Newsmax Spent Summer Promoting RFK Jr.’s Presidential Bid

Newsmax and its columnists were quick to start promoting Robert Kennedy Jr.’s presidential campaign — not because it actually wants him to win, of course, but out of the hope that it might hurt President Biden’s re-election efforts. That promotion — and amping up of his alleged victimhood over his anti-vaxxer conspiracy theories being fact-checked — continued over the summer:

• RFK Jr. to Newsmax: Dems Engaging in Censorship
• Instagram Reinstates RFK Jr. Account
• Jack Dorsey Endorses RFK Jr.’s Bid for President
• Progressives Seek Alternatives as RFK Jr. Rises
• RFK Jr.: Climate Change Being Exploited to Push Totalitarianism
• RFK Jr. Challenging Limits of Speech, Censorship
• RFK Jr. to Newsmax: Deescalate Military Tensions With China
• YouTube Removes Another RFK Jr. Interview
• RFK Jr. to Newsmax: Ruling Against Biden Censorship Will Survive SCOTUS
• RFK Jr.’s Campaign Raked in $3 Million in 3 Days
• RFK Jr: Trump Is ‘Most Successful Debater’ in US
• RFK Jr. to Testify at House Hearing on Govt Censorship
• Rep. Chip Roy to Newsmax: Dems Trying to Silence RFK Jr.
• RFK Jr. Calls for Investigation of Biden Corruption
• RFK Jr. to Newsmax: Group Canceled NY Panel Event With Rabbi
• Super PAC Says RFK Jr. Collected $6.47 Million in July
• RFK Jr. Blasts DNC For Refusing Debates
• RFK Jr. to Newsmax: DNC Opposes Me Because I’m Threat to Biden
• RFK Jr. Calls Out Biden’s ‘Fitness,’ Calls for a Debate

Newsmax even uncritically touted Kennedy insisting that Russia has been “acting in good faith” when it comes to ending invasion of Ukraine, even though Newsmax has been a vocal supporter of Ukraine.

Newsmax also played cleanup for Kennedy after he made the bizarre claim that the COVID-19 virus was “ethnically targeted” to spare Jews. After running a wire article critical of Kennedy, it gave him airtime on Newsmax TV to defend himself:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told Newsmax on Thursday that he has never been antisemitic and a smear campaign against him is trying to censor him from speaking out about the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines and other topics.

“I said this under oath today because I’m so angry at those charges,” Kennedy, who testified earlier in the day before the House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government, told “The Record With Greta Van Susteren.”

“In my entire life, I have never uttered a single antisemitic phrase, word or anything, or racist [phrase]. Because of my family, and because I’ve spent a lot of time in Israel, and I have an organization over there, my support for Israel is stronger than anybody on Capitol Hill.

[…]

During the hearing, Democrats grilled Kennedy over reported comments he made that the COVID-19 vaccine was ethnically targeted to affect whites and Blacks and spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese. He claimed he was referring to how the U.S. and other governments are developing ethnically targeted bioweapons and that a 2021 study of the coronavirus showed that COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races.

“I’ve been smeared using phrases that were taken completely out of context and attributing meanings to them that I never intended, and it’s a way of censoring me,” Kennedy said.

The study Kennedy cited, however, said nothing about the virus being “ethnically targeted.” The Newsmax article did not explain what, exactly, was purportedly taken out of context. The article also did not mention that Kennedy previously claimed that opponents of vaccine mandates (like himself) had it worse than Anne Frank during the Holocaust; Kennedy eventually apologized for that.

Newsmax did more cleanup for Kennedy after his July 20 congressional appearance, in an article by Solange Reyner:

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s 2021 tweet about the death of baseball legend Hank Aaron after he received a COVID-19 vaccine was just “pointing out facts,” Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, argued Thursday during a GOP-led hearing on government censorship by the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government.”When you look at Mr. Kennedy’s tweet, there was nothing there that was factually inaccurate. Hank Aaron, real person, great American, passed away after he got the vaccine. Pointing out, just pointing out facts,” Jordan said in opening remarks while discussing an email the White House sent to Twitter to request Kennedy’s tweet be taken down.

In fact, Aaron died of natural causes, not the vaccine, which means Kennedy was lying by suggesting otherwise.

Newsmax also gave Kennedy space to whine on July 28 that he was not being given Secret Service protection, which is given only to “major” candidates — something he has not yet proven himself to be. A paywalled Aug. 1 article, though, seemed to admit that Kennedy was pushing this claim “is likely a bid to try to win over voters as he seeks to topple the sitting president in his party’s primary, political strategists say.”

There were a few instances in which Newsmax treated Kennedy like the Democrat he claims to be. A July 12 article by Nicole Wells repeated an Axios report that Kennedy “is flouting established party custom by selling merchandise that is not made in America or by union workers.” An Aug. 15 article by Jeffrey Rodack noted confusion over Kennedy’s position on abortion after saying he supported government restrictions on it (which warranted a second article as well); his campaign later had to issue a clarification of his stance. An Aug. 30 article by Nick Koutsobinas, however, highlighted one of the few views on which Kennedy is actually like a Democrat, calling for government-subsidized home loans.