(Washington) Elected Democrats fired red balls on Thursday at Robert Kennedy Jr, a nephew of JFK with controversial remarks in the running against Joe Biden for the party’s nomination for the 2024 presidential election.
Republican Jim Jordan had invited Mr. Kennedy to testify Thursday at a panel of the US House of Representatives on the “censorship” imposed by the Biden administration with more conservative views.
Even before the start of this hearing, Democrat Gerry Connolly castigated his colleague Kennedy, accusing him of making racist remarks and embracing conspiracy theories.
“Robert F. Kennedy Jr. holds despicable, nauseating, racist, bigoted, anti-Semitic, anti-gay beliefs built on conspiracy theories,” Mr. Connolly said.
Son of Robert, the youngest brother of President John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is a candidate for the Democratic Party nomination which he has little chance of winning, polls placing him about fifty percentage points behind President Biden, candidate for his re-election.
But Democrats fear that he will found his own party, thus nibbling votes from Joe Biden and in turn paving the way for the election of former President Donald Trump, a big favorite for the Republican nomination.
Mr. Kennedy Jr. said last year that the situation was worse today for part of the American population than for Anne Frank, a famous Jewish teenager who died in a Nazi camp after taking refuge for two years with her family in a house in Amsterdam.
Mr. Kennedy also compared speeches by Anthony Fauci, former adviser to Mr. Biden on the COVID-19 pandemic, to Nazi propaganda.
In front of elected congressmen on Thursday, Mr. Kennedy Jr. denied the allegations against him, claiming “never to have uttered a sentence that was racist or anti-Semitic”.
But that didn’t stop his colleagues from stalking him. Democrat Debbie Wasserman Schultz called his remarks “despicable” while Stacey Plaskett slammed her for suggesting that restrictions placed on unvaccinated Americans during the pandemic were worse than those placed on Jews under Nazi Germany.
“Freedom of expression is not absolute”, hammered Mme Plaskett, whose party had tried unsuccessfully to convince House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy to rescind Kennedy Jr.’s invitation to testify.
“Censure a person is not the right answer,” retorted Mr. McCarthy about the case of Mr. Kennedy Jr., criticized even within his prestigious family.