Interview with US presidential candidate Robert Jr.: Why do I support Bitcoin?

采访:MarK Goodwin

受访者：Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.

编译：Luffy，Foresight News

Hurrying to Manhattan, New York, by plane, ferry, and train, I found myself with just over thirty minutes to prepare for an important interview. I’m about to meet presidential candidate Robert Jr. on the 30-plus floor of the Hudson Yards Hotel. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. sat down to talk. Filmmaker Jeremy Poley filmed about forty minutes of RFK answering our questions. His reflexes were sharp, clear, and had an encyclopedic memory, and he answered every question I prepared. Perhaps it’s his undisputed counterculture image that masks his cuteness. But while Americans may like the Kennedy family behind him, the Democrats certainly don’t. His campaign exerted external but still partisan pressure on the Democratic Party, and Biden had to feign a concerted effort to win re-election. (Note: Robert Jr. F. Kennedy previously announced his withdrawal from the Democratic Party and ran independently for the 2024 U.S. presidency)

RFK came in in in a hurry. His breathing was steady, but his hands were heavy like a professional boxer when he held the teacup. After an enthusiastic but brief introduction, the formal interview began after half an hour.

Goodwin: If your father were still alive today, would he recognize the current state of the Democratic National Committee? What does the Kennedy Democrats mean to you?

RFK: I would say the Kennedy Democrats are traditional Democrats, the party of the working class, the working class. This is a party that has always taken environmental issues very seriously. Its tradition has been anti-war, skeptical of the military-industrial complex, and skeptical of Wall Street. I would say that the position taken was to prevent Wall Street from enacting policies that served the corporate aristocracy and corporate thieves who deprived the middle class, working people, and union members of their wealth and power.

Goodwin: That doesn’t sound like today’s Democratic National Committee. **

Robert F. Kennedy: yes, not really.

Goodwin: How are you going to fight the super-monopolies that control our food, media, money, and health?**

RFK: Every department has to do something different. Indeed, the three financial giants – BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard – control 88% of the S&P 500 and control almost all military contractors – it’s a super league. They control most of the U.S. agricultural sector, large packaging companies, seed companies, and the pharmaceutical industry. For each department, you have to do different things. In each sector, these industries have 20 or 30 years to fumble for ways to control regulators – agencies that are supposed to protect the public from the bad practices of these companies. But instead, these regulators have become puppets of the industries they are supposed to regulate. In all these cases, you have to deal with the issue of corporate control regulators. I think I’m probably the best person in the country to do this right now, as I’ve spent most of my career litigating those corrupt institutions and industries.

So, I know very well how businesses are plundered. When you really understand how it’s moving, you understand how to solve it. As an example, in the Monsanto case, we found documents showing that Jess Rowland, head of the EPA’s pesticide division, secretly worked for Monsanto, and Monsanto executives instructed him to block research linking glyphosate (the active ingredient in Monsanto’s flagship insecticide Roundup) to non-Hodgkin lymphoma and other cancers. It is clear that although his salary is paid by American taxpayers, he is actually working for Monsanto. Unfortunately, this is true for all institutions. This is more of a rule than an exception. Because I’m deeply involved in these kinds of lawsuits, I actually know the names of the people I need to purge from regulators as soon as I take office.

Most politicians are terrified of these institutions because they do have the ability to disobey and embarrass the president on many levels. I am aware of these situations and what needs to be done to address this corrupt alliance of state and corporate power.

Goodwin: When you take office, what actions will you take to ensure that free speech, a free press, and an open Internet serve as a public square of speech?

RFK: First, on my first day in office, I issued an executive order prohibiting any federal agency or federal regulatory agency from censoring any social media site. In addition to this, I will push for legislation to change the RICO Act, the Racketeering Act originally written by my father, to criminalize the government-mandated system of free speech censorship. I will also convene the heads of all major social media sites, including YouTube and Google, which continue to censor political speech in this country. I would tell them that they need to have a plan in place to avoid political censorship. Eventually turn them into utilities and acknowledge that they are now public places. Then I would amend the Communications Act, which would include Section 230, in which I would outlaw political censorship.

Goodwin: If democracy inherently requires informed consent, can the U.S. government call for the violent defense of democracy as a pillar of foreign policy, while working with Big Tech to censor its own story?

