Robert Kennedy Jr. on Friday accused ABC News of violating 47 U.S. Code § 315, which prohibits the censorship of candidates for public office, after the network cut “extended portions” of his recent interview. ABC justified the move by asserting that he had made “false claims” about COVID jabs and the alleged link between childhood vaccines and autism.
“We should note that during our conversation Kennedy made false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines,” said ABC News’ Linsey Davis regarding the interview that aired on Thursday. Without providing evidence, Davis went on to claim that “data shows COVID-19 vaccines prevented millions of hospitalizations and deaths from the disease.”
Kennedy’s website, the Defender, cited statistics earlier this month showing that there have been 45 times as many deaths following COVID Shots in just two years than all flu vaccine-related deaths since 1990.
The cost of injecting healthy people, “especially children,” with a Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccine “outweighs any claimed though invalidated benefits,” said researchers who analyzed adverse events data from multiple sources.
Davis argued that Kennedy had also “made misleading claims about the relationship between vaccination and autism,” a subject she brought up herself during the interview. Again, without providing evidence, the host told her audience that “research shows that the vaccines and ingredients used in the vaccines do not cause autism, including multiple studies involving more than a million children and major medical associations like the American Academy of Pediatrics and the advocacy Group Autism speaks.”
ABC is a propaganda network.https://t.co/AuEzbebsYF
— Collin Rugg (@CollinRugg) April 28, 2023
The Defender has covered the alleged links between vaccines and autism extensively.
During the interview ironically, Kennedy pointed out several times that censorship has become a huge problem in the United States, especially within the Democrat party, which he called “the party of censorship.”
RFK Jr. differentiated himself from Joe Biden on that issue and several others.
“I don’t believe that we should be the party of war. I don’t believe that we should be the party of Wall Street. I don’t believe that we should let neocons dictate our foreign policy and I don’t believe in censorship, for starters,” he said.
One of his top objectives if elected would be eliminating regulatory agency capture, RFK Jr. told Davis.
“I think I know more about how to fix the regulatory agencies than any other politician in this country because I spent 40 years suing them, Kennedy explained. “When you sue a regulator, you get kind of a PHD in how they work and how to unravel this kind of culture of corporate capture and corruption. And there are way we can fix these agencies, and we can do it very quickly,” he added.
Kennedy noted that 90 percent of the bureaucrats who work in these captured U.S. agencies are “good Americans” but the people who rise to the top in those agencies tend to be those who are “in the tank” with certain industries and are “willing to carry water” for them.
“They’re the ones that last for 50 years. They rise because they are willing to do favors for industry and take direction from industry,” Kennedy explained.
Later in the interview, Davis challenged RFK Jr. on his belief that certain childhood vaccines are linked to autism.
“You said in the past that there is a correlation between vaccines leading to autism. That’s totally been debunked,” she said.
“Wait a minute, by who? Who debunked it?” Kennedy asked.
“We’ve not seen any kind of scientific connection from the CDC, the World Health Organization, the National Academy of Sciences,” the reporter replied, apparently oblivious to the point he had made earlier.
“Those are captured agencies,” he told her.
“So you think they’re all in cahoots,” she shot back.
“Yeah,” Kennedy replied. “They’re all captive.”
The rest of his answer about the link between vaccines and autism was edited out.
None of his comments about the COVID jabs seems to have made the cut.
“We’ve used our editorial judgement of not including extended portions of that exchange in our interview,” Davis said in her disclaimer.
On Twitter, RFK Jr. said most of the interview was censored, and accused ABC of violating U.S. Code 47, which prohibits censorship of candidates running for office.
“47 USC 315 makes it illegal for TV networks to censor Presidential candidates but Thursday, ABC showed its contempt for the law, democracy, and its audience by cutting most of the content of my interview with host Linsey Davis leaving only cherry-picked snippets and a defamatory disclaimer,” Kennedy wrote, going on to call the segment that aired, “a hatchet job.”
Offering no evidence, @ABC justified this act of censorship by falsely asserting that I made “false claims.” In truth, Davis engaged me in a lively, informative, and mutually respectful debate on the government’s Covid countermeasures.
I’m happy to supply citations to support every statement I made during that exchange. I’m certain that ABC’s decision to censor came as a shock to Linsey as well. Instead of journalism, the public saw a hatchet job. Instead of information, they got defamation and unsheathed Pharma propaganda.
Americans deserve to hear the full interview so they can make up their own minds. How can democracy function without a free and unbiased press? As President, I will free FCC from its corporate captors and force the agency to follow the law by revoking the licenses of networks that put the mercantile ambitions of advertisers ahead of the public interest.
You can watch the censored interview below: