Robert F. Kennedy Jr. instructed an Orange County viewers Wednesday evening that America faces an existential risk due to its insistence on behaving like an imperial energy fairly than the ethical chief it needs to be on the earth.
The impartial presidential candidate mentioned he would reverse the nation’s “decay” by chopping the U.S. army funds by half in his first three years in workplace — with extra reductions sooner or later — and utilizing the financial savings to bolster home applications and the economic system.
“Ultimately, we’re going to have a stronger, smarter, better-targeted nationwide protection,” Kennedy mentioned. “If we use these financial savings to rebuild our nation in each manner, we are going to reverse … spending that may be a fixed drain on our nation’s vitality.”
Kennedy spoke to a crowd of about 300 on the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, the newest in a sequence of audio system — together with former Vice President Mike Pence, former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy and former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson — to look as a part of the Presidential Coverage Views sequence.
Kennedy, 70, has beforehand bemoaned how the “peace dividend” — anticipated with the easing of tensions with the previous Soviet Union within the Nineteen Eighties — didn’t end in a much bigger shift of presidency funding towards home affairs.
Kennedy spoke earlier than a crowd of about 300 on the Nixon library.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Instances)
However the large discount in protection spending can be very tough to get by means of Congress and is a much more radical change than advised by the main contenders for president.
The candidate, an environmental lawyer, mentioned the nation ought to draw classes from not solely his uncle, President Kennedy, however from President Nixon, JFK’s rival.
Kennedy mentioned each presidents understood that America made a greater mark on the earth when it projected its energy not by means of power however by means of ethical management, financial initiatives and applications just like the Peace Corps.
Kennedy mentioned China had a wiser strategy to international affairs — spending cash much less on its armed forces and extra increase the nations of Africa, South America and different areas.
“They spent $8 trillion on bridges, roads, airports and colleges and hospitals. … They have been projecting financial energy, fairly than army energy,” he mentioned. “Our endlessly wars throughout the globe made us enemies internationally and left us bankrupt. China’s investments, in distinction, [were] making pals across the globe and [winning] wider affect in each nook of the Earth.
“We can not go on pretending we’re working the globe,” he continued, suggesting that the US’ standing on the earth will enhance when it not tries to dictate to different nations. “Paradoxically, by releasing the ambition to dominate we are going to as soon as once more rise to a place of primacy on the earth.”
Although Kennedy claimed final week that he has certified for the poll in sufficient states to win the presidency, no less than 10 of the states haven’t licensed his candidacy. He’s nonetheless seen by most analysts as a long-shot candidate, however one who might probably tip the race to both President Biden or former President Trump.
Kennedy has been extensively chastised previously for his views — notably on vaccines, which he beforehand has advised would possibly trigger autism, a view debunked by mainstream science; and for saying that Jews in Nazi Germany had extra freedom than Individuals underneath COVID-19 mandates, a view for which he later apologized.
He opened the speech with a 20-minute excoriation of the nation’s lockdown on the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, saying it had struck a crippling blow to civil liberties.
When he received to international affairs, he painted a grim image of the nation’s influence on the remainder of the world. Kennedy advised that U.S. belligerence had triggered large instability following wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
“We create ISIS,” he contended, utilizing an acronym typically used for the Islamic State militant group. He mentioned these conflicts had pressured 4 million migrants into Europe, serving to “destabilize all Western democracies.”
Kennedy was greeted warmly by the viewers, which included plenty of his supporters who joined him at a reception earlier than the hourlong speech. The group additionally included museum members and others from most of the people who mentioned they have been curious to see a politician some mentioned they knew little about.
“I wish to see, does this man have the moxie, the management?” mentioned Bob Torrez, a metal firm govt who lives in Orange. “Is that this the man I believe could lead on the US to a greater place. We clearly have to get higher. We’re weak.”
Protection Division knowledge present that the share of gross home product dedicated to protection has declined to a bit greater than 3% lately, off a excessive of greater than 11% in the course of the Korean Struggle and about 4.5% in the course of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Based on Econofact.org: “The USA economic system has tended to develop sooner than army spending, so protection spending as a share of GDP has been reducing.”
However the U.S. far outspends different nations, together with different world powers. In 2023, the Pete G. Peterson Basis discovered that America’s $877 billion in protection spending topped the following 10 international locations’ mixed expenditures of $849 billion.
“Whilst its army expertise has reigned supreme, America has been hollowing out from the within,” Kennedy’s web site says. “We can’t be a powerful or safe nation when our infrastructure, business, society, and economic system are infirm.”
Kennedy known as for enormous cuts in protection spending.
(Gina Ferazzi / Los Angeles Instances)
The candidate beforehand known as for the US to finish its “imperial challenge” and to “attend to all that has been uncared for: the crumbling cities, the antiquated railways, the failing water techniques, the decaying infrastructure, the ailing economic system.”
Kennedy instructed the viewers that the U.S. suffers from “decaying infrastructure, an epidemic of persistent illness, a plague of dependancy and historic financial inequality.”
The candidate mentioned the nation wanted to rebuild to decrease out-of-control deficits and strengthen the greenback. Whereas international nations have used {dollars} as their reserve forex, that might change if the U.S. doesn’t undertake extra wise spending, he mentioned.
“So long as America was the unchallenged world superpower … we have been like a teenage bully on a playground of third-graders. We should always make the principles for everybody else,” he mentioned. “However now the third-graders are onto our bluster and not frightened.”
