Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise defended a decision to bring Robert F Kennedy Jr to testify on Capitol Hill despite the noted anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and presidential candidates’s antisemitic remarks.
Mr Kennedy will testify before the the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government that House Republicans set up earlier this year. The hearing is ostensibly about examining “federal government’s role in censoring Americans” and “Big Tech’s collusion with out-of-control government agencies to silence speech.”
This comes despite the fact that during the weekend, Mr Kennedy, currently a candidate for the Democratic nomination for president, came under fire for saying that the Covid-19 was “ethnically targeted” to attack caucasians and Black people while it mostly spared Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.
His words earned swift condemnation from many people, including members of his family, such as his sister Kerry Kennedy, who called his remarks “deplorable and untruthful.”
But Mr Scalise defended the subcommittee inviting Mr Kennedy. During a news conference on Tuesday, he initially said he was not sure what a reporter referred to when they brought up the remarks from Mr Kennedy.
“Well, I mean, he’s a Democrat that’s ... talking about how, you’re seeing kind of a selective shutdown of opposing viewpoints,” he said.
Mr Scalise’s remarks come as Republicans have denounced progressive Democrat Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) for saying that Israel is a “racist state.” Ms Jayapal made the remarks in response to pro-Palestinian protesters at the Netroots Nation conference in Chicago this past weekend.
“We’re talking about our stance against antisemitism,” Mr Scalise said. “That’s a problem the Democrat Party’s got.”
House Democratic Leadership – including House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Whip Katherine Clark, Caucus Chairman Pete Aguilar and vice chairman Ted Lieu – all denounced Ms Jayapal’s remarks.
The remarks also come as Israel’s president Isaac Herzog meets with President Joe Biden. Mr Herzog will also address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday.
