Kennedy Pushes Back Against DNC

“Congenial, respectful debate is the fertilizer, it’s the water, it’s the sunlight to our democracy,” Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., said on Thursday, during a ‘witness’ hearing at the Republican-led Select Committee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.  “We need to be talking to each other.”

But, for the last several days, and in fact since Kennedy announced his campaign for presidency in April, Kennedy’s detractors have been talking at the candidate, demonizing him as the spreader of disinformation, an antisemite and worse.

After the hearing, Kennedy appeared on “Rising,” streamed on The Hill, and said, “I clearly have the DNC against me. It’s not a coincidence that Debbie Wasserman Schultz was leading the battle against me, and she’s the same individual who was charged with corruption for getting Bernie, who was leading and almost certainly would have won. She led the DNC’s efforts to exclude him from the race––so I was not surprised by her attitudes toward me.”

Reflecting on the drumbeat against Kennedy, even as his campaign continues to gain momentum, superPAC co-chairman Mark Gorton told The Kennedy Beacon: “The story here is that the Democratic Party is desperate to cover up their egregious corruption which is revolting to many Americans. RFK, Jr. is standing up for truth and to take back the soul of the Democratic party.”

Continued Gorton, “The DNC Dems are freaked out.  The Dems are sitting on a massive pile of bought off corruption. They covered up Biden taking bribes from Ukraine. They shut down American citizens who pointed out that Big Pharma was making hundreds of billions on second rate medical products. The massive looting machine that is the Democratic Party can’t stand the light of day. Bobby offers a chance for the American people to take back the Democratic Party from the corrupt insiders and monied interests.”

The subcommittee hearing focused on the rise of political censorship by major social media companies, as part of a months-long examination of the federal government’s use of weaponized censorship against Americans. Other guest witnesses included Emma-Jo Morris, politics editor at Breitbart; and D. John Sauer, Special Assistant Attorney General at the Louisiana Department of Justice. 

“From the hearing, it is clear that Bobby will never get the vote of the DNC insiders,” Gorton added. “But the American people have a choice, and hate and lie-filled attacks offered by team DNC seem a weak shadow compared to Bobby’s willingness to confront problems with our government. This hearing was a clear showdown between Bobby and the DNC. This might be as close to a debate as we will get.”

Kennedy’s debut at the hearing did not come without detractors. Prior to Thursday, Democrats called for House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan to disallow RFK Jr. from serving as a witness after The New York Post reported that he falsely claimed COVID-19 ethnically targeted Jews and Chinese people.

In an interview with ABC News, Kennedy said he was appalled that the paper had taken his comments out of context. As he has noted, he was referencing a peer-reviewed study, not expressing his own ideas.

During the hearing, Kennedy said 102 Democrats had signed the petition to remove him. 

“I know many of the people who wrote this letter,” Kennedy said, holding up the letter for the subcommittee to see. “I don’t believe there’s a single person who signed this letter who believes I’m antisemitic. I do not believe that.”

Also during the hearing: congresswoman Stacey E. Plaskett said Kennedy’s comments on COVID-19 and vaccine freedom spread disinformation at the cost of the safety of Americans. Plaskett went on to question the committee’s relevance to the issues Americans face and for allowing disinformation and harassment to enter the hearings under the guise of free speech. 

“These folks have a plan,” Plaskett said. “They want to force social media companies to promote conspiracy theories because they think that’s the only way their candidate can win the 2024 election. They want to bully the experts into abandoning their work on disinformation to pave the way.”

She did not reference Missouri v. Biden, a seminal court case filed earlier this month in Missouri and Louisiana. That lawsuit alleges that the Biden administration contacted social media platforms to remove ‘misinformation’ in gross violations of free speech. 

In both his opening statement and response to Plaskett, Kennedy argued his campaign did tackle issues relevant to the American public, such as the rising cost of living, but that media and tech companies constantly smeared him as an anti-vaxxer and racist. Kennedy emphasized his belief that the government and medical establishment are not transparent enough about the medical side-effects of vaccines. 

“I think we need to be honest and we need to have good science,” Kennedy said. “That’s all I’ve ever argued.”

The Kennedy Beacon has documented the various, undeniable instances where major social media platforms have censored Kennedy and Kennedy-related content. So far, YouTube and Meta win the prize as the most censorial platforms against Kennedy. 

“The corner foundation stone of our system is freedom of speech,” Kennedy said during the hearing on Thursday “If we lose that, not only do we lose our democracy in this country but the entire world loses that example.”