RFK Jr. reveals whether he would support Biden if the president wins Dem nomination: 'I don't have a plan B'

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Robert F. Kennedy Jr. expects to win the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination and doesn’t have ‘a plan B'

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. took questions from Fox News Digital and other news organizations during a stop at the New Hampshire Statehouse, on June 1, 2023 in Concord, N.H.

CONCORD, N.H. – Robert F. Kennedy Jr. appears quite confident that he'll defeat President Biden in next year's race for the Democratic presidential nomination.

"I expect to be nominated and I don’t have a plan B," the environmental lawyer and high-profile vaccine critic, who’s a scion of arguably the nation’s most famous family political dynasty, said when asked by Fox News Digital if he'd support Biden if the president wins renomination. 

And Kennedy pledged that "we will have the resources" to run an effective primary campaign. The long-shot candidate faces extremely difficult odds in challenging an incumbent president for the Democratic Party's nomination.

Kennedy took questions from Fox News and other news organizations after addressing the New Hampshire state Senate on Thursday. Declared presidential candidates from both parties are being given the opportunity this cycle to speak before the upper chamber of the state legislature.

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Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., flanked by New Hampshire state Senate president Jeb Bradley, left, and state House Speaker Sherman Packard at the Statehouse in Concord, New Hampshire, on June 1, 2023. (N.H. Senate)

It was Kennedy's first foray on the campaign trail since declaring his candidacy for president in April.

Kennedy stands at 16% support in the latest Fox News national poll in the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination race, with Biden at 62%. And the 69-year-old Kennedy grabbed 20% support with the 80-year-old president at 60% in a CNN poll released last week.

Both surveys pointed to potential problems for Biden as he seeks a second term in the White House. The polls also showed Marianne Williamson, the best-selling author and spiritual adviser who in March launched her second straight campaign for the Democratic nomination, at 8% support.

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Kennedy acknowledged that name recognition may be behind some of his double-digit support in the polls during this early part of the 2024 election cycle. He’s the son of the late senator, attorney general and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy and the nephew of the late President John F. Kennedy and the late longtime Sen. Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts. 

And he also suggested that part of the support for him and Williamson may be a type of protest against a president whose approval ratings have remained in negative territory for nearly two years.

"It looks like it’s a conspiracy of different causes, including name recognition," Kennedy told reporters. "I think there’s also an appetite in this country for something different, for something outside of what people are being offered by essentially what is a uni-party."

Pointing to his campaign's own internal polling, he claimed "our polling shows that I’m doing better among independents than any of the other candidates."

Kennedy emphasized, "I welcome support from libertarians. I have tremendous support in that cohort."

President Joe Biden speaks at the Democratic National Committee winter meeting, Feb. 3, 2023, in Philadelphia. (AP Photo/Patrick Semansky )

Asked if the president has the mental and physical skills he needs to serve as president for four more years, Kennedy responded, "I’m going to let other people answer that. I think all of you guys and the American public can make a judgment about that as well as I can."

But asked if Biden was doing a good job as president, Kennedy quickly answered, "I don’t think so in my view."

"I think the war [in Ukraine] was a huge mistake for our country. I think we should have stayed out of it," he argued.

And Kennedy – who's efforts criticizing vaccines have been heavily criticized by a host of public experts and even members of his own family as misleading and dangerous – charged, "I think the COVID policies were terrible, the lockdowns were crippling to our country."

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"They shifted $4 trillion in wealth from the middle class and poured it into this new aristocracy of billionaires. The lockdowns created a new billionaire a day."

He also criticized Biden for "inviting Wall Street in to craft our domestic polices, which leave out virtually all of the middle class."

Some of Kennedy's policy positions have been compared to those of former President Donald Trump, who's currently the clear front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination as he makes his third straight White House run. 

Asked about comparisons to Trump, Kennedy said, "I think we both have populist positions."

"There’s a lot of discontent people in this country who like Donald Trump because they’re angry and they should be angry because nobody’s listening to them and he’s a guy who likes to break things," he added. "And a lot of those people feel like ‘we want somebody because we’re angry, who’s going to break things.’ But I think that we can also appeal to the better angels in the same people by saying we’re going to create something rather than just breaking things. 

Former President Donald Trump speaks at a campaign rally on April 27, 2023, in Manchester, New Hampshire. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Kennedy sparked speculation about a potential White House run early this year by visiting New Hampshire, which for a century has held the first primary in the presidential nomination race. He was joined on his trip to the state by his wife, actress Cheryl Hines, best known for portraying the wife of Larry David on the popular HBO comedy series "Curb Your Enthusiasm."

Kennedy earlier this year took aim at Biden and the Democratic National Committee over their decision to move the New Hampshire presidential primary out of its position as the first in the nation primary. New Hampshire will now vote second in the DNC’s calendar, along with Nevada, three days after South Carolina, under the DNC’s new schedule. 

The DNC changed the nominating calendar in an effort to reflect more diversity in the Democratic Party, but Kennedy said New Hampshire already showcases the diversity in America. As a general election battleground state, he said, New Hampshire's "four electoral votes could decide the 2024 election." 

But with New Hampshire likely to move up the date of their primary – due to a state law that mandates that the state holds the first presidential primary – it’s likely the president will stay off the ballot in New Hampshire to avoid an unsanctioned primary.

Kennedy claimed that the Democratic Party is trying to protect Biden, who fared poorly in the 2020 New Hampshire primary before coming back to win the nomination. 

"I think that President Biden has never done well in New Hampshire, and they wanted to make sure that they had a sequence that would benefit him," he told reporters.

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. addresses the New Hampshire state Senate, on June 1, 2023, in Concord. (Fox News )

"I'm here because I am going to participate in this primary in this state. I opposed the DNC's decision to affect New Hampshire from the first in the nation state status, which is important to our country," Kennedy said in his address to the state senators. 

And he added to applause that "it is more than a tradition. New Hampshire plays a critical role in vetting candidates for the rest of the country."

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Kennedy pledged, "I'm going to be in this state fighting to win every vote in New Hampshire, Republican, Democratic and independent."

He vowed that if elected president, "I'm going to pour concrete on the notion that New Hampshire holds the first in the nation primary."