Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a 2024 presidential hopeful, shares views on top issues in town hall event

Democrat Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who is running for president, touched on a number of topics recently in a "Conversation with the Candidate" town hall event in New Hampshire.Watch the full conversation in the video player above or the links below. Included is a 30-minute, online-only portion of the conversation:Watch Part 1: Kennedy speaks on his anti-vaccine viewsWatch Part 2: Kennedy says he supports abortion rightsWatch online exclusive: Kennedy weighs in on nuclear energy Conversation with the Candidate is a town hall-style program. It is intended to allow the candidate to convey their points of view on a wide range of topics. During the program, the moderator may challenge the candidates’ assertions, but every fact may not be checked in real time. Hearst Television is committed to holding the candidates accountable on their claims throughout the election cycle. Learn more about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s background Kennedy says he has carried on his family's legacy of public service by devoting himself to environmental causes and children's welfare.He was the founder of the Waterkeeper Alliance, the world's largest clean water advocacy group and was chief litigation counsel for Children's Health Defense, which, among other things, advocates for what it calls the vaccine resistance movement.Kennedy is also an award-winning writer, including two New York Times bestsellers, 2005's "Crimes Against Nature" and 2021's "The Real Anthony Fauci."He said his campaign for president is fighting for progressive issues, stopping what he calls the "rigging of the system" and the "war against America's middle class."Kennedy graduated from Harvard University, studied at the London School of Economics and earned his law degree from the University of Virginia.He is married to actress Cheryl Hines. The couple has seven children, including Kennedy's six children from two previous marriages.Kennedy is the third of 11 children of the late U.S. Sen. Robert Kennedy. See the full "Conversation with the Candidate" event through the following links:Watch Part 1: Kennedy speaks on his anti-vaccine viewsWatch Part 2: Kennedy says he supports abortion rightsWatch online exclusive: Kennedy weighs in on nuclear energyKennedy shares what he saw at southern border crossingKennedy was asked during the town hall portion of the event about his views on the immigration crisis, and he spent time sharing what he saw when he visited the southern U.S. border. He said the night he visited the border, he believes about 600 to 800 people crossed into the U.S. illegally. "No country can survive if it can’t control its borders," Kennedy said.Kennedy said it's his view that drug cartels in Mexico play a major role in the immigration crisis. See more of his answer in the video player below:Kennedy harkens back to father's 1968 presidential bid in discussing how to unify countryA voter asked the Democrat about how he feels his campaign could potentially help unite the country, and he spent much of his answer recalling his father's 1968 campaign for president. U.S. Sen. Robert F. Kennedy Sr. was shot on June 5, 1968, and died the following day. He won the California and South Dakota presidential primaries earlier that week as he built a campaign to challenge same-party incumbent President Lyndon B. Johnson. Kennedy said his father, too, faced a divided nation when he ran for president. "My dad had faced the same thing when he ran for president against the sitting president of his own party. The same as I'm doing," Kennedy said. "You know, my father ... succeeded in uniting the country."Kennedy remarked his father's wins right before his death were in the country's most urban and most rural states."He had succeeded in bridging that gap. This was at a time that was almost as polarized as we are today," Kennedy said.Kennedy recalled being with his father when he died and the country's response to the death in the days that followed, including an anecdote about what he saw while riding in a train from New York City to Washington, D.C., with his father's remains. "There were two and a half million people along that train track. And they were the entire cross-section of the American experience. When we went through the urban train stations, we crawled through at two miles an hour, through Newark, Trenton, Wilmington, Baltimore. There were Black faces, tens of thousands of them singing the 'Battle Hymn of the Republic.' In the countryside, there were whites, there were Catholics, there were rabbis, there were priests," Kennedy said. See his full answer in the video below:See the full "Conversation with the Candidate" event through the following links:Watch Part 1: Kennedy speaks on his anti-vaccine viewsWatch Part 2: Kennedy says he supports abortion rightsWatch online exclusive: Kennedy weighs in on nuclear energyOther "Conversation with the Candidate" events will be held throughout the campaign season. The full list of candidates who participate will be updated here.