Live updates: Town hall with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Here’s what one voter in South Carolina had to say about Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s performance at the town hall:

Some final thoughts on the night:

1. This is why hearing directly from candidates is so important. Elizabeth Vargas’ parting message was spot on.

2. Will Robert F. Kennedy Jr. further build out his plan on the economy over the next six months? It is the issue for voters right now, and his answers tonight largely centered around lowering interest rates and ending wars.

3. It will be interesting to see how or if President Biden and his team choose to engage Kennedy. Still, a roughly 50-point lead in the primary and, for now, POTUS is focused on the general.

4. See you on The Hill tomorrow to continue the 2024 discussion!

Here is Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on supporting the Democratic nominee if it isn’t him: “My plan is to win this election.”

Here is Robert F. Kennedy discussing Hunter Biden’s past substance abuse: “Addiction is a tragedy. … It’s really difficult to deal with.”

Writing this as Robert F. Kennedy Jr. answers the final question about bringing the nation together.

Compelling viewing, but I’m not sure how it expands Kennedy’s support beyond the meaningful but modest level it is currently at.

Kennedy did actually sound like a Democrat, sometimes— which is not always the case. His defense of LGBT rights when asked a question about Moms for Liberty toward the end of the event was striking.

But his views on vaccines and Russia— as well as his disinclination to more forcefully criticize former President Trump — almost certainly put a ceiling on his support in a Democratic primary.

There is a market for his views — but it’s a niche market, not one that really threatens an incumbent president in the battle for the Democratic nomination.

It took about 75 minutes, but Robert F. Kennedy Jr. gave an answer that would receive support throughout the Democratic party: He says he would sign an assault weapons ban if that legislation was put before him.

James F.M. Williams in South Carolina asks Robert F. Kennedy Jr. why he accepted, and then withdrew, an invitation to speak at an event hosted by Moms for Liberty. Kennedy says he was “unaware” that a staff member accepted the invite.

The answer was unacceptable to Williams, a former Congressional staffer.

“Anybody who is elected blames staff, that’s the wrong answer,” Williams said. “You have to take responsibility for agreeing to speak before those groups.”

Kennedy says there will be nobody in the Oval Office who is more supportive of LGBTQ rights than him.

A key moment here, rooted in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s views on vaccines but also explains his much wider views.

Pushing back against his vaccine views, Elizabeth Vargas said, “You’re a lawyer and an activist. You’re not a doctor or a scientist.”

Kennedy’s response: “We live in a democracy. We don’t have a priesthood here…We’re in charge of our own lives.”

That worldview clearly gets traction, especially in a United States that has just come through the national collective trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The nation has also experienced at least two seismic events in the past couple of decades where “the experts” were catastrophically wrong — the Iraq War, when Saddam Hussein was said to have weapons of mass destruction, and didn’t; and the financial crisis, where the banks were supposed to be safe, and weren’t.

But the dangers in Kennedy’s worldview is just as obvious — it places someone who has watched a few YouTube videos on COVID-19 on the same footing as, say, Dr. Anthony Fauci, whose expertise is summarized here: https://www.niaid.nih.gov/about/anthony-s-fauci-md-bio

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said Americans should explore options outside of gun control in order to reduce gun violence in the U.S.

“I do not believe that within that Second Amendment that there is anything we can meaningfully do to reduce the trade and the ownership of guns.”

“Anybody who tells you that they’re going to reduce gun violence through gun control at this point, I don’t think is being realistic,” Kennedy said. “I think we have to think about other ways to reduce that violence.”

This is a pretty big break with most Democrats who tend to champion gun control. Kennedy is trying to strike a unifying tone on the topic, saying he wants to bring Americans together on this issue.

Expanding on his vaccine stance, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. says the Food and Drug Administration can’t be trusted when it gives regulatory approval. “We have a corrupt federal agency,” Kennedy says, claiming the agency and other medical organizations are “controlled by pharma.”

In the past, Kennedy has pledged to gut the FDA if elected.

Folks here in Manchester who are a part of our remote studio audience at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics have been chatting away during the breaks about what they think of the conversation between Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Elizabeth Vargas.

One man made the comment, “He doesn’t sound like a Democrat.”

A woman chimed in and said “I like that he’s so honest.” Multiple people in the group murmured in agreement to that statement.

Another added, “I was surprised to hear about his story of addiction.”

There’s an appetite to hear about his stances on all the key issues of the 2024 race.

Inevitably, we are now into an examination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr.s record on vaccines — a record that is enormously controversial and has drawn protests from members of his own family, among others.

Kennedy has repeatedly asserted a link between vaccines and mental disorders, especially autism. That allegation has been repeatedly debunked.

A 2005 story he wrote on the topic, which was co-published by Rolling Stone and Salon, had to have a total of five corrections appended before it was retracted entirely.

A CBS News report from 2011 noted a central part of Kennedy’s thesis was that there was a “real” link between thimerosal and “the epidemic of childhood neurological disorders.”

But, CBS’s Jim Edwards added: “(S)ince The Lancet retracted the original piece of research that made that link, and since the British Medical Journal then revealed that the study wasn’t merely a mistake but an outright fraud, the entire notion that vaccination and autism are somehow linked has been thoroughly debunked.”

I get that people will think praise for a NewsNation moderator on a NewsNation live blog is automatically biased — but Elizabeth Vargas has done a really excellent job tonight.

She has been great at holding Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to account, firmly but respectfully, on topics like his positions from Ukraine to immigration.

For example, regarding his promise to “seal” the southern border:

Vargas: How would you seal the border?

Kennedy: It’s not that hard.

Vargas: But how would you do it?

Kennedy: I would do… There’s a number of things that you have to do.

But it’s not just a matter of interrogative questioning.

The exchange Vargas and Kennedy just had on how, as she put it, Hunter Biden’s addiction issues have been “bandied about” and “weaponized” was thoughtful and sensitive on a very difficult topic.

Vargas noted she wasn’t defending Biden’s behavior and Kennedy, for his part, noted that he was not going to “compound whatever problems” the younger Biden has by “sitting in judgment.”

Here is Robert F. Kennedy discussing his ways to cut costs in the federal government.