Kennedy continues to post strong poll numbers despite media attacks and President Biden's incumbent status
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. said Sunday that he is being attacked by the mainstream media in an "unprecedented" way that rivals and even goes beyond the way that former President Trump has been scrutinized.
"It's interesting to me because I've been really, you know, slammed in a way that I think is unprecedented even more than President Trump was slammed by the mainstream, by the corporate media," Kennedy told Fox Business’s Maria Bartiromo on "Sunday Morning Futures" this weekend.
"But the Harris Harvard poll [The Harvard CAPS / Harris Poll] came out – the gold standard poll – I think 2,500 people yesterday showed that my popularity is greater than… I think 20 points than any other political candidate so, somehow the American people are hearing what I'm saying," Kennedy added.
Kennedy told Bartiromo that his unfavorability ratings should be "off the charts" if everyone believed the negative press against him, but that has not been the case.
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr., left, and former President Trump. (Getty Images)
"I mean, listen, if I believe the stuff that’s written about me in the papers and reported about me on the mainstream sites, I would not have any, I would definitely not vote for me and… I would think I was a very despicable person," Kennedy said.
Kennedy has faced stiff scrutiny from mainstream media outlets over his opposition to government censorship, his push for more transparency and testing in the vaccine authorization process. He was accused of antisemitism following a comment he made about bioweapons being developed by countries, including the U.S. and China, and how there was an "argument" that COVID may have been "ethnically targeted."
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speaks as Michael Smerconish hosts a "SiriusXM Town Hall with Democratic Presidential Candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr." at The Centre Theater on June 5, 2023 in Philadelphia. (Lisa Lake/Getty Images for SiriusXM)
"It had nothing to do with antisemitic, and it's not a conspiracy theory," Kennedy told Fox News Digital. "I simply said that we ought to be worried about the billions of dollars that are being spent by the most powerful governments in the world to develop ethnic bioweapons, and that this is happening now all over the world."
"I cited a 2021 paper by the Cleveland Clinic that suggested that COVID-19 was not deliberately created in this way but that it disproportionately impacted certain races and the races that were most impacted because of the docking mechanism configuration on the furin cleave was most compatible with… people of African descent and with Caucasians and least compatible with ethnic Chinese and Finns and Ashkenazi Jews," he explained. "I never suggested that that was deliberately made by the Chinese or anybody else. It's just a fact."
Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., arrives to testify before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, Thursday, July 20, 2023, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Kennedy’s polling numbers have remained steady since he launched his 2024 presidential campaign, despite the media attacks, and recent Fox News polling shows the challenger commanding 16% of the Democratic primary vote.
A recent Quinnipiac poll showed that nearly half of U.S. voters would consider a third party candidate, although Kennedy has stressed that he is only interested in running as a Democrat.
Fox News Digital's Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report
Andrew Mark Miller is a reporter at Fox News. Find him on Twitter @andymarkmiller and email tips to
