RFK Jr. Has a Lot to Say After Biden's Exit

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says that with President Biden out, the 2024 presidential election is now a two-man contest between himself and Donald Trump. A rundown on RFK Jr.'s reaction to Biden's announcement that he's exiting the race:

• Kennedy posted a lengthy statement on X. "I commend President Biden for stepping down. His infirmities were evident to any unbiased observer from the beginning," he wrote, saying "this progressive deterioration" was among his reasons for entering the race in the first place. He chastised the DNC for trying to "hide President Biden's degeneration from the American public and disable democracy to ram him through to his party's nomination."

• He claimed the American people are worried that those same "elites are about to rig the nominating process again to get a monumentally unpopular vice president to step into President Biden's shoes," and said that instead, the party should "use neutral polling to identify the candidate who can best beat Donald Trump" and nominate that person. "If they had done this to begin with, I would not have had to leave the Democratic Party," he concluded.
• He then held what Fox News calls a "hastily called press conference." Per the Hill, he spoke for nearly 30 minutes mostly about Biden and Trump. When asked why he was speaking as if Biden was still running, rather than focusing on Harris, Kennedy said, "We don't know what she stands for. According to her, she stands for everything that President Biden stands for."
• "I am very content running where I am, and I believe I can win this election," he said at the press conference. "I believe at this point it's a two-man race or two-person race. Let me put it that way. And, you know, and that I'm in the best position to win."
• He also said he'd consider becoming the Democratic presidential nominee, should he be approached with that prospect. "I would certainly listen to the party elders if they came to me, I would discuss something with them," he said. "I'm the only presidential candidate who can beat Donald Trump, and if I were them, I would do that, and I would certainly listen to their proposals."
• He accused the Democratic party of trying to "create the illusion of a democracy," saying it's "a cabal that's choosing [the nominee]. The same way that the Soviet Union does." He added that "if the Democrats do what I suspect they're going to do, which is to anoint Kamala Harris, a vice president who is monumentally unpopular within her own party … they're doing it because it's the easiest way to hold on to the money" Biden has raised so far.

(More Election 2024 stories.)