Robert F. Kennedy Jr. running for president in 2024

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a right-wing kennedy. lordy.

The familiar partisan script of congressional hearings was inverted Thursday when Republicans praised Robert F. Kennedy Jr. while his fellow Democrats called the presidential candidate a menace to society who did not deserve the platform Republicans gave him.

The hearing encapsulated Kennedy’s unusual campaign, which has been promoted by conservatives and condemned by Democrats as a cynical ploy to derail President Joe Biden's re-election and promote conspiracy theories.

And it provided a microcosm of the larger partisan debates over free speech, which played out in real-time as Kennedy and his GOP allies accused Democrats of trying to censor him whenever they objected to the content his message.

“I am being censored here,” Kennedy told lawmakers at one point during the nationally televised congressional hearing, after Democrats tried to force his testimony behind closed doors.

Republicans invited Kennedy to appear before their new Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. They praised his career as an environmentalist and held Kennedy up as a martyr of censorship by an alleged cabal of “big government, big tech, and big media,” as the panel’s chairman, Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a top ally of former President Donald Trump, put it.

Kennedy was only too happy to play his part.

“I was the first person censored by the Biden administration,” Kennedy said, referring to a ban from Instagram for misinformation about the pandemic that he insists was orchestrated by the White House.

Kennedy set aside his prepared opening remarks to defend himself, saying, “I have never uttered a phrase that was either racist or anti-Semitic.”

“After I announced my [campaign for the] presidency, it became more difficult for people to censor me outright. So now I’m subject to a new form of censorship, which is called targeted propaganda, where people apply pejoratives like anti-vax ... anti-semitism, racism," Kennedy continued. “These are the most appalling, disgusting pejoratives and they’re applied to me to silence me.”

Democrats played the role the GOP laid out for them by almost immediately trying to limit Kennedy’s public testimony.

Kennedy was initially given 10 minutes to make his opening remarks despite witnesses usually getting only 5 minutes, prompting the top Democrat on the panel, Del. Stacey Plaskett of the U.S. Virgin Islands, to demand the extra time be removed from the clock.

“If you want to cut him off and censor him some more, you’re welcome to,” Jordan replied.

Shortly after that, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., the former chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, accused Kennedy of violating House rules on decorum after he said Democrats lied about him and pushed for the hearing to be moved to a private executive session behind closed doors.

A party-line vote quickly dispatched that motion, but Republicans got what they wanted from the exchange.

“They are at the same time denying that censorship is occurring while saying that more information needs to be censored,” said Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. “This is a hearing on censorship that began with an effort — a formal motion from the other side of the aisle — to censor Mr. Kennedy. They do not want him to speak.”

Wasserman Schultz, who is Jewish and represents a heavily Jewish congressional district, was not done.

She later accused Kennedy of flirting with anti-Semitic Blood Libel conspiracy theories and downplaying the persecution of Jews in history by repeatedly comparing the Holocaust to the alleged persecution of people who question vaccines and Covid social distancing.

“If this were a slip of the tongue or a one-off, we would all move on. But this is a deeply disturbing pattern,” Wasserman Schultz said, reeling off at least a half dozen examples. “My own children have been the target of anti-Semites online. You fan those flames.”

Virtually every statement you made about me is false," Kennedy said. "My views are constantly misrepresented."

Other Republican witnesses included conservative journalists involved in publishing stories about Hunter Biden’s laptop, which were initially hidden by major social media platforms over questions about the veracity and origins of the salacious contents of the hard drive later confirmed to belong to president’s son.

"It's a free country. You absolutely have the right to say what you believe. But you do not have the right to a platform,” Plaskett said in her opening remarks. “Even given what they know about Mr. Kennedy’s hateful, evidence-free rhetoric... [Republicans] gave him a platform.”

The only Dem that would be better than Biden would be AOC.

A super PAC supporting the presidential ambitions of longshot Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. reported receiving more than half its nearly $10 million in funds from a single GOP donor.

The donations underscore that while Kennedy enjoys the surname of Democratic royalty, his message is also resonating with Republicans.

The group, American Values 2024, launched the same month Kennedy set out on his own longshot bid against President Joe Biden in the Democratic primary. It officially reported raising $9.8 million through the end of June and said on Monday that it had also raised $6 million in the month of July, bringing its total fundraising to roughly $16 million.
Its first financial report, which covers contributions through the end of June, includes donations from both GOP and Democratic donors. But the donors who have previously backed Republicans accounted for a much greater share of the money raised.

Of the $9.8 million reported, $5 million came from Timothy Mellon, a longtime GOP donor who gave $1.5 million to a Trump-aligned group last fall, according to campaign finance records. In a press release earlier Monday, Mellon touted Kennedy’s bipartisan credentials, calling him “the one Democrat who can win in the general election.”

Most of the rest of the super PAC’s fundraising through the end of June came from Gavin De Becker, an author and consultant who reported giving the group $4.5 million. De Becker has a political donation history that includes both Democrats and Republicans. He has served as a close adviser to Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

The super PAC supporting Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s independent bid for president debuted an ad during the Super Bowl on Sunday night.

American Values 2024 released a 30-second ad that was a remake of a 1960 campaign spot — with the same jingle and motif — for his uncle former President John F. Kennedy.

The super PAC said the ad cost $7 million and ran nationally.

The ad featured pictures of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testifying in front of Congress and skiing, alongside the words "vote independent."

"Our momentum is growing. It’s time for an Independent President to heal the divide in our country," Kennedy said on X.

Kennedy's name spiked in searches on Google during the debut.

Kennedy's ad — and his invocation of his family's legacy — was quickly criticized by his cousin Bobby Shriver.

"My cousin’s Super Bowl ad used our uncle’s faces- and my Mother’s," he wrote in a post on X. "She would be appalled by his deadly health care views. Respect for science, vaccines, & health care equity were in her DNA. She strongly supported my health care work at @ONECampaign & @RED which he opposes."

Shriver's brother, Mark, posted that he agreed.