Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Testifies Before House Weaponization Subcommittee

Robert F. Kennedy, a candidate in the Democratic primary race for the 2024 election, testified before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Thursday.

Details: Democratic lawmakers on the committee and elsewhere in Washington made an effort to prevent Kennedy from testifying after a video released last weekend where Kennedy is seen stating, “There is an argument that (COVID-19) is ethnically targeted… to attack Caucasians and black people. The… most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” 102 Democratic representatives signed a letter of opposition to his testimony, and after Kennedy’s opening remarks, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) attempted to have the hearing moved to executive session. 

Key Quotes: Kennedy called the efforts to prevent his testimony “an attempt to censor a censorship hearing.” Kennedy called censorship “antithetical to our party,” adding, “It was appalling to my father, to my uncle, to FDR, to Harry Truman, to Thomas Jefferson, as the chairman referred to.” Kennedy claimed the Biden Administration has censored him, stating that it “had to invent a new word called ‘malinformation’ to censor people like me,” defining malinformation as “information that is true, but it is inconvenient to the government, that they don’t want people to hear.”

How The Media Covered It: The heated hearing was covered prominently across the spectrum. Coverage from left-rated outlets focused primarily on Democratic lawmakers’ objections to Kennedy’s testimony, including few quotes from the testimony itself.