RFK: Can the government censor criticism of the war in Ukraine? That should be illegal. Of course, individual media sites should be able to criticize the war, they can criticize it, and they can also choose not to allow criticism on their own pages. It’s their choice. But if they do what the government directs, then the First Amendment is implicated and becomes illegal. That’s how I see it.

The rhetoric that the United States is promoting democracy around the world is widely dismissed as a rumor. In my opinion, the CIA was involved in 87 coups d’état between 1947 and 1997, representing a third of the countries on the planet, most of them democracies. And the U.S. Agency for International Development, which serves as a front for the CIA, spends $10 billion a year to overthrow democracies in countries. When you carry out a regime change operation, you are fighting against the democracy of that country, because usually the regime is established through some kind of consensus of the people who live in that country. This consensus is usually created by projects such as Operation Mockingbird. Today, the CIA is the world’s largest funder of journalism. It wasn’t supposed to fund journalism in the United States, but it did. If you look around the world, you will see that it owns newspapers, it runs newspapers, it pays editors, and it pays major journalists in most developing countries and Europe.

Goodwin: Speaking of journalists, do you plan to pardon Julian Assange when you take office?

RFK: I would pardon Julian Assange on day one, and possibly Edward Snowden. Then I will look at other cases that can be pardoned. I will look at the case of Ross Ulbricht (founder of Silk Road) to see if he was justly convicted and if his conviction in the verdict reflects the seriousness of his crime, or if he was a case used to stop the Bitcoin or cryptocurrency industry. If I find out that’s the case, I’ll forgive him too.

Goodwin: How is Ross’s approach different from that of AT&T executives, allowing drug dealers and human traffickers to use their systems? or JPMorgan Chase allowing known human traffickers to use their banking services?

RFK: Ross’s beliefs are accompanied by a lot of sarcasm. I think that’s a very good point – what he’s accused of is just part of the business structure and business plan of these blue-chip companies, but he doesn’t have that kind of lobbying clout. If I find his sentence unfair, I will reverse it.

Goodwin: Do you think the public would support it if people knew they were going to have their taxes raised and experience high inflation in order to pay for the trillions of dollars needed to go to war or deal with Covid?

RFK: I don’t think any war we’ve fought, perhaps including the Korean War, since at least since the Korean War, will not have prior taxpayer consent. Fiat money was created to enable the state to wage war without taxing the population directly. People still pay their expenses through a self-paid tax called inflation. But fiat money was invented before the Federal Reserve, and it was invented from the beginning to fund wars.

Goodwin: Speaking of fiat currencies, what sparked your interest in Bitcoin in the first place?

RFK: I became interested in Bitcoin when I saw what happened to the truckers and Ottawa. They held peaceful demonstrations for those who, for good reason, exercised their right to protest and petitioned public officials. They were suppressed and punished by the government in an extraordinary way. The government uses surveillance technology to identify them, determine the license plates of their cars, and then close their bank accounts, depriving them of the right to use their money without any charges and certainly no convictions. It’s just to silence them. The government has the ability to close the bank accounts of individuals who are unable to pay their mortgages. I spoke with a truck driver who was unable to pay alimony and was filing a criminal case in court. People can’t afford to pay for their children’s clothes, medicine and food. Of course, they can’t pay for gas to start the vehicle, and their credit cards are no longer valid. If the government has the capacity to do this, then the government has the ability to enslave us. If they can starve their critics, they can commit any atrocities. Since then, I’ve come to understand that freedom of trade is just as important as freedom of speech, and that’s what Bitcoin is. I also see the trajectory of central bank digital currencies, which will give the state the ultimate power to decide whether we live or die. I understand that we need a free money – one that is independent and not controlled by the government.

Goodwin: You recently came up with a very novel idea to back the US dollar with Bitcoin along with other hard assets. Are you concerned about the government’s impact or restrictions on Bitcoin and Bitcoin mining?**

RFK: I’m very concerned about government restrictions on Bitcoin. But what I want to do is to issue at least some Treasury bills backed by hard currency. This could be a combination of Bitcoin, platinum, gold, silver, and other hard assets. It may be small at first, and we can see if there is a market and whether it will impose some kind of constraint on the money printing that is currently out of control. Because consumers will have access to assets with a certain hard currency base, which will at least be protected from runaway inflation. If the market likes this kind of treasury bills, then we can increase the amount every year, 1% to 2%, 3%, and so on.

