Anti-vaccines activist and — for some reason — Democratic presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. got his own town hall on Wednesday night, courtesy of cable channel NewsNation. And unsurprisingly, RFK Jr.’s talking points were on brand.
In the event, moderated by NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas, Kennedy Jr. made an unusual pitch to Democratic Primary voters: A grab bag of conspiracy theories that of course included his pet obsession with vaccines, but also warnings about “radiation” from 5G towers, and even an attempt to link the crisis of mass shootings to antidepressants. It’s a lot, so let’s dive in.
Kennedy’s pitch wasn’t just conspiracy theories however. Amid that, he proposed practical solutions to the problem of drug addiction and abuse, expressed opposition to militarism, and said he would like to be the first president to tell the American people the truth while speaking at the network’s Chicago headquarters.
“The only way we’re going to heal this country is if the government starts telling the truth,” he said.
Moderator Elizabeth Vargas asked Kennedy if he is “a spoiler,” in this election, noting that he gets praise from Republicans like Donald Trump, who has called him “smart.”
“I’m proud that Pres. Trump likes me. Even though I don’t agree with him on most of his issues. I don’t want to alienate people. My purpose is to find values we have in common,” said Kennedy, an environmental lawyer and the son of former U.S.Senator and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and nephew of Pres. John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy said he wants the U.S. to get out of foreign entanglements like the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and funding Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion.
“We ended up killing more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein. All of this money that we’re spending on the military is not making us safer and is not making us friends abroad,” he said. “We can’t keep spending money we don’t have, since we’re so far in debt.”
Kennedy said he would rather spend that money on combating domestic problems like the crisis of addiction to opiates and fentanyl, and favors opening drug treatment to help addicts, rather than treating them like criminals. Himself a former addict, Kennedy said he attends up to nine support group meetings a week to stay clean and sober.
Kennedy said he does not consider marijuana use as part of the national drug problem. He said he favors full decriminalization of marijuana and certain psychedelic drugs at the federal level, and wants a federal tax on these products.
But along with those reasonable sounding proposals he also had thoughts on other things. As he often does, Kennedy denied he is an anti-vaxxer, and accused critics who point out his views of “silencing me.” He also claimed vaccines have not been tested properly and suggested people need fewer of them.
“I think most people don’t know what my stance on vaccines I’ve never been anti-vaccine. And I’ve said that hundreds and hundreds of times, but it doesn’t matter, because that is a way of silencing me using that pejorative to describe me his way of silencing or marginalizing me. And my position on vaccines, I think is I think virtually every American would agree with my stance on vaccines, which is that vaccine should be tested like other medicines, it should be safety tested,” he said. “And unfortunately, vaccines are not safety tested. They’re not. There’s of the 72 vaccine doses now mandated essentially mandated, they recommended but they’re really mandated American children, none of them one has ever been subjected to a pre licensing. Let’s see a controlled trial.”
Suffice to say, these claims are not accurate. Read more here.
Another health threat he warned of is “radiation” broadcasted from 5G towers for cell phones and other technologies. He said there should be no 5G towers near schools. This is of course a wholly unsupported claim, and is the evolution of a conspiracy theory spread during the pandemic that somehow, COVID-19 was caused by 5G signals. It wasn’t. Read more here.
And as we said, he tried to blame mass shootings on antidepressants. When called out by Vargas who said one of his points “doesn’t mean” they’re a cause of mass shootings, he said, “of course it does, we ought to be looking at it, shouldn’t we? Shouldn’t we be looking at video games, and cell phones, and some of the social, you know, social media stuff? We should be looking at all these things.”
He then said there is a study showing a link between antidepressants and mass violence. But this, by the way, is untrue and has been debunked many, many, many times. It is, however, a theory popular with people who oppose restrictions on guns, including Tucker Carlson.
Vargas said many Democrats see him as extreme on such issues, and noted that members of the Kennedy family have distanced themselves from him because of his vaccine stance.
In response, Kennedy smiled and asked, “Does your family agree with you on everything,” to which Vargas chuckled and said “absolutely not,” as the crowd laughed and applauded.
Kennedy said the United States is in a struggle for world influence with China, but believes we should focus more on economic growth and less on military spending.
“China wants to dominate the world, but they want to do it economically. I don’t fear that competition with them,” he said.
Talking about the rapid boom of artificial intelligence software, he said “AI has the capacity to do terrible things to us,” and wants the United States to sit down with other nations, from allies to Russia, China and Iran, to work out a plan to keep the human population safe from AI.
Kennedy said he would start his presidency by “telling the truth to the American people about everything,” even in regards to intelligence agencies and what they do.
But adding to concerns he is running a spoiler campaign that could end up helping Republicans, when asked to pledge support for whoever the Democratic nominee is if it’s not him, he refused although he did call Pres. Joe Biden a friend.
“My plan is to win this election, and I don’t have a Plan B,” Kennedy said, adding that any support he might offer a future nominee would depend on if they “support Democratic values.”
