RFK Jr. Rips NY Times as Instrument of Democratic Party

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. called The New York Times an "instrument of the Democratic Party" during a testy interview with the newspaper's election podcast.

Democrats reportedly are worried Kennedy, 70, an environmental lawyer who espouses mostly liberal policies, will steal votes from President Joe Biden and allow former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, to win November's election.

Toward the end of the episode of "The Run-Up" released Thursday, host Astead Herndon never directly addressed such concerns, instead couching them by asking Kennedy if he was too insulated from the consequences of elections to fully grasp his influence on the race.

Kennedy said his intent "was to see if I could win this race" and that Americans who would not vote for Biden or Trump would vote because he's in the race.

Herndon said Kennedy didn't respond to the question he asked, and then Kennedy shot back, "You're asking the question that everybody asks me, which every reporter asks: 'Are you a spoiler?' Listen, I don't know who I'm going to pull [votes] from."

As the situation became more heated, a Kennedy aid interjected, saying they gave the podcast 10 more minutes than agreed upon. Herndon requested more time so he could be understood and then asked Kennedy if he ever thinks about his potential impact on the race, considering independent candidates have longer odds of winning.

"I think I'm going to have a good impact on this country," Kennedy said.

He added that he has an organization "that we believe is better than any of the other political organizations" and that he is "surrounded" by people motivated by "very, very pure impulses because they love this country."

"Seventy percent of the people in this country do not want a contest between Trump and Biden," Kennedy said. "Don't you feel that those people should have an option? Isn't that kind of a privileged position that you have of taking the position that The New York Times is not going to allow those Americans who don't want to see a rerun of this contest — don't you think they deserve something? Or are you going to sit there and say nobody should do that because I'm scared of this guy or I'm scared of that guy?

"The New York Times is essentially an instrument of the Democratic Party. You have been making institutional arguments against me since this started. You're an instrument of the DNC [Democratic National Committee], and of course you're going to try to ... spin this some way that is going to help Biden and hurt Trump and get rid of any threat to that narrow in-the-guardrail contest that The New York Times approves of. It's just not right for our country, and I'm not going to go along with it."