Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and his longshot 2024 presidential campaign continues to be a thorn in the side of Democrats and President Joe Biden. Since entering the race in April, Kennedy has held double digit favorability ratings and support amongst Democratic voters in an array of polls, which are far higher figures than most challengers to an incumbent president usually command.
As a result of the relative success, the media and left have been going after the environmental lawyer for his outspokenness on vaccines, his positions on the COVID-19 pandemic, and even his fitness routine. The latest example was his sit down with The New Yorker editor David Remnick.
On Monday’s show, Megyn was joined by Stu Burguiere, host of BlazeTV’s Stu Does America, and author and journalist David Marcus to discuss the media and left’s reaction to Kennedy’s campaign.
RFK, Jr. Talks to The New Yorker
Kennedy has not shied away from making the rounds to discuss his 2024 presidential bid, and he has visited plenty of media outlets that traditionally are friendly to Democratic politicians. He has not received as warm a welcome, as was the case on his recent appearance with Remnick on The New Yorker’s politics podcast, The Political Scene, in an episode titled “The Conspiracy Theories of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.“
A portion of the conversation focused on Kennedy’s stance on vaccines and links to autism. “The attacks on RFK, Jr. that he’s a conspiracy theorist ramp up dramatically by the day, and he sat with David Remnick of The New Yorker who tried to get around really getting into what RFK, Jr. has said about vaccines in a clever though totally dishonest way because it’s a lot of work to take him on on vaccines,” Megyn explained. “He spent his life researching [vaccines], litigating them, and has a wealth of knowledge that no reporter is ever going to have.”
Remnick shared with RFK, Jr. and the audience that he has a child with autism, but he does not wish to dive into any of the Democratic hopeful’s thoughts on the topic other than to offer a blanket criticism. “I’ll be very honest with you, I don’t want to engage you in the deep detail on the question of vaccinations and your belief stated in the past that vaccines are responsible for autism to some degree,” Remnick said before asking Kennedy if he has “any second thoughts about this.”
Megyn was unimpressed with the approach. “David starts it with, ‘I have a child who’s got autism’… with all due respect to him and his child, it doesn’t give him a particular insight on what causes autism,” Megyn said. “Remnick is too lazy to go [into it with Kennedy], so he’s got to play the card about his own child… [and say] you’re not worth debating on it because your views are just downright dangerous.”
As someone who has interviewed RFK, Jr. several times, she believes Remnick did not want to put in the work. “Trust me, David Remnick, some of us spent weeks preparing for our interview with RFK, Jr. so that we could challenge him,” Megyn noted. “That’s called, um, your job but [this] is how The New Yorker chose to handle it… How lazy.”
When you look at how Kennedy has fared in the press at large, Burguiere said it is par for the course. “I mean, why bother getting ready for an interview when it’s much easier to do that thing because everyone in the media will cheer it on when you say, ‘Well, I’m not going to engage you on this,’” he explained. “We saw this with the Joe Rogan/[Peter Hotez] debate story from a couple of weeks ago – you actually get cheering and adulation from the media for avoiding these types of conversations.”
Delegitimizing RFK, Jr.
While you can look at Remnick’s interview style and call it lazy, as Megyn did, you can also see the ulterior motives that may be at play. “It’s worse than laziness because the purpose of this is to delegitimize not just RFK, Jr. on the vaccine question, but RFK, Jr. across the board,” Marcus said.
The reason, in his opinion, is that Kennedy has been willing to position himself as a contrarian of sorts. “RFK, Jr. will say things that almost any other Democrat won’t say,” Marcus said, listing his criticism of the war in Ukraine and his statements about biological men not competing in women’s sports as two such examples. “Find me another Democrat, find me any elected official in the Democrat Party, who believes this thing that the vast majority of Americans believe,” he said. “RFK is very dangerous because he’ll say so.”
Marcus said the actions of the left and media prove that they are worried about the sway Kennedy might hold. “When you have that kind of a danger, the way that the progressive left tries to take care of it is by saying, ‘Well, look at how dangerous this person is – if you even listen to this person or engage with this person, then you’re part of the problem,’” he noted. “Unfortunately for them, I think RFK, Jr.’s messages are starting to penetrate a little bit and these are issues that they’re going to have to try to honestly deal with and not just deflect in this rather shameful way.”
You can check out Megyn’s full interview with Burguiere and Murcus by tuning in to episode 584 on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you like to listen. And don’t forget that you can catch The Megyn Kelly Show live on SiriusXM’s Triumph (channel 111) weekdays from 12pm to 2pm ET.