On this date in 2020, 2021, as well as 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” first profiled the sitting U.S. Senator from Louisiana, John Kennedy, who was first elected to that office in 2016. Kennedy’s previous political experience was that, in the 1999 election, he was elected to be the Treasurer of Louisiana, and was, at the time, a Democrat. He spent sixteen years in that role, running an unsuccessful U.S. Senate campaign in 2004 as a Democrat, and after he switched parties in 2007, ran another failed one in 2008 as a Republican. He finally won in an attempt to get to Washington, D.C. in 2016, where he slid into the seat left by Sen. David Vitter, who somehow remained in office as a U.S. Senator for Louisiana for a decade even after the public learned he allegedly solicited sex workers who would pander to his diaper fetish.
Somehow, we’re questioning which option for this seat was worse.John Kennedy’s voting record is, like most Senators these days, sparse. Mitch McConnell barely allows votes to happen at all, so the only noteworthy things we really can say about his record as a legislator are, obviously, that he has voted for every member of the Trump Cabinet, all but three judges nominated by Trump, and of course voted against witnesses being allowed in the impeachment inquiry over Ukraine so that it was a “trial” in the Senate, that he then voted to acquit Trump in.In a way that is in no way good for the nation, Kennedy has become a favorite of the DC media for being willing to run onto cable news and embarrass himself and not realize it. Repeatedly, he has gone onto CNN, Fox News, or whatever network will host him to thrust his own foot not just into his mouth, but right down his throat without any thinking. Among his worst public partisan comments:
- January 17th, 2018: John Kennedy says that the modern Senate is “like the Jerry Springer Show”, that “aliens won’t talk to us” because of how our politicians behave, saying that modern members of Congress are “like 13 year olds”. (Keep that in mind while you read the rest of these incidents.)
- July 16th, 2019: Sen. Kennedy goes on Tucker Carlson’s white nationalist power-hour, and refers to Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley as “The Four Horsewomen of the Apocalypse”.
- September 25th, 2019: Kennedy goes on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, and of all the people to fact-check and push back on someone… As Kennedy became irate and peddled conspiracy theories about Rudy Giuliani’s propaganda tale of Hunter Biden and “Ukranium One”, Todd blew up every argument he had with ease.
- November 7th, 2019: Donald Trump visits John Kennedy on a trip down to Louisiana, and at one of his MAGA hate rallies, Kennedy says of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, “It must suck to be that dumb.”
- November 24th, 2019: During the impeachment hearings over Donald Trump attempting to withhold aid from Ukraine, Sen. Kennedy still goes on Fox News and continuing to beat a dead horse with Chris Wallace.
- November 25th, 2019: Kennedy goes on CNN, and after getting some actual pushback on his conspiracy theories about Hunter Biden in Ukraine, Kennedy retracts his claims, and admitting he was wrong.
- December 3rd, 2019: A little over a week after retracting his claims about Hunter Biden in Ukraine, John Kennedy is back on CNN and shamelessly insisting that Ukraine actually was the real country meddling in the 2016 election.
- July 14th, 2020: Kennedy is on Fox News being interviewed by Sean Hannity, and says that any opponents of reopening schools because of Covid-19 can “kiss my ass”.
- September 9th, 2020: Sen. Kennedy goes on CNN to try and play defense for Donald Trump after audio excerpts of Trump’s interview with Bob Woodward, where he admits he lied to the public about the threat of Coronavirus, by robotically repeating the same nonsensical thing:Sen. John Kennedy: “These gotcha books don't really interest me that much.”CNN's Pamela Brown: “He's on the record. He's on the record.”Kennedy: “These gotcha books don't really interest me that much.”Brown: “He did 18 interviews with Bob Woodward ... He's recorded”.
- January 7th, 2021: After the attack on the Capitol by Trump supporters, John Kennedy gives a scathing rebuke of the actions of the domestic terrorists who participated in an attempt at overthrowing the legislative branch of the government. Then he voted for the objection to certifying Arizona’s electoral votes, because the man clearly talks out of both sides of his mouth. Big Easy Magazine, based out of New Orleans, calls for him to be expelled from the Senate for failing to address those who willfully took part in sedition.
- August 9th, 2021: Kennedy lashes out against the infrastructure bill, calling it a “infrastructure, Green New Deal, and welfare deal”.
- September 2nd, 2021: Only weeks after decrying funding for an infrastructure bill to repair our country’s damaged roads and bridges, Sen. Kennedy writes a letter to the White House asking for disaster relief funding after Hurricane Ida.
- February 28th, 2022: Sen. Kennedy votes against the Women’s Health Protection Act, which would have established a right to physicians to perform abortions to save their patients’ lives.
- March 30th, 2022: Kennedy votes against putting the extremely qualified nominee, Judge Kentanji Brown-Jackson, onto the Supreme Court.
- May 26th, 2022: Sen. Kennedy votes against the Domestic Terrorism Prevention Act of 2022, because at this point, domestic terror is a policy plank of authoritarian Republicans.
- July 27th, 2022: John Kennedy votes against the PACT Act, blocking additional funding towards veterans exposed to “burn pits” while serving in Iraq and Afghanistan, in a vote conducted out of spite that Democrats passed the Act the prior day. Several Republicans are seen shaking hands and fist bumping to celebrate screwing over the vets, while releasing a series of photos of the Senate GOP Caucus filling USO boxes and claiming they “support the military”.
- May 23rd, 2023: Sen. Kennedy maligns the citizens of Mexico in a particularly racist interview, saying, “Without the people of America, Mexico, figuratively speaking, would be eating cat food out of a can and living in a tent behind an Outback.” When you’re racist enough that you get called out for it BY A FOX NEWS ANCHOR, you’re pretty racist.
John N. Kennedy was up for re-election in 2022, and most recently was thrown into a fit because Joe Biden called out white nationalist domestic terrorists in a prime-time speech. Sen. Kennedy’s review of that speech as that it was “a very cynical attempt to fill our heads with stupid”, and pointed out that "The water's not gonna clear up in Washington until we get the pigs out of the creek."In spite of that, he was re-elected to another six year term with 61% of the vote.Just... sigh.
One Year Ago, September 21st, 2022: John N. Kennedy… 2022 Update
Two Years Ago, September 21st, 2021: John N. Kennedy… 2021 Update
Three Years Ago, September 21st, 2020: John N. Kennedy… Original Profile
Four Years Ago, September 21st, 2019: Mark Burns (SC)
Five Years Ago, September 21st, 2018: Tim Murphy (PA)… 2018 Update
Six Years Ago, September 21st, 2017: Tim Murphy (PA)… 2017 Update
Seven Years Ago, September 21st, 2016: Tim Murphy (PA)… 2016 Update
Eight Years Ago, September 21st, 2015: Tim Murphy (PA)… Original Profile
Nine Years Ago, September 21st, 2014: Jake Knotts (SC)
