Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running as an independent for president, once called the Tea Party movement "the resurgence of the Confederacy."
Kennedy made the remarks as keynote speaker at the 2014 Goldman Environmental Prize award dinner, according to The Washington Free Beacon.
"Big Government is a threat, but that's not what the Tea Party cares about," Kennedy said. "They just don't want to pay their taxes.
"And they don't want a Black person to be president of the United States."
Kennedy said the Tea Party movement came out of nostalgia for a plantation economy, according to the report.
"Why is it that they — they all came out of those, you know, those dozen southern states that were part of the Confederacy?" Kennedy said. "This is the resurgence of the Confederacy."
Kennedy's presidential campaign has seen him repeatedly get dogged by comments he has made.
In an interview last week, Kennedy said women should be able to get an abortion, "even if it's full-term."
"I think we have to leave it to the women rather than the state," Kennedy said.
His running mate Nicole Shanahan disagreed with him.
"My understanding is that he absolutely believes in limits on abortion, and we've talked about this. I do not think, I don't know where that came from," she said.
Kennedy said Monday he qualified for the ballot in Texas, the sixth state his campaign has qualified for, joining Utah, Michigan, California, Delaware, and Oklahoma.
His campaign said it has collected enough signatures to appear on the ballot in New Hampshire, Nevada, Hawaii, North Carolina, Idaho, Nebraska, Iowa, and Ohio.
Nationally, Kennedy is getting 10.8% support in the five-way polling average, according to RealClearPolitics.
Kennedy recently filed suit against Facebook parent Meta, claiming election interference. Kennedy and a super PAC that supports him, American Values 2024, alleges Meta blocked a political advertisement, a 30-minute video about his life.
Kennedy claims Meta censored the video by removing it and blocking users on its platforms from watching, sharing, or posting a link to it. The lawsuit said Meta began censoring the video "within minutes."
Information from Reuters was used in this report.
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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