicization… the weaponization of the enforcement agencies, and I think it’s going to hurt. It’s bad for our democracy.”
“The DNC feels like it’s like it has a candidate that cannot win fair and square in the polls, and so they have to win in the courts,” he added. “They have to win by clearing the deck and getting their other opponents out of the race. I’m not a fan of President Trump’s, but I want to win. I want to beat him in a campaign on a level playing field.”
Kennedy noted his father Robert F. Kennedy Sr. warned against using prosecution for political aims, likening it to turning the country into a “banana republic.”
“He said, ‘Rule number one, whenever politics is out the window. We never prosecute based upon politics. We never ask whether somebody is Democrat or Republican.’ The reason he did that was because he understood how important it is for our country, the American people, to have faith that the judicial system is neutral, that all of us need to respect, that if we start believing that it’s politicized, it’s terrible for our country,” Kennedy said.
While some cases against presidents may be warranted, he argued they often aren’t pursued to avoid perceptions of improper behavior.
“And that’s one of the reasons prosecutors, even when there’s a case against a former president like there was with President Nixon and many, many others, that they usually air on the side of caution, of not bringing it because it’s we risk making ourselves look like a Third World country, like a banana republic, where nobody really actually runs the election,” Kennedy added. “If there’s somebody who’s going to run against you, you get rid of him one way or another.”
Kennedy also accused parts of the media of lacking integrity and tribalism in driving efforts to eliminate political rivals unorthodoxally.
He suggested this disenfranchises voters and counters the traditional aim of Democrats to maximize participation.
“I think there’s tribalism in the media and a lot of them have forgotten what journalism is,” Kennedy said. “A lot of them have forgotten about what integrity is, and we see this across the board, but… what I would say to people… in the Democratic Party is even if you won this way… what is it going to do to our country if half the people in this country have the anger and the rage and feel like that they’re the person, they’re a champion, that the candidate that they wanted to vote for, it has been taken off the table?”
“When I was growing up, the Democratic Party was the party of getting everybody to vote, of making sure nobody got disenfranchized. The modern Democratic Party is just trying to get rid of as many possibilities for voters as possible.”
