Video News Clips: In Their Own Words

RFK Jr. Says Trump Is ‘The Most Successful Debater’ Since Lincoln-Douglas

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2024 Democrat presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that former President Donald Trump is “probably the most successful debater in the country” since Lincoln-Douglas in an interview with Fox News on Friday.

Kennedy told the hosts of Fox and Friends that Trump was “extraordinary” for taking down the other 16 Republican candidates during the 2016 presidential election. Trump is “unlikely to participate” in the upcoming Republican primary debates as he’s confident in his high lead in national and state polls, according to one of his advisors who spoke to The Hill.

“We’re going to try to get [Biden] to debate, we think it’s really important. And it’s important for, I think, the Democratic Party because ultimately the president is going to have to debate a Republican, and the Republican likely, we don’t know, but it’s going to be Trump,” RFK Jr. said during the interview. “Trump is probably the most successful debater in this country since Lincoln-Douglas in the way he dispatched 16 Republican opponents one after the other in 2016, was really quite extraordinary.”

President Biden hasn’t said for certain whether he’ll participate in the Democratic primary debates, though it would be unprecedented for an incumbent president to do so, according to ABC News.

“Do you think Joe Biden is afraid to debate you, or is it a historical thing?” asked Fox News Host Steve Doocy.

“I don’t know what is happening with President Biden. I think it is important for the country that we have debates,” Kennedy responded. “It’s really important to persuade the American people that democracy works and we’re all participants, and that people can look at the different candidates and make a rational choice.”

Kennedy is currently polling at 14.4 percent, nearly 50 points behind Biden, according to the RealClearPolitics average, which consists of polls conducted between June 5 and June 26.