Democratic lawmakers demand anti-vaxx conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is barred from a major hearing on social media censorship.
Kennedy, 69, nephew of assassinated President JFK, has parroted several false claims about vaccine safety in recent years.
Democrats in the House of Representatives want RFK Jr. banned for his alleged racist views and prevented him from appearing before the GOP-led Weaponization of Federal Government Committee on Thursday.
RFK Jr, 69, made the remarks Thursday at an event at Tony’s Di Napoli restaurant on New York City’s Upper East Side, claiming Covid-19 was an engineered bioweapon designed to spare Jews and Chinese.
The group was founded after the midterm elections by Republicans in Congress to investigate what they believe constitutes abuse of power by U.S. officials against conservatives.
They allege that the US government collaborated with social media companies to suppress anti-lockdown, anti-mask messaging at the height of the pandemic.
RFK Jr., who is running for the Democrat nomination, has repeatedly made similar claims since he began his campaign in Boston in April.
He is now under fire for suggesting that Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” to “attack” whites and blacks, but spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.
It even earned the former environmental lawyer and presidential no-hoper a sharp rebuke from the White House.
Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign is reportedly concerned about his rising polls among Democratic voters, where the Kennedy scion has climbed into double-digit territory.
Now a letter written by Representatives Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Judy Chu (D-CA) reached out to RFK Jr. for his anti-Semitic rhetoric, comparing him to the Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler.
House Democrats said RFK Jr. evoked the worst Nazi propaganda with his remarks
They took aim at Kennedy’s suggestion in a speech last Thursday that the Jewish people are a different race.
“This technique was used by Hitler who argued that there are biological differences between ethnic or racial groups to portray Jews as a lesser form of humanity, a springboard to justify the destruction of the Jews during the Holocaust,” they wrote. .
‘Mr. Allowing Kennedy to testify before the Select Subcommittee is only to legitimize his anti-Semitic and anti-Asian views,” they added.
It follows a similar call from a Democratic-backed watchdog on Monday, which urged committee chairman Jim Jordan to withdraw Thursday’s invitation.
“We now have video evidence of his appalling anti-Semitic and xenophobic views, which are simply out of sight,” said Kyle Herrig, the executive directors of the Congressional Integrity Project.
Jordan on Monday rejected the idea of ”cancelling” Kennedy, saying he wanted to look into it “Big Tech’s Conspiracy with Out-of-Control Government Agencies to Silence Speech.”
“Yes, I totally disagree with what he said, but he’s a Democrat. I don’t agree with other things he said either,” Jordan said. “But we got it because of censorship.”
RFK Jr. began his campaign by downplaying his views on vaccines, which he has vocally voiced for the past nearly two decades, focusing on issues such as the environment and alleged state corruption.
“My mission over the next 18 months of this campaign and during my presidency will be to end the corrupt fusion of state and corporate power that now threatens to impose a new brand of corporate feudalism on our country,” Kennedy said. in April in Boston. 19.
Kennedy launched his campaign on April 19 at the Park Plaza Hotel in Boston with his wife Cheryl Hines, the Curb Your Enthusiasm actress
He has made the completely baseless claim that jabs can cause autism in children, which has been repeatedly debunked by top doctors and scientists.
Kennedy’s work has been described by members of his own family and public health experts as misleading and dangerous.
His efforts intensified after the pandemic and the development of the COVID-19 vaccine, and in 2021 he joined anti-democratic figures and other groups.
He has appeared at events promoting the lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen and with people applauding or downplaying the January 6, 2021 riot at the Capitol.
His 2021 best-selling book, “The Real Anthony Fauci,” accused the former top US infectious disease physician of participating in “a historic coup against Western democracy.”
During the pandemic, RFK Jr’s group, Children’s Health Defense, raised funds and followers in the US and abroad, doubling its revenue from 2019 to 2020. Revenue more than doubled from $7 million in 2020 to $16 million in 2021.
Kennedy has made similar allegations in the past in a book titled “The Real Anthony Fauci, Bill Gates, Big Pharma and the Global War on Democracy and Public Health.”
Facebook and Instagram have removed Children’s Health Defense accounts for spreading misinformation.
But despite Kennedy’s controversial views, he has risen as much as 20 percent in some polls against Joe Biden, the 80-year-old incumbent commander in chief.
Ex-Trump aide Steve Bannon also spoke highly of RFK Jr., suggesting he “could be both a useful chaos agent in the 2024 race and a big name who could help drive anti-vaccine sentiment in the invigorate the whole country’.
Donald Trump last month called Kennedy “a really smart guy and a good guy,” while Roger Stone, a prominent Trump ally, has also promoted the idea that they’re running on the same ticket.