Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said that pig farmers were a greater threat to democracy than Osama Bin Laden on April 5, 2002, just months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, according to an archived edition of the Des Moines Register.

Kennedy claimed that big hog farmers were more threatening to the United States than Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaeda at a 2002 sustainable farming conference attended by 700 Iowans, according to the Register. Kennedy, who has a history of making controversial comments, will reportedly no longer seek to secure the Democratic presidential nomination and opt to run as an independent instead.

Some Iowans were displeased with Kennedy for comparing pig farmers to an international terrorist who killed thousands of Americans. One farmer said you would have to be a “complete wandering idiot to make that statement,” while another local wrote in the Register that “Robert F. Kennedy Jr. coming to Iowa to tell us how to raise hogs is about as credible as Yasser Arafat saying he’s not a terrorist.”

Kennedy didn’t apologize following the backlash to his comments, going on to author an op-ed in the Register doubling down on his views. In the piece, titled “I’m serious: Hog lots threaten democracy,” Kennedy wrote, “I stand by the statements I made in Clear Lake last month that factory meat integrators are more threatening to democracy than Osama bin Laden.”

He went on to clarify that he was referring to “hog factories” not “family hog farmers,” and accused farmers of contributing to pollution and political corruption. The Register called Kennedy “unrepentant” with regard to his comments. (RELATED: An Independent RFK Jr. Candidacy Could Upend The Presidential Race: POLL)

Kennedy, in a speech later that month, stated that, despite “losing many friends” in the 9/11 attacks, he maintained that “the threat that is offered by an outside terrorist group like Osama bin Laden, who is clearly evil—our democracy is too durable to suffer any real damage from external threats.”

When Kennedy was asked by Republican Rep. Steve King in 2009 if he had really said that pig farmers were a greater threat to democracy than Osama bin Laden, and provided him with a quote of what he said, Kennedy answered “I don’t know if that [quotation] is accurate, but I believe it and I support it,” the Washington Times reported.

This wasn’t the last time Kennedy would make a controversial comparison. Kennedy drew criticism in January 2022 for suggesting that Jews during the holocaust had more freedom than Americans during the pandemic, according to Reuters.

Kennedy later apologized for his comments.

Kennedy has appeal among some conservative voters; he garnered more donations from Republican donors than Democrats during the first few months of his presidential campaign, ABC News reported.

However, Kennedy called the National Rifle Association a terror group in the days following the 2018 Parkland High School shooting, going further in a since-deleted tweet to say “the NRA is as responsible for the MSD child murders as if they pulled the trigger,” according to an archive of Kennedy’s Twitter account.

Parkland students are right; the NRA is a terror group

— Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) February 17, 2018

Kennedy also accused Charles and David Koch, major financiers of the conservative movement, in 2014 of treason and suggested they should be jailed for war crimes, according to CNBC.

Kennedy supports no bans on abortion, according to The New York Times, and lists “racial healing” as one of his campaign’s priorities on his website.

Kennedy’s campaign did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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