Anti-vaccine activist and — for some reason — Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. got his own town hall on Wednesday night, courtesy of the cable channel NewsNation. And not surprisingly, RFK Jr.’s talk was on the brand.
On the program moderated by NewsNation’s Elizabeth Vargas, Kennedy Jr. presented an unusual pitch to Democratic primary voters: a bag of conspiracy theories that certainly included his pet obsession with vaccines, but also “radiation” from 5G towers. including warnings about depression, and even an attempt to link the mass shooting crisis to antidepressants. That’s a lot, so let’s dive in.
However, Kennedy’s pitch was not limited to just conspiracy theories. Meanwhile, 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 truth to the American people, speaking at the network’s Chicago headquarters.
“The only way we can fix this country is for the government to start telling the truth,” he said.
Moderator Elizabeth Vargas asked Kennedy if he was a “spoiler” in this election, noting that he receives praise from Republicans such as Donald Trump, who has called him “smart”.
“I am proud that Pres. Trump likes me. Although I do not agree with him on most of his issues. I don’t want to alienate people. My aim is to find the values that we have in common,” said Kennedy, an environmental advocate and the son of former US senator and attorney general Robert F. Kennedy and the president’s nephew. John F. Kennedy.
Kennedy said he wanted the US to get out of foreign entanglements such as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and to finance Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression.
“We killed more Iraqis than Saddam Hussein. All this money we are spending on the military is not making us safe and is not making us friends abroad,” he said. “We can’t spend money we don’t have, because we’re so in debt.”
Kennedy said he would spend that money on tackling domestic problems like the opiates and fentanyl addiction crisis, and is in favor of opening up drug treatment to help addiction victims rather than treating them like criminals. . Kennedy, a former addict himself, said he attends nine support group meetings a week to stay clean and sober.
Kennedy said he does not consider marijuana use to be part of a national drug problem. He said he is in favor of completely decriminalizing marijuana and some psychedelic drugs at the federal level and wants a federal tax on these products.
But he had other things on his mind as well as those seemingly reasonable proposals. As he often does, Kennedy denied that he was an anti-vaxxer, and accused critics of “silencing me” who pointed out his views. He also claimed that the vaccines have not been properly tested and suggested that people have little need for them.
“I think most people don’t know where I stand on vaccines, I have never been anti-vaccine. And I’ve said so hundreds and hundreds of times, but it doesn’t matter, because he just has a way of silencing me, using that derogatory word to describe his way of silencing me or marginalizing me. And my position on vaccines, I think almost every American would agree with my stance on vaccines, which is that vaccines should be tested like other drugs, they should be tested for safety,” he said. “And unfortunately, vaccines are not tested for safety. they are not. There are now 72 vaccine doses essentially mandated, he recommends. But they’re actually mandated for American children, none of which have ever been subject to prior licensure. Let’s see a controlled trial.”
Suffice it to say that these claims are not accurate. read more here,
Another health hazard he warned about is “radiation” from 5G towers for cell phones and other technologies. He said that schools should not have 5G towers. This is of course a completely unsupported claim, and an evolution of a conspiracy theory spread during the pandemic that somehow, COVID-19 was caused by 5G signals. It was not. read more here,
And as we said, they tried to blame the mass shooting on anti-depressants. When Vargas said that one of his statements “didn’t mean” that he was the cause of mass shootings, he said, “Of course it does, we should look into it, shouldn’t we?” Shouldn’t we be looking at video games, cell phones and some social, you know, social media stuff? We should be looking at all of these things.”
He then added that there is a study that shows a link between antidepressants and gang violence. But this, by the way, is untrue and has been broken many many, many times, Although this is a popular theory among those who oppose gun bans, with Tucker Carlson,
Vargas said that many Democrats consider him an extremist on such issues, and said that members of the Kennedy family have distanced themselves from him because of his vaccine stance.
In response, Kennedy smilingly asked, “Does your family agree with you on everything,” to which Vargas laughed and said “Not at all,” to which the crowd laughed and applauded.
Kennedy said that the United States is in a struggle for world influence with China, but believes that we should focus more on economic development and less on military spending.
“China wants to dominate the world, but they want to do it economically. I am not afraid of competing with them,” he said.
Talking about the rapid boom of artificial intelligence software, he said, “AI has the potential to do terrible things to us,” and he wants the United States to follow suit, from allies to other countries such as Russia, China and Iran. Work together A plan to keep the human population safe from AI.
Kennedy said that he would begin his presidency by “telling the American people the truth about everything”, even with regard to intelligence agencies and what they do.
But raising concerns that he was running a spoiler campaign that could help Republicans, when asked to pledge support to whoever the Democratic nominee is if it is not him, he refused, although he did call the President. Joe Biden a friend.
Kennedy said, “I plan to win this election, and I don’t have a Plan B.” He said any support he would give to a future candidate would depend on whether they “support democratic values or not.”
