Sen. John Kennedy Freaks Out When Reminded He’d Been A Democrat | EUROtoday

WASHINGTON ― Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.) on Thursday tried to smear considered one of President Joe Biden’s judicial nominees by repeatedly calling her a Marxist, an accusation rooted in nothing apart from this nominee being a Democrat.

But his effort backfired spectacularly when the Louisiana Republican was reminded that he, too, was once a Democrat.

“Are you still a Marxist?” Kennedy requested Melissa DuBose, Biden’s nominee for a U.S. district court docket in Rhode Island. It was his very first query in DuBose’s nomination listening to earlier than the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he gave zero context.

“I am not nor have I ever been a Marxist,” replied DuBose, who’s now a state district decide.

They went forwards and backwards. Kennedy steered she was mendacity beneath oath about being a secret Marxist, citing an interview she did in 2000 when she was working at a espresso store and stated she was “in my Marxist phase.”

DuBose replied that she was interviewed 24 years in the past by an undergraduate scholar who needed to turn into a trainer, and DuBose, who was then instructing civics and historical past in Providence’s public faculties, informed her she was contemplating instructing a course on political idea. “I immersed myself in a ton of political theory,” she stated, citing the works of philosophers Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and, sure, Karl Marx.

DuBose additionally stated she didn’t know the interview had been revealed, which is why she didn’t flip it in to the committee.

Kennedy acted as if she hadn’t stated any of that.

“My question is real simple,” he stated. “Are you still a Marxist?”

“I am not a Marxist,” DuBose stated once more, as Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) made the identical allegation. “I do not espouse Marxist theory or ideology. I never have, I never will. I’m a very proud Democrat.”

And then Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) reminded Kennedy that even when it have been true that DuBose had been in a “Marxist phase,” individuals typically take new positions on points over time. Even him.

“This was many, many, many, many, many years ago,” Whitehouse stated of DuBose’s interview. “Perhaps during the time when my colleague Sen. Kennedy was a Democrat, showing that people can change their views, even if it were true that you were in a Marxist phase.”

Whitehouse smiled. Laughs have been audible within the room. Kennedy was livid.

“I’ve never been a Marxist!” he shouted. “I’ve never been a Marxist! And I’ve never admitted I was a Marxist and then not turned a document over to this committee!”

Whitehouse was proper about Kennedy’s lengthy profession as a Democrat, although. He unsuccessfully ran for state legal professional common in 1991, as a Democrat, and was elected state treasurer in 1999. Still a Democrat, he was reelected to that place in 2003 and unsuccessfully ran for U.S. Senate in 2004. He grew to become a Republican in 2007 and was reelected three extra instances as state treasurer. He ran for U.S. Senate once more in 2008 and misplaced however finally gained his present seat in 2016.

The listening to obtained a bit awkward after Kennedy’s outburst, so Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) tried to chop the stress earlier than shifting on.

“Let’s agree on the following,” Graham stated with a weak chortle. “A Louisiana Democrat is probably not a Marxist.”

The actuality, although, is that Republicans have spent years baselessly accusing Biden’s nominees of secretly being Marxists or communists.

They don’t hear when these nominees insist they aren’t. The concept is that as a result of they’re Democratic appointees, there should be some Marxist ideology in there someplace, so why not carry again a dose of McCarthyism to counsel they’re not loyal to American democracy.

“Are you a Marxist?” Blackburn abruptly requested Oregon district court docket nominee Mustafa Kasubhai in an October listening to of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

“No, senator,” Kasubhai stated. “I have not praised Marxist ideas and I would disavow any other system than that would be supported by our U.S. Constitution and our laws.”

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) stated he had proof that Kasubhai was secretly a Marxist: a corny poem that he wrote 30 years in the pasttitled “Sensualized Property Theory.”

“Intimate knowing, the lovers kissed, familiar and ever-exciting, passionate transcendence beyond the physical exhilaration lies a burning light and our limbs are hearts. Floating, flying, falling in every direction, amorphous and wonderful, time-stretching, space-curving, exquisitely explosive eros, and yet, I timidly tremble every time,” Cruz learn aloud to the committee.

“What the hell does that mean?” the Texas senator demanded to know.

“The poetry was definitely not good,” Kasubhai stated, horrified in the best way that any English main can be if a decades-old poem was learn aloud in a Senate listening to.

Kennedy has been tremendous with throwing round these sorts of accusations, too.

“I don’t know whether to call you professor or comrade,” Kennedy informed Saule Omarova in a very offensive November 2021 listening to. Omarova, who was Biden’s choose for a key banking regulator job, was born within the Soviet Union and got here to the United States in 1991.

“I am not a communist,” she stated. “I do not subscribe to that ideology. I could not choose where I was born.” Omarova finally withdrew her nomination amid bipartisan criticisms.

A Kennedy spokesperson didn’t reply to a request for touch upon whether or not Marxist ideologies ever resonated with the Louisiana senator when he was a Democrat.