Supply: Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

RFK Jr. presents a imaginative and prescient to heal a divided America, restore its former prosperity and freedoms, and unite the nation behind hope and renewal.

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TRANSCRIPT

I am Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and I am operating as an unbiased candidate for president of the USA. I grew up in an America that appeared to have achieved its promise as an exemplary nation. Fashionable democracy had unfold from one nation, ours, in 1776 to 6 by 1865 and to 190 by the Nineteen Sixties. We had turn into the town on the hill. We have been an ethical authority across the globe, our authorities establishments, our Congress, the courts, the regulatory businesses and even the American press have been famend for his or her integrity and so they have been revered worldwide.

Different nations needed our American management. They knew the distinction between management and bullying, which is one thing our present leaders appear to have forgotten. We have been the template of liberty, proof that, for a rustic to thrive, its individuals should be free, free to talk, free to worship, free to construct nice firms, free to begin small companies. We have been the freest nation on this planet and by no coincidence additionally, essentially the most affluent. Working Individuals may present for his or her households on a single wage. They may purchase a house, elevate a household, save for retirement with out mountains of debt.

We made the very best music. We made the very best motion pictures. We made gold commonplace vehicles that everyone on this planet needed. We made blue denims, we reconstructed Europe, we put males on the moon, we had the world’s healthiest, finest educated youngsters. Our productiveness, ingenuity, our can-do spirit have been the envy of the world. We had confidence in our power, our capability and the limitless potential of our nation. Yeah, we had critical racial and environmental issues, however within the heyday of my youth, the environmental motion and the Civil Rights Motion have been selecting up steam. My father and a few of his allies have been preventing to get rid of the final pockets of starvation in Appalachia, within the Mississippi Delta and on the Indian reservations. And we grew to become for the primary time a real constitutional democracy on this nation, with all races, voting and holding political workplace.

Different international locations aspired to be like us, and our kids grew up pleased with their passport, pleased with their flag. My uncle, President Kennedy, left us a legacy of peace and the hope of ending the arms race and winding down the Chilly Battle. These have been the traditions of freedom, prosperity and peace that my father, my uncle and Martin Luther King Jr. have been striving to guard and advance. Within the half century since their loss of life, we have misplaced contact with that imaginative and prescient for our nation.

I need to let you know proper now that we are able to nonetheless restore that America, the America that just about was and but could also be, however we’ve to begin by being trustworthy with ourselves. Neither my uncle nor my father would acknowledge the model of America that we’ve right now. We’ve got turn into a nation of continual sickness, of violence, of loneliness, melancholy and division and poverty. Our nice cities have gotten tent encampments, modern-day Hoovervilles crammed with undocumented immigrants and dispossessed Individuals and other people dwelling of their automobiles, tormented by psychological sickness and dependancy and despair. Our border has come underneath the management of prison drug cartels, the visitors in desolation and fentanyl, and in boatloads of determined human beings. Our youngsters are drowning in a disaster of alienation, of dispossession and full disconnection from their communities. We have misplaced much more of our younger individuals to medicine within the final decade than within the 20-year Vietnam Battle. We have printed 9 centuries price of cash in just a little over a decade and spent $8 trillion on regime change wars.

These wars have made America much less protected, our nation much less robust and the world far much less secure, whereas sending costs by way of the roof, as our infrastructure falls aside. Tens of thousands and thousands of younger Individuals not even dream of proudly owning their very own house. What occurred to America, the land of alternative, the place you would make sure that if you happen to labored exhausting and performed by the foundations, that you’d have an honest life? All the brand new wealth of the final technology has gone to the billionaires and to transnational firms, whereas our tattered center class, our infrastructure, our trade, have been hollowed out from the within. As a substitute of promise, we have left our youngsters, sick and drowning in debt.

The general public debt has gone from about $5 trillion {dollars} underneath President George W. Bush to $34 trillion {dollars} right now, and US family debt is at a document excessive of $17.3 trillion {dollars}. For those who embrace discouraged employees, our true unemployment fee is 23%. Younger mother and father face housing, grocery and youngster care prices which are unaffordable. Too many Individuals live bleak and hopeless lives, dreading the one medical emergency or the automotive restore that can tip them over the sting into homelessness.

We ranked fortieth globally in our individuals’s well being and wellness out of the richest international locations on this planet. The US is thirty fifth in youngster poverty charges, simply above Mexico, we rank thirty sixth in literacy and forty fifth in press freedom. We’ve got one of many highest most cancers charges on this planet and our life expectancy now ranks 59th in keeping with the World Financial institution. That is proper behind Algeria, which spends lower than 1/thirtieth per capita of what we spend.

However even these grim figures cover the complete image of our dire well being disaster. We now have the worst well being outcomes within the wealthy world, the best maternal mortality charges, the best variety of gun deaths per capita and the best variety of teen pregnancies. We lead the world in weight problems and continual illness. In accordance with the CDC, 60% of Individuals have at the least one continual situation. When my uncle was president, solely 6% of Individuals had continual illness.

And all of those plights fall heaviest on our younger individuals – 4 in 10 of them undergo melancholy and half of them have thought of suicide. One in 10 has nervousness. One in 10 has ADHD. One in 5 is overweight. It is time for us to say sufficient is sufficient.

We have been as soon as a free and thriving nation, the healthiest and strongest on this planet. What we as soon as have been, we may be once more. How do I do know that? It is as a result of all over the place I’m going on this nation, I see a profound willpower amongst Individuals to heal. We’d have turn into the sickest nation on Earth, however we even have essentially the most ingenious healers, each inside and outdoors standard drugs.

We could have sky-high ranges of melancholy and dependancy, however we even have innovators, who’ve opened up new frontiers in restoration. We’ve got a few of the world’s most depleted agricultural soils, but in addition a few of the world’s most progressive and energetic regenerative farmers. We’ve got critical financial issues, however we even have the brightest and most bold entrepreneurs. We face starvation and homelessness, and but we meet it with the best philanthropic charges on this planet and bottomless kindness and compassion. We could also be on the mat right now, however we may be on our toes and blissful and wholesome and robust once more with good management tomorrow.

Our individuals and our system have been constructed for resilience and this is a very powerful factor, I need to let you know in regards to the state of our union. Our nation appears extra divided than ever, however Individuals all over the place need to heal that divide. Our nation has turn into artificially divided by political forces that may survive solely once we, the persons are at conflict with one another. Individuals are uninterested in being manipulated by worry.

We realized that lesson throughout COVID. We acknowledge that the identical strategies of manipulating worry are being utilized by elites right now to corral us into voting for one political candidate or the opposite. Individuals are uninterested in these dire warnings that to protect democracy itself, you higher vote for our man.

I can let you know that in each state of this union, persons are rejecting fear-mongering. 80% of Individuals say they do not need to be pressured to decide on on this election between the lesser of two evils: they’re uninterested in voting towards one thing or somebody. I see it within the crowds of Republicans and Democrats and independents who attend my rallies, {that a} rising variety of Individuals are rejecting divisiveness. They’re able to unite to rebuild this nation and to satisfy the promise of the America of my youth. They’re able to vote for one thing and for somebody they like, for somebody who represents hope and therapeutic, for somebody with an inspiring imaginative and prescient for America’s future, for a future that they will consider in.

So that is the state of the union that I need to deliver you right now. It is a nation that hungers to heal, it is a nation able to face actuality, to rebuild, to finish the ceaselessly international wars, to scrub out the corrupt Washington institution and to show once more towards peace, freedom, good well being and prosperity. Once we unite in that imaginative and prescient, we’ll be unstoppable. Thanks, and God bless you all.