Elizabeth Vargas on NewsNation’s RFK Jr. town hall: Americans can ‘draw their own conclusions’

Elizabeth Vargas says she’s hoping viewers get a sense of who Robert F. Kennedy Jr. “truly is” as she preps for a NewsNation town hall with the 2024 Democratic presidential candidate. 

“This is everybody’s chance to really sort of get — unedited and live — hear him speak and listen to how he thinks,” Vargas tells ITK of the cable news channel’s town hall on Wednesday at 9 p.m.

The TV event, first announced last week, is poised to be held in Chicago before an audience comprised of voters who are Democrats or independents who are leaning Democratic. Additional audiences will be on-hand in New Hampshire and in South Carolina. The network is teaming up with the New Hampshire Institute of Politics at Saint Anselm College to help facilitate the live audience.

Kennedy, the son of former Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, launched his longshot primary bid against President Biden in April. Many Democrats have been critical of the anti-vaccine activist, dubbing the environmental lawyer a conspiracy theory-spewing fringe candidate who is backed by GOP money in an open attempt to weaken Biden.

CNN’s Jake Tapper said last week that he would decline to host a town hall with Kennedy because he “spreads dangerous misinformation about childhood vaccines.”

“His stances on vaccines are definitely very, very controversial,” Vargas said of Kennedy, when asked about Tapper’s remark.

“He has been heavily censured by many social media platforms in the past about his stances on them,” the “Elizabeth Vargas Reports” anchor said. “And if somebody asks him a question about vaccines — I’m sure it will come up —I will remind our audience that the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention], and the [Food and Drug Administration], and the [American Medical Association], and the American Academy of Pediatrics and most of the medical and scientific community say that vaccines overall are incredibly safe and have saved hundreds of millions of lives over the past decade.”

But, Vargas said, “This town hall is not a town hall about vaccines.”

“For whatever reason, this candidate is polling quite well and has captured the imagination of a sizable number of voters,” Vargas, 60, said.

A CNN poll released last month showed Kennedy with 20 percent of support among Democratic and Democratic-leaning respondents.

“This town hall is not an adversarial ‘gotcha’ interview by me,” Vargas said.

“It is my job to moderate the questions from the audience. I think that we do our greatest public service when the audience gets to see him speak, and think, and react in real-time and fully,” the former ABC “World News Tonight” anchor said.

“You can say, ‘Hey, I agree with that position,’ or, ‘Hey, I think he’s wacky.’”

“That’s up to our audience to decide. I want to provide them with the capacity to watch him answer questions on Russia, on the economy, on the border, on the Fentanyl crisis in this country, on crime, on the economy, and to have him explain his positions, explain how we arrived at those positions and how he defends those positions,” Vargas said of the 69-year-old White House hopeful.

As a moderator of the hour-and-a-half-long town hall, Vargas said, preparation is key, and not just at the last minute.

“I did this even as a student in college,” the University of Missouri alum said. “When I was in college and everybody else was cramming, pulling all-nighters, I never once in four years pulled an all-nighter.”

“I was really organized, and I would outline all my notes and then I would get a good night’s sleep and relax, because that’s the best thing you can do in something like this is relax,” she said.

“It’s the things that you’re not prepared for that are sometimes the most interesting parts of a town hall, or an interview or a conversation — when somebody says something you might not expect. And you just follow that thread and see where it leads you.”

Last month, CNN drew headlines for its live town hall with former President Trump. The event, moderated by Kaitlan Collins in front of an audience of Republican and GOP-leaning voters, was widely panned as a “disaster.”

Asked how the event from NewsNation — which, like The Hill, is also owned by Nexstar Media Group — might avoid the same fate as CNN, Vargas told ITK, “Listen, my job is to moderate the questions from the audience and to, in real time, redirect [Kennedy] to answer.”

NewsNation plans to have a live blog on Wednesday night with contributors and editors providing insight, context and fact checks throughout the town hall.

“If [Kennedy] says anything that’s factually questionable, [my job is] to remind him what some of the facts are that are established,” Vargas said.

“I think it is our job to help Americans see Bobby Kennedy Jr. — who he is and how he thinks — and get to draw their own conclusions on whether or not they want to support his candidacy.”