RFK Jr. offers foreign policy views on Ukraine, Israel, vows to halve military spending

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. vowed Wednesday that if elected president, he'd slash the military budget by half.

"I will push for [a] 50% reduction in military expenditures in my first four years in office, with more cuts to come thereafter," Kennedy said. "A way to keep the dollar strong is to keep the country strong. We can do that by redirecting our bloated military budget toward infrastructure, education and health and building our economy and building small business"

Speaking the day before President Biden signed a security agreement with Ukraine, Kennedy told voters in Yorba Linda, Calif., that U.S. foreign policy has been based on the "delusion" that American intervention abroad will uphold democracy. 

Citing billion-dollar aid packages that have been approved for Israel, Ukraine and Taiwan, Kennedy said he wants to roll back defense spending to the levels last seen under President Eisenhower. Seizing on the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953, Eisenhower believed he had an opening to avert an arms war with Russia and thought dramatically cutting defense spending would aid the cause. He did avoid major conflicts, but the Cold War still intensified during his presidency.

Kennedy also faulted the U.S. for — in his view — escalating conflict abroad over the past few decades. He has previously said he does not support more military aid for Ukraine, though he stands by Israel, calling the Russia-Ukraine conflict a "war of choice" and the Israel-Hamas conflict a "moral war."