Goodwin: How do you see the future of the dollar as we see CBDCs, stablecoins, and other types of USD derivatives on the horizon? We see the dollar globalizing at a rapid pace. Obviously, I think you can see the potential future of Bitcoin, but how do you see the development of the dollar?**

RFK: I think the future of the dollar is uncertain. One of the important factors is the exponential growth of the BRIC countries. You know, the BRIC countries initially had only Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, and now six more countries have been added. They offer the U.S. dollar as an alternative to the reserve currency, and while they do not issue a unified currency, they allow transactions to be settled in their own currency. Ultimately, this poses a threat to the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, as well as to the power and wealth of the United States. It’s accelerating, it’s of our own making. The unilateral belligerence of the United States has made many other countries wary of cooperating with us or placing themselves in our sphere of power. When we freeze the assets of Vladimir Putin’s friends or Russian oligarchs, they may or may not have something to do with what’s happening in Russia, and people will say, “Why are we putting ourselves in such a situation? Why don’t we build our own market?” and that’s a very dangerous thing for the dollar.

Goodwin: Do you think the U.S. government should issue digital currencies directly to citizens?

RFK: No, I’m against CBDCs. I think they will be instruments of power and control. Eventually, they will be used as an excuse to abolish cash money. They give the government complete control over our lives. Even before the Ottawa incident, I was in Milan giving a speech warning the Italian people because they were looking at vaccine passports and central bank digital currencies. If you don’t meet a certain social credit score, if you don’t wear a mask properly on Mask Day, the government can shut down the channels through which you spend your money, no matter what your violation is. They can program it so that your credit card can only be used at grocery stores within a half-mile radius of your home. They won’t buy you gas, they won’t let you get a ticket, they don’t want you to travel to other parts of the country or abroad. If the government had such power, we would all be in big trouble.

Goodwin: Do you have any concerns about FedNow and this update to this permissioned walled garden system that already exists in the Fed system?

RFK: I think FedNow is the first step. It’s not a digital currency per se, but it’s the first step. We are all on this landslide. This worries me.

Goodwin: Can you talk about the government’s actions during the pandemic? Do you think this is a kind of elaborate orchestration similar to the 2008 crisis to shut down small businesses and regional banks in order to consolidate the financial power of the supermonopolies?

RFK: I don’t think this was orchestrated specifically for this purpose. I think these entities, powerful entities, will use any crisis as an excuse to remove public rights.

Goodwin: Just like 9/11 and the Patriot Act?

RFK: Every crisis in history has served as an excuse for those in power in society to expand power, weaken public power, and subvert democracy.

Goodwin: Would you consider cancelling debt or recovering your ill-gotten gains from the super-monopolies that steal working-class wealth?

RFK: I would consider a lawsuit against any type of fraud.

Goodwin: Why do you think Trump got a pass for the media because of the lockdowns and disastrous monetary policy decisions he made during his administration? Do you think he gets a pass?

RFK: yes, I don’t think the mainstream media will criticize him in this area. This may be due to the interest in similar investments in the pharmaceutical industry. Pharmaceutical advertising revenue is huge, which is one of the main advertising revenues of mainstream media. These pharmaceutical companies ultimately decide what the TV station is about.

Goodwin: How would you like to lead a campaign against such a strong, unified coalition? What do you think of people who are demoralized and no longer believe that the political system can be used to help citizens?

RFK: I’ll tell them to observe what I’m doing. I still believe that there is still hope for democracy, so let’s give it a chance. And, if I succeed in being elected, I also have absolute confidence that I can fix it.

Goodwin: Do you think Bitcoin will play an important role in this? Do you think money can solve the supermonopoly problem?

RFK: I will make sure that Bitcoin is protected, that people feel comfortable keeping it in their wallets, that the current White House war on Bitcoin will end, and that transactions will be protected and encouraged. I would eventually consider it as a currency rather than a commodity. Especially for small Bitcoin owners, for the transactions made between them. I don’t want to add a windfall to the billionaires who accumulate Bitcoin, but I think small participants and their transactions should be protected. They can be freely convertible, just like you would use Canadian dollars when you go to Canada. If the Canadian dollar appreciates, you don’t have to pay taxes.

