Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before a House committee on censorship on Thursday morning, saying in his opening statement that controlling free speech was appalling to his father and uncle.
Kennedy is the son of slain former Democratic presidential candidate and attorney general Robert Kennedy and nephew of assassinated former President John F. Kennedy.
“Censorship is antithetical to our party,” Kennedy said. “It was appalling to my father, to my uncle, to FDR, to Harry Truman, to Thomas Jefferson as the chairman referred to. It is the basis for democracy,” reported Fox News.
Kennedy noted the Biden administration tried to censor his comments on social media about vaccinations.
“They had to invent a new word called ‘malinformation’ to censor people like me,” he said, per Fox News. “Malinformation is information that is true, but it is inconvenient to the government, that they don’t want people to hear.”
Kennedy has been polling as high as 20% in his longshot bid for the 2024 Democratic presidential nomination against President Joe Biden.
“The First Amendment was not written for easy speech,” he added, per Fox News. “It was written for the speech that nobody likes you for.”
RFK Jr. also talked about another uncle, the late U.S. Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA).
“My uncle Edward Kennedy has more legislation with his name on it than any senator in United States history,” he said, reported Fox News. “Why is that? Because he was able to reach across the aisle, because he didn’t deal in the insults, because he didn’t try to censor people.”
Democrats fought hard against Kennedy’s testifying. They decried his views on vaccinations and recent comments that COVID-19 might have been designed to hurt Jews and Chinese the least.
“COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” Kennedy said previously, reported the Washington Examiner, adding, “We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not, but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact.”
In the end, committee chair Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) allowed Kennedy to speak to the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) attempted to move the testimony into an executive session but was voted down. “Mr. Kennedy has repeatedly made despicable antisemitic and anti-Asian comments,” she said, reported The Hill.
Kennedy said at the hearing, “In my entire life, I have never uttered a phrase that was either racist or antisemitic,” reported the Washington Examiner.
A non-voting delegate to the House from the Virgin Islands tore into Kennedy during her opening statement.
“They intentionally chose to elevate this rhetoric to give these harmful dangerous views a platform in the halls of the United States Congress. That’s endorsing that speech. That’s not just supporting free speech. They have co-signed on idiotic bigoted messaging,” Democrat Stacey Plaskett said, according to The Hill.
“There’s no doubt as to why they’re making the choice. It’s not [to] guard free speech or to ensure equality for all. All of this … is to show us by their conduct, over and over again, that any attack on Joe Biden to get Donald Trump back in the White House, is what they need to do.”