Watch: US ice-cream company founder interrupts Robert F. Kennedy Jr's speech with pro-Gaza protest
When asked about what he is calling for the Congress and Senators to do for Gaza, Ben Cohen said, “Congress and the Senators need to ease the siege."
Ben Cohen, an American businessman and the founder of ice cream company Ben & Jerry's, was arrested after he interrupted Robert F. Kennedy Jr’s Senate hearing and protested against the US Congress’s support for Israel.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr, United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, was presenting his department’s budget for 2026 when he almost jumped out of his seat, surprised by the loud slogan ‘RFK kills people with AIDS’. As he looked back, it was a group of protestors chanting the slogan.
Ben Cohen, 74, who is also a progressive activist, was a part of the protest. “Congress sends bombs that kill children in Gaza,” he said, adding, “and pays it with cuts to Medicaid”. He was forcefully removed from the Senate by a security officer. Medicaid is a health insurance program for low-income families in the US.
Cohen shared a video of the incident on his X account with the caption, “I told Congress they're killing poor kids in Gaza by buying bombs, and they're paying for it by kicking poor kids off Medicaid in the US. This was the authorities' response.”
In the video, when someone asks him why he is getting arrested, Cohen is heard reiterating, “Congress kills poor kids in Gaza by buying bombs and pays for it by kicking kids off medicaid in the US,” as he is being taken away by security forces.
When asked about what he is calling for the Congress and Senators to do for Gaza, Cohen replies, “Congress and the Senators need to ease the siege. They need to let food into Gaza. They need to give food to starving kids.”
When Ben Cohen said after release
Ben Cohen was briefly arrested before being let go. After being released, Cohen said in an interview, “It got to a point where we had to do something." He called it "scandalizing" that the US approved "$20 billion worth of bombs" for Israel even as social programs are squeezed back home, reported AFP.
"The majority of Americans hate what's going on, what our country is doing with our money and in our name," AFP quoted him as saying.
"Condoning and being complicit in the slaughter of tens of thousands of people strikes at the core of us as far as human beings and what our country stands for…If you spent half of that money making lives better around the world, I think there'd be a whole lot less friction," he added.
