Taking the stage moments after a New York jury delivered across-the-board guilty verdicts for former president Donald Trump, independent candidate for U.S. president, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said they are both on the same page—at least as far as cryptocurrency is concerned.
Asked about Trump’s recent about-face on cryptocurrency, Kennedy said, “I’m delighted that he did that.”
“More politicians, and [SEC chair] Gary Gensler also came out to do the ETF for Ethereum, and i think those are promising,” he continued. “Are they politically driven? Probably, but I’m not going to look into their motivations. I’m just happy they’re doing it.”
The approval of spot Ethereum ETFs were seen as a potential sea change in the politics of crypto—although Gensler has made no public comment about his agency’s action.
Kennedy cheered the fact that “more people recognize the importance of cryptocurrencies—Bitcoin in particular, in my view—and the importance of having decentralized currencies that can reinvigorate our country, that can make our country once again a hub for innovation for entrepreneurship.”
He positioned the debate over cryptocurrency as one about “giving individuals power—the power to hold on to their wealth without dilution, the power to transport the wealth across borders without the government confiscating it from you.” He said the country needs “a base currency that will keep us out of war.”
The explosive emergence of artificial intelligence, Kennedy said, has only strengthened his conviction to embrace the crypto community.
“The reason I was drawn to this community in the first place is the re-democratization of American society, of transparency, having integrity, and freedom to have resistance mechanisms—particularly with the rise of AI and all of these really dystopian, totalitarian technologies that can be used to harvest our data but also for surveillance and control by the government.”
“We need something to protect us now to protect our values, our democracy, our transparency,” he continued. The obvious way to do that is through blockchain and blockchain you can fix the election system.”
Kennedy made clear, however, that he strongly opposes the newly convicted former president.
“I’m not a fan of Trump’s, I’m running against him,” Kennedy continued, saying that Trump increased the U.S. national debt by $8 trillion. “He shutdown our country after promising he was going to run America like a business, he embroiled our country in [a] foreign war—the division in our country is largely down to him and Biden and it’s not a good thing for our country.”
Kennedy also criticized the prosecution, saying the trial and its outcome have only boosted Trump’s appeal to some voters.
“I think this is the weakest case people brought against him, my belief is that it will end up helping President Trump among a large part of the American public,” he said.
As for his election prospects as an independent, third-party candidate, Kennedy pushed back on the notion that his campaign is taking critical support from Pres. Biden.
“My supporters, if I’m not in the race, will vote for President Trump,” he said, citing polling conducted by his team that shows he beats both major party candidates in a theoretical head-to-head race. “There’s no condition in which President Biden can win.”
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