Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. had his first national town hall on Wednesday evening, during which he doubled down on some of his most outlandish claims and conspiracy theories. But the sit-down with NewsNation notably garnered little to no press from mainstream news outlets, as has been the case for much of his campaign thus far.
Networks like CNN, CBS, and MSNBC dedicated zero online coverage to the event; the same can be said for the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the Wall Street Journal, while only a few outlets—like Rolling Stone and the conservative Washington Examiner—seem to have bucked the trend. As I wrote earlier this week, the mainstream media is still figuring out how to cover RFK Jr.’s candidacy without amplifying his baseless rhetoric in the process—a challenge that the press still faces with Trump and his 2024 presidential bid.
At one point during the event, asked by a family physician in the audience whether medical experts can change his stance on vaccines, Kennedy—a scion of America’s most famous political dynasty and one of the country’s most vocal vaccine skeptics—claimed he has “never been anti-vaccine,” a label he said has been used to silence him before going on a rant about vaccine safety. He falsely claimed vaccines “are not safely tested” and that government agencies claiming otherwise are lying. “Vaccines are—they go through three stages of FDA testing against double blind placebo. They already do that testing for vaccines,” veteran anchor Elizabeth Vargas, who was moderating, said to Kennedy, noting that you could see as much on the FDA website. After Kennedy claimed otherwise, and pointed to information on his own website, she responded: “Well, there are competing websites saying different things.”
At another point in the town hall, asked by an audience member how he would use federal resources to slow gun violence, Kennedy said he does not believe “there’s anything we can meaningfully do to reduce the trade in the ownership of guns,” and that he’s “not going to take people’s guns away.” He also reiterated the debunked claim that antidepressants are linked to mass shootings, and said—without citing evidence—that we “should be looking at video games and cell phones” and “social media” as potential explanations for gun violence.
While Kennedy has shown unexpected strength in the polls, it’s unclear how seriously to take his candidacy, both because of his baseless policy positions as well as the vocal support he has on the right—from Steve Bannon to Donald Trump. Asked by Vargas about his opinion of Trump, who earlier this week called him “smart” and a “common-sense guy,” Kennedy said he was “proud that President Trump likes me, even though I don’t agree with him on most of these issues,” adding, “I don’t want to alienate people.” And yet, asked by Vargas whether he would “pledge to support whoever the Democratic nominee is,” Kennedy refused. “Oh, of course I’m not gonna do that,” he said. “Let’s see what happens in this campaign…my plan is to win this election. And I don’t have a plan B.”
Charlotte Klein
Source link
