Fox News analyst: GOP may have ‘outsmarted themselves’ on support for RFK Jr.

A Fox News contributor suggested Thursday that Republicans might be making a mistake by inviting Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to a House hearing on “weaponization” of the federal government.

“Democrats are going to make him the focus of this hearing, and I think it’s entirely possible Republicans have outsmarted themselves on this one,” Byron York, a columnist at The Washington Examiner and contributor to Fox, said during the network’s coverage of the hearing.

“It’s about a very serious issue, the hearing … but what we will have is Democrats attacking the witness.”

York later said Republicans could be misreading support for Kennedy.

“I think some of the support you see for Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in the Democratic party is not Democrats who want to see him be president, but for Democrats who are sending a message: We want another candidate,” he added.

“So I think Republicans may have misread some of RFK’s support.”

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More on RFK Jr. from The Hill

• RFK Jr. says accusations of antisemitism, racism are ‘disgusting pejoratives’ to ‘silence me’
• Democrats tear into RFK Jr. during weaponization hearing
• White House slams RFK Jr.’s COVID-19 comments as ‘vile’

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Kennedy is a longtime anti-vaccine activist who filed paperwork in April to run for president as a Democrat. He is polling well behind President Biden and has most recently sparked backlash with offensive comments suggesting the coronavirus was engineered to avoid infecting Chinese and Jewish people.

House Republicans invited Kennedy to testify before the Judiciary Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Thursday, despite calls from Democrats to disinvite him to speak to the panel following those remarks.