Goodwin: Do you think there would be a similar Section 230 protection or even an amendment to protect this type of transaction?

RFK: I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I can tell you about my approach and the overall tenure of the government. I can’t tell you the details of how I’m going to do it. I’ll be consulting with some of the brightest minds in the business, like Stanley Druckenmiller and Paul Tudor Jones. Then Bitcoin experts figure out the best way to protect our freedoms, encourage reindustrialization in the United States, and bring benefits to American wage earners.

Goodwin: Let’s say you’re sitting next to the most convicted representative of the Bitcoin community right now, and I’m telling you what to do. How do you plan to work with a compromised Congress to create some regulations to protect Bitcoin?**

RFK: I’m going to do everything I can without having to go through Congress. I will do this through fiscal policy. A lot of bad policies against Bitcoin aren’t driven by legislation, they’re driven by the White House’s policy, and I’m going to end the White House’s war on Bitcoin.

Goodwin: Speaking of ending the war, the military-industrial complex that Eisenhower warned about seems to be fully functional as NATO increases its military presence in Ukraine to provoke Russia. However, some people at home will say that this is good for the U.S. economy because they are buying American weapons. Do you think that the war in Ukraine is actually Biden’s economic victory?

RFK: No. War is a disaster for everyone. We have already killed 400,000 Ukrainian children, and possibly 70,000 to 100,000 Russians. I know Mitch McConnell said that we shouldn’t worry about the $140 billion we pay out there, because that money will all go back to the American arms manufacturers. Who’s going to own these arms manufacturers? BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard, right? It’s going to go to the richest people in our country. This does not help the poor. It actually consumes a lot of intellectual resources that can be used to re-industrialize at home, to make really valuable products that don’t kill people, but make people’s lives better. The $8 trillion we spent on the war, that could make Social Security solvency for 30 years. We can pay for every American child’s education through college, we can pay for child care for every American, and we can settle all of our nation’s credit card debts. If we leave this money at home, many of the problems we face can be solved.

Goodwin: Can you talk about the Weimar Republic and its aftermath as an analogy to what is happening in the United States right now? Will this inflation trigger some kind of revolution? Is there an alternative to a nonviolent revolution for the lower, middle, and working classes?

RFK: I’m going to try to solve these problems, starting with housing. These big corporations (BlackRock, State Street, and Vanguard) own most of the land in the United States, and they are now trying to buy all the single-family homes. By 2030, six and a half years later, they will have 60% single-family homes. My kids can’t afford to buy a house. A lot of people, like you and my children’s age, still live with their parents or in rental homes. There are very few people who actually buy a house. They try to buy a house, but someone makes a cash offer at the last minute, or some LLC with a vague name, which you can trace back to BlackRock. That’s not a good thing. Thomas Jefferson said that American democracy must be rooted in tens of thousands of independent perpetual property owned by individuals in the United States. This is a colonial model; this is an aristocracy; this is a feudal aristocracy. Americans can’t own homes if corporations own all the land in our country. If you own a house and want to start a business, you can apply for a second mortgage and take on the risk. But if you don’t own equity, you can’t get capital. That’s where the power is – access to capital. These companies have access to funds at much cheaper interest rates because they have bank accounts, and they are competing with our children to buy a house. After World War II, we prospered in this country, ensuring that Americans had access to the family. Now, the promises of the American dream are disappearing.

Goodwin: Shortly after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, the Nixon shock happened, and we moved off the gold standard, do you think it’s a coincidence?

RFK: In 1971, the Vietnam War became a turning point away from the gold standard, a war that left us in debt and they needed to print money. Kissinger and Nixon were frustrated that they might not be able to get the war, the support of the Americans, and the congressional support for those appropriations. So they changed the rules, they abandoned the Bretton Woods system, they brought the United States out of the gold standard. They started the inflationary cycle that we’ve been dealing with ever since. There was definitely a choice to be made between the war against poverty and the war in Vietnam. Martin Luther King Jr. said that we should either go to war on poverty at home or on the yellow people in Vietnam. We can’t have it both ways.

**Goodwin: Thank you for your time and thoughtful answers to all your questions. **

RFK: Thank you very much.