On "Forbes Newsroom," independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. spoke about the national debt and how both Republicans and Democrats are unable to address growing deficit spending.
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Fuel your success with Forbes. Gain unlimited access to premium journalism, including breaking news, groundbreaking in-depth reported stories, daily digests and more. Plus, members get a front-row seat at members-only events with leading thinkers and doers, access to premium video that can help you get ahead, an ad-light experience, early access to select products including NFT drops and more:
https://account.forbes.com/membership/?utm_source=youtube&utm_medium=display&utm_campaign=growth_non-sub_paid_subscribe_ytdescript
Stay Connected
Forbes on Facebook: http://fb.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/forbes
Forbes Video on Instagram: http://instagram.com/forbes
More From Forbes: http://forbes.com
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00So now as an independent, as we sit here in 2024, what type of, are you looking for more
00:08values that like democratic values from the 60s, you want to bring them in today?
00:13Because I know on a Citizen McCain podcast, you said that you are not bound by any ideology.
00:18So when people are voting for RFK Jr., what are they getting with that vote?
00:25You're voting for the issues that I care about.
00:28Number one, the issues that I think are existential to our country, that every American is really
00:34deeply concerned with, but neither of the other parties are talking about.
00:39You're about ending these huge budget deficits.
00:42We're now $34 trillion.
00:46President Trump added $8 trillion to that.
00:48President Trump in four short years added $8 trillion to our debt.
00:53That's more money that he spent than every president combined from George Washington
00:58to George W. Bush, 283 years of American history.
01:03President Biden is now in a race to catch up with him.
01:07President Biden is adding a trillion dollars to the deficit every 90 days, and the servicing
01:16that debt, Brittany, now costs more than our military budget.
01:20Within five years, the cost of servicing the debt will devour 50 cents out of every
01:27dollar that we raise in taxes.
01:29Within 10 years, 100% of every dollar that we raise in taxes is coming from that.
01:35Neither President Biden or President Trump can address this issue.
01:38President Trump promised he was going to have a balanced budget, and he did exactly the
01:42opposite.
01:44Neither of them can do anything about it because they're the ones who ran up the problem.
01:50I am the only one that's talking about a plan for reducing that debt, and that ultimately
01:55is the only way we're going to reduce inflation, which for every American, basically, that
02:01is the biggest issue right now, the $4 loaf of bread, $4 milk, the $6 gasoline, and the
02:11homes that our children can't afford anymore.
02:15Neither of these presidents can deal with the chronic disease epidemic, which I have
02:20a plan for ending very, very quickly.
02:24Chronic disease, when my uncle was president, affected 6% of Americans.
02:29Today, it's 60%.
02:31No other country in the world has a chronic disease epidemic.
02:33We're the sickest nation on earth, and we pay more for healthcare than any other country.
02:40During the pandemic, we had the highest death rate from COVID of any country in the world.
02:46We have only 4.2% of the globe's population.
02:51Why did we have 16% of the COVID deaths?
02:54CDC says it's because we have the highest chronic disease burden.
03:00Why isn't anybody talking about that?
03:02Why isn't anybody talking about the fact that diabetes, when I was young, a typical pediatrician
03:08saw one case of diabetes in his lifetime.
03:11Today, one out of every three kids who walks through a pediatrician's office door is diabetic
03:17or prediabetic, and nobody's talking about this and what we're going to do about it.
03:22When I was a kid, well, right now, today, in my generation, 70-year-old men, 1 in 10,000
03:31of us has autism.
03:33Why is it that in my children's generation, 1 in every 34 kids has autism, 1 in every
03:3822 boys?
03:41Where did all the food allergies come from, the juvenile diabetes, the rheumatoid arthritis,
03:45all these autoimmune diseases, all the neurological diseases, all the allergic diseases, and the
03:51obesity?
03:52If it suddenly disabled an entire generation, it is the biggest problem.
03:57$4.3 trillion a year it's causing, that's five times our military budget.
04:04Not a single person in the federal government is talking about how to end it.
04:10It's not complicated.
04:11We can do it.
04:12We got to end the toxic exposures that are causing it.
04:17That's what I'm going to do with NIH.
04:18I'm going to end the polarization, which is, I think, most Americans are sick and tired
04:25of the hatred, the anger, the vitriol in our political debate, our political conversations
04:32today are nonexistent.
04:35President Trump or President Biden can't do that because they feed on that anger.
04:39They feed on the vitriol.
04:40They are the products of it.
04:43They're telling us to hate the other person.
04:49I also would say that I don't have any confidence.
04:52I don't think most Americans do.
04:56President Trump or President Biden can deal with these new issues, the emerging issues
05:00like blockchain and AI.
05:03AI and blockchain are new industries.
05:06They actually have a tremendous promise to provide us the kind of growth and revenue
05:12that can get us out of this deficit crisis.
05:16Our solution to AI and blockchain has been to drive them out of the country, to overregulate.
05:22We need to regulate them.
05:23We need to make sure that AI serves the American public in actually keeping its government
05:30honest.
05:31We don't want it to become an instrument of government to control and enslave us.
05:36Elon Musk famously said that AI is going to steal our jobs and that it's going to kill
05:42us and that very well could be our future.
05:45We need a president.
05:47It also could provide tremendous prosperity and tremendous improvements in quality of
05:52life for the American people.
05:55We need a president who's thinking about those issues now, who's planning for them, who's
06:01not driving blockchain abroad.
06:05In the past two years, 1,200 new cryptocurrencies have registered in Switzerland.
06:16They have a net worth of about $390 billion, a collective net worth.
06:22They should be starting here.
06:23We drove them to Switzerland.
06:25We've driven them to Singapore.
06:26We're driving them to China.
06:28The rest of the world and blockchain is the future.
06:31We need to keep it here like we kept Silicon Valley here.
06:34It is the future of our economy.
06:37It's the way that we're going to get out of this terrible deficit behind.
06:43We can't afford to be driving it abroad.
06:46And I don't think President Trump or President Biden is even thinking about this stuff.