RFK Jr. Answers Debate Questions in Parallel Event

While CNN (Lean Left bias) hosted President Biden and former President Donald Trump for a debate in Atlanta on Thursday, Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. responded to the same questions in real time from a studio in Los Angeles.

The Details: Kennedy’s event, dubbed “The Real Debate,” was moderated by libertarian media personality John Stossel, and unlike the CNN event, Kennedy’s event had a live audience. The event was livestreamed on X, and at one point jumped to 3.2 million viewers. In total, over 9 million viewers tuned in, the Kennedy campaign told Time Magazine (Lean Left bias).

For Context: Kennedy did not qualify for CNN’s debate and accused the network of colluding with Biden and Trump to keep him off the stage. Kennedy’s campaign believes that due to the nature of CNN’s debate qualifications, the network is in violation of federal election law. Stossel formerly worked as a journalist for ABC News (Lean Left bias) and Fox Business (Lean Right bias).

Key Quote: Kennedy opened his event by hitting out at CNN’s debate, saying, “This is something that’s important for our democracy because Americans feel like the system is rigged. This is exactly the kind of merger of state and corporate power that I’m running to oppose.”

How The Media Covered It: As of early Friday morning, AllSides did not find much mainstream coverage of Kennedy’s event. Associated Press (Lean Left bias) described Kennedy’s livestream as “unusual.”