Thursday’s explosive congressional Weaponization subcommittee hearing didn’t uncover any new evidence on government censorship, but it did serve as an unofficial excommunication of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. from the Democratic Party.
During the House Judiciary Committee’s three-hour hearing, Kennedy was relentlessly characterized by Democrats as a racist bigot spewing misinformation and hate. He was repeatedly denied the opportunity to respond to accusations or even answer questions by members of his own party who no longer claim him.
For House Democrats, it seems that Kennedy is the new Donald Trump. During her opening statement, Ranking Democrat Delegate Stacey Plaskett described Kennedy’s “hateful, evidence-free rhetoric” and accused Republicans of “co-signing” on Kennedy’s “idiotic, bigoted language.” Plaskett even implied that Kennedy willfully harmed the black community by fostering vaccine hesitancy — all without giving him a chance to respond. As if her messaging wasn’t clear enough, she called on her colleagues to “be better than the witnesses,” who also included Breitbart journalist Emma-Jo Morris, co-author of the Hunter Biden laptop story, and Louisiana special assistant attorney general D. John Sauer.
Democratic characterization of RFK Jr. stood in stark contrast to how the presidential candidate portrayed himself during the hearing — in part because he was given little chance to speak. While he may be prone to outlandish claims, Kennedy is no Trump when it comes to temperament: he didn’t throw insults during the hearing, nor has he taken to Twitter to decry it as “fake news.” In a rather un-Trumpian opening statement, Kennedy denounced toxic polarization and insisted that Americans need to start treating each other with kindness and respect. “We have to stop trying to destroy each other, to marginalize, to vilify, to gaslight each other,” he said. “We have to find that place inside ourselves of light, of empathy, of compassion.”
But it didn’t matter. As soon as the hearing started, House Democrats attempted to censor Kennedy. Representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz immediately motioned to move to a closed-door session, claiming that Kennedy’s “despicable antisemitic and anti-Asian comments” violated a House rule to defame and degrade. The motion to prevent Kennedy from testifying failed, but not before several Democrats voted no to Kennedy’s “hate speech.”
Schultz was referring to Kennedy’s comments that Covid may have been “ethnically targeted” because those who are most immune to Covid appear to be Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people. Earlier this week, Democrats had already sent a letter to House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan asking him to disinvite Kennedy from the hearing due to the remarks. It seems their stunt to publicly oust Kennedy had been planned for a few days.
Towards the end of the hearing, Representative Gerry Connelly delivered the final crushing blow to Kennedy. “You are here for cynical reasons to be used politically by that side of the aisle to embarrass the current president of the United States. You are an enabler in that effort today. It brings shame to a storied name that I revere,” he said.
Despite Democratic consensus about Kennedy’s future in the party, it’s unclear whether he received the message. Even as he expressed his frustration with fellow Democrats during the hearing, Kennedy maintained his loyalty. “I’ve spent my life at this party. I’ve devoted my life to the values of this party. This — 102 people signed this. This itself is evidence of the problem that this hearing was convened to address,” Kennedy said, referring to the letter signed by House Democrats. “This is an attempt to censor a censorship hearing.”
