Watch: CNN Caught Editing RFK Jr Speech To Mislead Viewers
When he appeared on CNN last week, independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. was confronted with a video from one of his speeches -- a video CNN clipped to convey a false impression that he had compared Covid restrictions to conditions in Nazi Germany.
The dishonest ambush came on Dec. 15 as Kennedy was interviewed by former MSNBC anchor Kasie Hunt. Hunt showed a video of Kennedy speaking at a January 2022 rally in Washington, which includes a passage in which he said...
"Even in Hitler's Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.
Today, the mechanisms are being put in place that will make it so none of us can run and none of us can hide."
Hunt had framed the clip to suggest Kennedy was specifically comparing Covid mandates to Hitler's Germany.
As we'll soon show, that was false.
In the passage from which the above excerpt was drawn, Kennedy was broadly addressing the rise of technology that threatens to enable a "turnkey totalitarianism" that would wildly surpass the capabilities of Hitler's Nazi regime.
To spice things up, Hunt next displayed a tweet from Kennedy's own wife, Curb Your Enthusiasm actress Cheryl Hines, which came a few days after the speech.
At the time, Hines had been repeatedly nagged by NBC News reporter Ben Collins and others on social media asking if she stood by Kennedy's remarks. She eventually folded and posted a tweet in which she threw her own husband under the bus, embracing the ridiculous, politically-correct notion -- propped up by the likes of the Anti-Defamation League -- that nobody's allowed to compare anything to the Holocaust:
My husband’s reference to Anne Frank at a mandate rally in D.C. was reprehensible and insensitive. The atrocities that millions endured during the Holocaust should never be compared to anyone or anything. His opinions are not a reflection of my own.
— Cheryl Hines (@CherylHines) January 25, 2022
"Is she right?" Hunt asked Kennedy. "No, she's not right," replied Kennedy, noting that Hines felt compelled to issue the tweet because, at the time, CNN's Jake Tapper had similarly distorted Kennedy's remarks and used them to contrive a bogus controversy.
Kennedy asked Hunt to play the full clip of his remarks. Exasperatingly, Hunt asked the producers to play the same cropped passage again, prompting Kennedy to interject and reiterate that he wanted CNN viewers to see the full context. Hunt replied, "We do not have a longer version of the clip," condescendingly concluding, "I do think that the clip that we have is very clear."
"What you're doing is misleading the public right now," said Kennedy.
Here's a nice breakdown that first shows CNN's framing of RFK's speech, and then the full passage that contained RFK Jr's allusion to Nazi Germany -- not as mirroring the then-current state of affairs in America, but as a contrast to a looming menace around the globe, as governments are poised to obtain powers over individuals never before available:
Wow!
— Christian (@ChristianM_74) December 22, 2023
CNN caught red-handed lying about Robert Kennedy’s record by selectively editing a clip.
RFK Jr.’s campaign put out this video showing the full context of his statement next to the version CNN aired, which mischaracterises part of his speech to mean something he didn’t say. pic.twitter.com/vzRq2vAcPR
...and here's a transcript of the key passage from that January 23, 2022 speech:
What we're seeing today is what I call turnkey totalitarianism. They are putting in place all of these technological mechanisms for control that we've never seen before. It's been the ambition of every totalitarian state from the beginning of mankind, to control every aspect of behavior, of conduct, of thought, and to obliterate dissent.
None of them have been able to do it. They didn't have the technological capacity. Even in Hitler's Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland, you could hide in an attic like Anne Frank did. I visited, in 1962, East Germany with my father and met people who had climbed the wall and escaped. So, it was possible. Many died trying, but it was possible. Today, the mechanisms are being put in place that will make it so none of us can run and none of us can hide.
Within five years, we're going to see 415,000 low-orbit satellites. Bill Gates says his 65,000 satellites alone will be able to look at every square inch of the planet, 24 hours a day. They're putting in 5G to harvest our data and control our behavior. Digital currency, that will allow them to punish us from a distance and cut off our food supply.
Vaccine passports...you have a series of rights. As flawed as our government is, you can still go out and go to a bar, you can go to a sporting event, you can get on a bus or an airplane and you can travel. You have certain freedoms, you can get educated, et cetera. The minute they hand you that vaccine passport, every right that you have is transformed into a privilege contingent upon your obedience to arbitrary government dictates. It will make you a slave. And what do we do about this? What do we do? We resist."
When she told Kennedy that CNN didn't have the full context available, Hunt promised, "I will make sure that we look at the further remarks as well." However, there's no indication of that promised follow-up. Indeed, in a CNN article summarizing Hunt's interview, the network doubled down on the deception, flatly declaring that Kennedy "compared the Covid lockdowns to Nazi Germany, arguing that 'even in Hitler’s Germany, you could cross the Alps into Switzerland'."
The mistreatment of Kennedy comes as he continues to hold substantial support among voters desperate for something other than a Biden or Trump re-run:
A new Quinnipiac University nationwide poll has Biden leading Trump by one point in a head-to-head contest, and by two in a three-way contest with Kennedy -- with RFK Jr grabbing a substantial 22% share.
A Monmouth University poll found a comparably balanced impact of Kennedy's presence, but with Kennedy drawing a little more from Biden than Trump.
In the Quinnipiac poll, Kennedy is the top choice of independents -- 36% prefer Kennedy to 32% for Biden and 26% for Trump.
Of course, the rubber really meets the road in individual state races, and some are hoping Kennedy can throw a wrench in the Red-Blue duopoly that's steering America to ruin.
"With the right electoral college vote strategy, he could pick off one or more states, thereby throwing the election into the US House of Representatives for the first time since 1824," writes David Stockman.
While Kennedy's ultimate impact on the major party candidates is still uncertain and evolving, one thing is clear: CNN and the entire establishment badly want the Kennedy wild card out of the 2024 deck.