Democrat presidential candidate Robert Francis Kennedy Jr. said during an interview on Saturday that he opposes allowing biological males to compete against females in women’s athletics.
RFK Jr., who is surging in Democrat primary polls, amassing nearly 20% support despite having only recently announced his campaign for president, made the remarks during an interview with CNN’s Michael Smerconish.
Kennedy made his remarks toward the end of the interview during a lightning round.
The first question that Kennedy was asked about was the feud between Disney and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis. DeSantis implemented a state-run board that took away special powers that Disney was given back in the 1960s to govern itself — privileges that no other company in the state had.
“I have no comment on that because I just don’t know enough about it,” Kennedy responded. “I’ve been totally on the sidelines on that. I’m not delving into it.”
Smerconish then asked Kennedy what his thoughts were about biological males competing against females in women’s sports.
“I would, I think that I am against people participating in women’s sports who are biologically male,” Kennedy responded. “I think women have worked too hard to develop … women’s sports over the past 30 years. I watched it happen. And I don’t think that’s fair.”
Kennedy made waves this week after ABC News admitted on Friday that it censored some of its Thursday interview with him.
ABC News journalist Linsey Davis said before the interview aired, “RFK Jr. is one of the biggest voices pushing anti-vaccine rhetoric, regularly distributing misinformation and disinformation about vaccines, which scientific and medical experts overwhelmingly say are safe and effective based on rigorous scientific studies.”
After the interview, Davis revealed that the network decided to censor some of his remarks about vaccines. “We should note that during our conversation, Kennedy made false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines,” she said. “We’ve used our editorial judgment in not including extended portions of that exchange in our interview.”
Davis cited the American Academy of Pediatrics and the advocacy group Autism Speaks to say that Kennedy made “misleading claims about the relationship between vaccination and autism.”
Kennedy responded to the censorship by citing a statute that he claims makes it illegal for TV networks to censor presidential candidates.
“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,” he said. “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,” he said. “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.”
Kennedy said that Americans deserved to hear the full interview so they could make up their own minds and that democracy could not 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,” he concluded.
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