Republican Senator Rebuked in Home State Newspaper Column: 'Embarrassment'

Senator John Kennedy, a Louisiana Republican, was rebuked in his home state newspaper as the column called him an "embarrassment" on Saturday.

Kennedy faced criticism last week after he was confronted about the high firearms death rate in Louisiana during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence. During Tuesday's hearing, Kennedy asked Dr. Megan Ranney, dean of the Yale School of Public Health, about gun violence in Chicago, a city conservatives frequently say has a high crime rate due to progressive prosecutorial policies. However, when Ranney explained that Kennedy's home state has a higher firearms death rate than Chicago, Kennedy dismissed her response as "word salad."

According to a study conducted by the Violence Policy Center, Louisiana had a gun rate death of 28.42 in 2022. Chicago had a gun rate death of roughly 25.82 for that same year, according to a Newsweek analysis of the city's 2022 crime data.

As of last week, over 39,000 people have been killed by firearms in the United States this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, an organization that tracks shootings. There have been at least 619 mass shootings and 33 mass murders in 2023, prompting calls for Congress to strengthen national gun laws, as gun control remains a tensely divided matter in the United States. Proponents of gun control say limiting the ability of individuals to buy some weapons, such as assault rifles, would mitigate the number of shootings. Others, however, say stronger gun laws would impede the U.S. Constitution's Second Amendment.

On Saturday, The Advocate, Louisiana's largest daily newspaper, published an opinion column about the senator. In the opinion column written by staff columnist Stephanie Grace, titled, "How much lower can John Kennedy go?" Kennedy's recent remarks at the Senate hearing are mentioned as the column calls him an "embarrassment."

"So why bring all this up again, other than to point out the ongoing embarrassment he brings to our state? Because it's getting worse. Because recently Kennedy crossed yet another line, beyond even the serial demeaning of his political opponents," Grace wrote.

Newsweek has reached out to Kennedy via email for comment.

The column also explained how Kennedy's recent criticism of President Joe Biden further demonstrates the "embarrassment" the senator brings to his home state.

"Because he, a United States senator, called the president of the United States a 'weenie' of a world leader. This wasn't just a routine attack on Joe Biden, of the sort we've come to expect from our coarser politicians. It was a statement that could well undermine the standing of our president and our country on the international stage, at a time of tremendous peril and need for strong, unified American leadership," Grace wrote.

The referenced comment from Kennedy was made on Fox News' The Story with Martha MacCallum in October as the senator, amid the Israel-Hamas war, claimed that the United States' enemies believe Biden is "a bit of a weenie on national defense."

The Louisiana senator also claimed that foreign nations have taken note that the U.S. "refuses to give Ukraine the weapons that it needs to win" in its ongoing war with Russia that began in February 2022.

"I could continue, but the point is our enemies have concluded that America has a president who is a bit of a weenie on national defense, and [Chinese President] Xi [Jinping] and [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the Ayatollah think they can roll over him like thunder on a summer night," Kennedy said at the time. "And that's, I think, why we're here. Peace through weakness never works. These are hard men."

The U.S. is the largest contributor of arms to Ukraine, and the West has so far supplied the war-torn country with a multitude of arms. Washington has turned down Kyiv's requests for fighter jets, although Denmark and the Netherlands have since confirmed that they will supply Ukraine with F-16 fighter jets.