America's Talking - RFK Jr. Testifies About Censorship Before Congress

Episode Date: July 23, 2023

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. testified before Congress Thursday about government censorship of Americans, especially related to the COVID-19 pandemic. Reporting has shown that the federal government has worked with companies like Facebook and Twitter to have posts removed on a range of topics, including COVID-19 and the vaccine. Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/america-in-focus/support Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hello and welcome to America and Focus powered by the Center Square. I'm Dan McAulib, executive editor of the Center Square Newswire Service. Joining me today is Casey Harper, the Center Square's Washington, D.C. Bureau Chief. We are recording this on Friday, July 21st. Casey, Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was before Congress this week, testifying about government censorship of Americans, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. What did Kennedy have to say? Yeah, this is a really interesting hearing this week. Kennedy appearing before lawmakers, especially he's risen in popularity and notoriety, though among Democratic primary voters. He's still trailing Biden by, you know, you could say, you could guess 40 or you could say 50 based on the polling done last month, you know, 50 somewhere in that neighborhood points behind Biden. So it's seeming pretty doubtful right now that Kennedy is going to be able to catch up on Biden because of how the, they're not even going to have debates

and the Democrats aren't even going to have debates to give him a chance. So that's going to be tough for him, unless these investigations we've been talking about and writing about at the center square.com really ramp up to a point where Biden is in a lot of trouble. Then RFK maybe could slide in. But at that point, you might see other people like Gavin Newsom come forward.

All I have to say, that's who this RFK guy is, our junior guy is for those who don't know. He's challenging Biden. And he really became especially popular, during COVID because he was very skeptical of the COVID mandates, COVID, you know, vaccines and masks. And as a public Democrat being outspoken about those things, he kind of got a lot of attention because that was very much in the face of what Democrats were doing at the time. And what he testified this week at the hearing about was really the backlash and the censorship

that he experienced this week or over during that time during COVID from his positions, right? So, of course, you know, we've talked a lot on this podcast about, for example, how, you know, federal law enforcement pressured social media companies to censor things around, you know, COVID policies, around the Hunter Biden laptop story. And what was really interesting and I didn't know very much about before this hearing, but RFK Jr. pointed to something called the trusted news initiative. So this is this quote, the TNI is a news censorship cartel whose members include the BBC, the Washington Post, Associated Press, Reuters, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, whenever non-mainstream online news publishers report facts or viewpoints deemed by the TNI to be, quote, misinformation, TNI members, censor, shadow ban, or de-platform those publishers. This so-called misinformation is frequently included wholly legitimate, accurate reporting, for example, that COVID might have originated

in a virology lab in Wuhan or that the COVID vaccine did not prevent infection or transmission. So this is, I would love to get your reaction to that. But we've heard a lot about government censorship, but this is so interesting seeing these major media companies and major tech companies colluding together to decide what's true, what's not, and not always getting it right. Well, it's been well documented now that just take one portion of that statement. It's well documented now that the COVID vaccines do not prevent infection or transmission. Right. But when the vaccines were first revealed or first put to market, and then for months and months and afterwards, this kind of, that kind of information was suppressed by mainstream media,

social media giants like Facebook and Twitter. Remember more than a year into the vaccines being out there, President Biden and others were saying, this is a pandemic of the unvaccines. vaccinated when it turns out that none of that was true. I guess it's a little bit refreshing to hear a Democrat say this very publicly, but of course he's being vilified. Democrats in Congress tried to censor him before his appearance before Congress this week. Yeah, they did. And then when he came before the hearing, they just absolutely blasted him and called him a racist and interrogated him and tried to discredit him in every way. possible, but this has real life consequences. I mean, I've been amazed. I don't know if you've really been following the Johnson & Johnson vaccine, but about 19 million people in the U.S. got the J&J vaccine, right? And we're basically told that if they didn't get it, they could die, right? Or at the very, or maybe not die, but give, you know, COVID to their grandmother

because they weren't vaccinated and then she would die. So they were really pressured into this. And now that vaccine is no longer available. And like it's been, right? I mean, pretty sure, Didn't they remove the FDA approval for the J&J vaccine? I know it's definitely no longer available. So it's like, wow, how can 20 million people get rushed a vaccine? And then they're forced and told by all the information power centers that they have to get it. And now it no longer be available. And now, of course, we know about the almost immediate side effects of the J&J vaccine for women.

For example, the clotting and things like that. So, I mean, there's just an erosion of trust. And when people hear something like, we're just in a totally different world, Dan, where you can say something like, yeah, Wapow, BBC, AP, Google, Facebook, and Microsoft are colluding to censor people. The average Americans like, oh, yeah, I mean, probably, you know, it's not surprising. Of course, that's what happening. And that's kind of my experience. A lot of people, not just famous people like RFK Jr, have had their posts about COVID, either, you know, flagged or taken down or they've been shadow banned. So this has become, I don't. don't know. I mean, I don't know how we, uh, get to a place where, where censorship isn't the norm. I think, you know, I like, I would like to believe that what we're doing, Dan, with, you know, independent podcasts like this, writing at the center square.com where people can, you know, find what we try to make, objective reporting, digging into the facts, uh, and uncensored, whether we, you know, personally like the outcome or not. Maybe that is the solution. But it's hard to get your voice

through and break through when people who control how that, how people even Google things, are against you. Yeah. And when when the federal government is colluding with these major media outlets, social media outlets, influencing them, persuading them to remove information that now turns out to be accurate, that is government censorship. That is a violation of Americans' First Amendment rights. What's being done about that? I don't know. I mean, the one thing that's been a big game changer recently is a, you know, a court injunction against the federal government that was, you know, Missouri v. Biden earlier this month. The judge ruled in this injunction that White House and the FBI must stop pressuring social media companies to censor

conservative speech pointing to the First Amendment. So if this could somehow get up, you know, to the Supreme Court and we could get some kind of more broad ruling about, you know, about the First Amendment, I think that's what's needed. Because There's a lot of a lack of clarity around how the First Amendment applies to a digital world, right? Because, you know, you might say you have free speech on Facebook, but Facebook is a private company that owns everything that you're even looking at on the computer when you're on that site, right? So do you really have free speech in someone else's home or someone else's company? But at what point does Facebook get so large that they're more like a public utility? These are kind of the questions that have been debated, and people go back and forth.

but we don't have really an established decisive thing about at what point is a private company or the government violating the First Amendment on the Internet because that's where this whole battle is, really, is on the Internet. And this court ruling is, of course, more on the conservatives' favor. But this is the kind of thing that has to get worked out. And maybe the Supreme Court will address it. We'll just have to see. And it's, let me be clear, but we do have to close. You know, private companies, they own their sites. Meadow owns Facebook.

Facebook can do, generally speaking, not absolutely, but Facebook can do what it wants with its site. But when government gets involved to influence Facebook, that's when it's censorship and First Amendment violations. But Casey,

we are out of time. Listeners can keep up with this story and more at thecenter square.com. For Casey Harper, I'm Dan McAulb. Please subscribe and thank you for listening.