Another News Outlet Cuts Off Robert Kennedy, Jr. During Comments About COVID Vaccines

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., founder of the nonprofit Children's Health Defense, in Los Angeles, Calif., on Feb. 6, 2023. (York Du/The Epoch Times)

A second news outlet cut Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. off after he started talking about COVID-19 vaccines, drawing criticism.

Kennedy, a Democrat running for president, said in an appearance on “Piers Morgan Uncensored” that the COVID-19 vaccines are “neither safe nor effective.”

The program airs on TalkTV in the United Kingdom and Fox Nation in the United States.

Piers Morgan, the show’s host, said that view “is heavily disputed by a lot of top scientists who say that comparative to other vaccines, it was very safe.”

“Obviously, like all vaccines, it’s had issues. Obviously they had to move at the speed of light because it was a novel virus that was killing a lot of people, but it wasn’t an unsafe vaccine. But all vaccines unfortunately have side effects for a certain percentage of people that take them,” Morgan added.

Kennedy responded by noting that the COVID-19 vaccines have side effects, which include heart inflammation and deadly blood clotting.

“I would argue that the science is very clear right now that they caused a lot more problems than they averted,” Kennedy said. “And if you look at the countries that did not vaccinate, they had the lowest death rates. They had the lowest COVID and infection rates.”

Other data shows a “direct correlation” between excess deaths and high vaccination rates in developed countries, he said.

“We in our country are the most, one of the most heavily vaccinated countries in the world. We also had the highest COVID death rate in the world,” he said. “We have 4.2 percent of the global population. We have 16 percent of the COVID deaths. That’s not a success story.”

Kennedy tried to continue talking but Morgan then cut him off.

“We’ve run out of time. I’ve got to end there,” Morgan said.

Kennedy’s campaign and TalkTV did not respond to requests for comment and requests for citations for the statements made during the program.

Vaccine Efficacy

Morgan took to Twitter later to write: “The covid vaccines were comparatively safe and incredibly effective in stopping many people getting seriously ill or dying, but they didn’t stop transmission as the experts originally thought, and as with all vaccines, some people had adverse reactions. These are facts.”

The vaccines performed well early on against symptomatic infection, according to trial data and observational studies, but they have done worse and worse as newer variants have emerged. The latest versions provide short-lived protection against hospitalization and barely any shielding against symptomatic infection, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A growing number of experts have called for the removal of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines from the market due to safety concerns, though some experts still recommend vaccination.

The incident came after ABC News refused to air Kennedy’s remarks about COVID-19 vaccines, telling viewers that Kennedy “made false claims about the COVID-19 vaccines.”

The flap prompted Kennedy to accuse ABC of violating a federal law that bars some news outlets from censoring candidates for public office.

ABC did not return a request for comment.

Jonathan Turley, a professor at George Washington University Law School, said what ABC did was not a violation of the law but that the censorship was wrong.

“ABC can challenge such views, but it is actively seeking to prevent voters from hearing a presidential candidate on an issue of great public interest and debate,” Turley wrote in a blog post. “It is particularly troubling after prior media censorship has been shown to have been wrong in silencing dissenting scientific views.”