RFK Jr. gets cheers in Vegas as he pledges to unify the nation, but wins over few converts
LAS VEGAS — Robert F. Kennedy Jr. promised a FreedomFest audience an “America Strong” unity government that would aim to end decades of division.
“I pledge to appoint a cabinet comprising members of the Democratic Party, Republican Party, Libertarian Party, and people from the Green Party and other parties and parties outside the political process,” the environmental lawyer and anti-vax activist told the crowd at Caesars Forum.
He said he would “convene a cross-partisan advisory committee to propose and select Supreme Court justices” and “pardon or commute the sentences of any people who have been politically prosecuted, [and] this includes Ross Ulbricht,” creator of the Silk Road “darknet” website, currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
Kennedy promised a “real full and unconditional pardon” to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who escaped prison by pleading guilty to one felony count in a plea deal, and that he would also weigh pardons or commutations of “any past president or members of their families if I find that any of the charges still pending against them … were politically motivated.”
On day one as President, Kennedy said, “the first thing that I’m going to do on my first day in office is to issue an executive order declaring that any federal official who tells a lie in conjunction with his official duties will lose his job.”
Also, he said, “I’m going to order the intelligence agencies to cease propagandizing the American public.”
Kennedy vowed to use AI and blockchain technology “to make all government actions and interactions transparent to the public,” though he did not offer details on how that would work.
He said neither President Biden nor former President Donald Trump can solve the crisis of division.
“Neither President Trump or President Biden is prepared to unify our nation. In fact, their rhetoric and their actions will only divide us further and they don’t even contest that,” Kennedy said
Speaking Friday afternoon at the annual event, the son of the slain New York Senator and 1968 Democratic presidential candidate impressed many with his Sin City stump speech.
But if several attendees at the venue where he delivered his rousing remarks are any indication, he won few converts to his electoral cause.
“Our country faces some steep challenges right now in its history, and we cannot hope to meet them if we’re all at each other’s throats,” Kennedy said. “What do we need to do to make America strong again from the inside out? We need truth and we need unity.”
Kennedy said a lack of civics education in schools is partly responsible for the division.
“We need to raise a generation of children that understands that they need to fight for these constitutional rights to the death,” he said. “They need to fight for them to the gates of hell and if hell freezes over they need to fight for them on the ice.”
Julie Lynch from Pittsburg, California, said Kennedy’s speech was impressive, but not enough to make her leave the Trump camp.
“I felt that he knew the crowd he was addressing, and he stayed on a message that the crowd would want to hear,” she said. “I’m a Trump supporter, so I know I wouldn’t vote for Robert Kennedy. I think that he, at heart, is quite liberal, perhaps even socialist. I agree with bits and pieces of things that he said, but I think his overall philosophy is not the same America First philosophy that I think Trump would espouse.”
Amanda Ishmael from Sioux Falls, South Dakota, said she’s not voting for Kennedy.
“I don’t know a lot about him. You know what he’s campaigning on, but yeah, I did like his speech,” she said. “ I will be voting libertarian, and I have to do the rebellious protest vote.”
William Shaw, a transplant to Austin, Texas, from northern Connecticut, said Kennedy’s message might have been miscast for the FreedomFest crowd.
“I like the messaging around, you know, trying to form a unity administration,” he said. “I do think it was kind of an odd match for this audience, given like the strong, kind of, you know, Libertarian Party, at least adjacent character of the event.”
Shaw said he would likely vote Libertarian in Texas, but might cast a ballot for RFK Jr. “ to add a number to the tally.”
