RFK Jr.: Details on the New York Ruling

Hey everybody, we just lost our ballot access case in the state of New York. We lost it in the Supreme Court in Albany. The Supreme Court, ironically, in New York State, is the lowest court in the state. And we will be appealing this, and we're very confident that in the Court of Appeals or the Appellate Division that we will prevail, that this loss is just a road bump. But I wanted to explain to you what happened. I've always kept an address in New York, even though I have three houses. Cheryl and I have a house on Cape Cod that's been in my family for many years. We also have our primary residence right now, which is in California. And I keep a residence in New York because that's where my domicile is. Officially, it has been my whole life. I've lived in New York for 60 years. Since I was 10 years old, I moved here when my father ran for Senate. Ironically, he was castigated as a carpetbagger, meaning people were doubting his New York State residency at the time. So it's interesting for me and paradoxical that I'm now in the same battle that my dad was trying to prove my New York State residency. My driver's license is in New York. My car is registered in New York. My law license is in New York. I pay income taxes in New York more than any other state. My law office is in New York, my only law office. And I also have a lot of other licenses in New York. My hunting license is here. My fishing license, my falconry license, etc. I vote here, it's the only place that I vote. The rule in virtually every state is that your domicile is the place where you intend to return. I have lived in other places. I've lived in Alabama, I've lived in South Dakota, I've lived in Massachusetts. I'm living now in California. But I've always voted in New York. And I've always intended to return here. And when Cheryl and I married in 2014, we agreed that when her acting career is over that we'll come back to New York and we'll live in the town of Bedford. I've lived in this town for 40 years. I've actually lived in 13 different addresses in this town. And this is the town where I intend to retire to. Here's the problem with the court decision. I was advised by my attorney, who is Paul Ross, he was arguably the best ballot access attorney in the country. That I needed to put my New York address down, that it's the only address that a lawsuit of my own, that I would survive a lawsuit. He said, you're going to get sued by the DNC no matter what state. If you put Massachusetts, you'll be sued. If you put California, you're going to be sued, and you're going to be sued in the New York State Court. So probably in front of the same judge. So I acted on the advice of counsel, and when you do that, you cannot be convicted of fraud if you acted in good faith, the advice of counsel, which I did. And here's why he told me that in most of the states require the candidate, which would be me, to use the same address on their ballot petitions. So you have to use a consistent address around all 50 states. And there are many states, including, for example, New Hampshire, that require that the domicile has to be the place where the candidate votes. Well, I've only ever voted in New York. So the only domicile I could put, and I had to swear in California, in New Hampshire, I had to take an oath in front of a notary that my voting address was my New York address. And so I had to use that address in those states, which means I had to use it in every state. And as you guys can imagine, this lawsuit is a frivolous lawsuit. It's a lawsuit that was brought by the DNC. The cost of these lawsuits by the DNC to us, to my campaign, is gonna be over $10 million defending these frivolous lawsuits. We've won every one, and we're gonna win this one. But they're using lawfare to try to keep us off of the ballot. It's the opposite of what the Democratic Party was doing when I was a kid. The Democratic Party of Robert Kennedy, of John Kennedy, was a Democratic Party that was fighting to make sure that every American could vote for the candidate of their choice. The Democratic Party of today is doing everything in its power to make sure that Americans can only vote for the candidates that the party elites choose. And as you know, President Trump and Vice President Harris have both managed to get their party's nomination without actually running in a primary. They were simply chosen by the oligarchs, the donor class and the Democratic elite. The Democratic Party, in other words, now the Democratic Party is doing everything it can to make sure that democracy does not happen. It's pretending that it wants to preserve democracy by actually destroying it. So that's where I am today. We're filing an appeal in New York State and in the state courts, and then we'll go up to the Supreme Court if we have to. And it's an expedited appeal. These election cases get faster treatment than any other case. They get precedence over every other claim. We're also filing a federal action under the 12th Amendment. The 12th Amendment says that there's only three requirements for President to run for President of the United States. One is that you're 35, two, you're born in this country, and three, that you're a citizen of this country and a resident. And I meet all three of those. The states are not allowed to impose additional burdens, and the courts have been particularly wary of any state laws that could create a patchwork. They say this is a national election, it's the only national election, and the states cannot obstruct that by adding burdens to candidates appearing on national ballots in all 50 states. So we're filing a preemptive lawsuit in federal court, and we expect to win that too, and to win it very, very quickly. But I wanted all of you to know what we're doing, and to tell you, the press will probably play this in a way that is disadvantageous to me, to put it mildly. And I wanted you to know what the truth was, and to not worry, because we will prevail. Thank you.