Standing Against Threats to Democracy: Tony Lyons Appears on The Hill’s Rising

By Leah Watson, The Kennedy Beacon

By Leah Watson, The Kennedy Beacon

On Wednesday morning, Tony Lyons, president of Skyhorse Publishing and cofounder of the American Values 2024 super PAC, appeared in a streamed interview on The Hill’s commentary show, Rising. [American Values 2024 funds The Kennedy Beacon.]

The discussion covered the urgent matter of ballot access that independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faces. On December 19, following the Colorado Supreme Court’s decision to remove Donald Trump from the state’s election ballot in 2024, Kennedy took to X (formerly Twitter) to express concern that the ruling threatens democratic freedom: “When any candidate is deprived of his right to run, the American people are deprived of their right to choose,” Kennedy wrote.

Tony Lyons shares this view. During his interview, Lyons stressed that any ruling to remove a candidate from the ballot is fundamentally un-American. 

“The people that say that they are trying to protect us from losing democracy in this country are the same people who are trying to take it away from us,” Lyons said. Kennedy further posted on X that the Colorado Supreme Court “has deprived [Trump] of a consequential right without having been convicted of a crime.” Trump has not been convicted of engaging in insurrection, yet the court is acting as if he has. Many people believe that the Colorado court is unjustly barring Trump’s right to run for president while also stripping the American people of their freedom of choice. “It doesn’t matter whether you agree with the person,” said Lyons, “what matters is that we have certain principles in this country that need to be protected.” 

Rules determining ballot access are particularly harsh on third-party members and independent candidates, or more generally anybody who is not running as a Democrat or a Republican. Varying by state, ballot access laws impose many restrictions on independent candidates like Kennedy, who is trying to get on the ballot in all 50 states and Washington, DC. American Values 2024 has announced it will focus on seven states that add up to 183 electoral college votes. These so-called battleground states – Arizona, California, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, New York, and Texas – are predicted to pose the greatest challenges to ballot access.

Without coordinating with the campaign, the super PAC is determined to break the entrenched nature of the two-party system and offer an independent candidate to the American people, one who comes across as authentic and willing to fight to protect people’s freedoms. 

“When you see Bobby Kennedy getting up on national television to defend the rights of his opponent, that’s the kind of character that we need in a president. I think the American people see that,” said Lyons in his commentary on the Colorado Supreme Court ruling. Although removing Trump from the ballot in Colorado has the potential to benefit Kennedy in the polls, Kennedy showed the public that he is not only interested in his personal objectives, but determined to preserve democratic freedom and ensure that people’s rights are protected.

Another topic Lyons raised during his interview is censorship, something he has taken specific steps to combat. Lyons runs Skyhorse as a free-speech publishing company that fights, as he said, “the censorship and vilification that people on all sides get when they don’t follow the mainstream narrative.” 

Kennedy is one such candidate and author who does not conform to the mainstream narrative and has been censored. Lyons believes that if people were allowed to hear Kennedy speak, they would recognize him as a candidate with the ideal qualities of integrity, authenticity, and truthfulness, and he would convince them that he is the best candidate for president.

Lyons observes that when Kennedy is allowed to speak directly to the American public, they see the qualities he possesses and want to vote for him. “That is something that ought to happen in a democracy,” he told Rising. “You ought to be able to see a candidate, listen to their arguments, and make a decision for yourself.”