Democrats Call on Jordan To Disinvite RFK Jr. From Testifying After Comments

In response to attorney Robert Kennedy Jr.’s remarks last week about Covid and its victims, some are calling on Congressman Jim Jordan to rescind his invitation to the 2024 presidential candidate to testify on vaccines.Mr. Kennedy, who is seeking the Democratic nomination, is scheduled to testify before the Republican-controlled House select subcommittee on the weaponization of the federal government on July 20 at the invitation of Mr. Jordan. The purpose of the hearing is to “examine the federal government’s role in censoring Americans … and Big Tech’s collusion with out-of-control government agencies to silence speech,” according to the committee. Scheduled to testify at this hearing are a Breitbart writer, Emma-Jo Morris, Louisiana’s assistant attorney general, Dean John Sauer, and Mr. Kennedy.At a raucous, apparently boozy dinner last week, Mr. Kennedy claimed that Covid was a virus that was “ethnically targeted” to affect white and Black people and to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, according to reporting from the New York Post.“There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. Covid-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Mr. Kennedy reportedly said. “Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”Mr. Kennedy added, “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.”Mr. Kennedy later tweeted that the Post was “mistaken,” and that “I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews.”Mr. Kennedy later claimed that he simply “accurately pointed out — during an off-the-record conversation — that the U.S. and other governments are developing ethnically targeted bioweapons and that a 2021 study of the Covid-19 virus shows that Covid-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races.”An adviser to Mr. Kennedy on Jewish and Israeli issues, Morton Klein, defended the candidate, saying that “he is no antisemite, he is a philosemite.”“I know that he loves, respects, and admires the Jewish people and the Jewish State of Israel, as did his father and his uncle President John Kennedy,” Mr. Klein said.Mr. Kennedy’s remarks immediately drew criticism from New York Democrats such as Congressman Ritchie Torres, who said that it’s “hard to imagine a son who has done more to dishonor his father’s name than RFK Jr.”The Democratic National Committee chairman, Jaime Harrison, also said, “These are deeply troubling comments, and I want to make clear that they do not represent the views of the Democratic Party.”Now, one Democratic group, the Congressional Integrity Project, is calling on Mr. Jordan to rescind his invitation to Mr. Kennedy.“Not only is he a known conspiracy theorist whose anti-vaccine views have put lives in jeopardy, a Russian propagandist who has sided with Putin over Ukraine, and a total whack job whose views and conspiracy theories would be completely ignored but for his last name, but we now have video evidence of his horrific antisemitic and xenophobic views which are simply beyond the pale,” a letter sent by the group’s director, Kyle Herrig, reads.Elected officials such as Congressman Josh Gottheimer, who is Jewish, also called on Mr. Jordan to disinvite Mr. Kennedy, saying, “RFK Jr. is a disgrace to the Kennedy name and the Democratic Party.”“Speaker McCarthy and Jim Jordan should disinvite this antisemite from testifying before Congress and spewing his misinformation and hate,” Mr. Gottheimer said.Mr. Jordan has not yet commented on the calls for him to disinvite Mr. Kennedy and did not immediately respond to a request for comment from the Sun.This isn’t the first time Mr. Jordan has faced attacks from Democrats over his invitation to Mr. Kennedy to testify before Congress.Congressman Dan Goldman, who sits on the weaponization subcommittee, said that Mr. Jordan’s invitation to Mr. Kennedy was “yet another cog” in an attempt to elevate Mr. Kennedy’s presidential campaign.“What is clear from all of their investigations is they are solely focused on politically harming President Biden,” Mr. Goldman told Business Insider.The publication also reported that Mr. Jordan is personal friends with Mr. Kennedy’s campaign manager, Dennis Kucinich, who was once the congressman for Ohio’s 10th district and is also a Democrat.“He’s a great guy, he’s truly a friend,” Mr. Jordan said of Mr Kucinich. “You know, he’s lefty. He’s liberal, I’m conservative. But he’s an old-school liberal who believes in the First Amendment.”

Democrats Call on Jordan To Disinvite RFK Jr. From Testifying After Comments

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