Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. faces widespread complaints from political leaders and civil rights organizations after the release of a video in which he makes false claims that COVID-19 was “ethnically targeted” to target certain ethnic groups while avoiding Ashkenazi Jews and other Chinese. Friends, a conspiracy theory that has sparked accusations of anti-Semitism and racism.
“COVID-19. Il is an argument that it has an ethnic objective. COVID-19 is disproportionately targeting certain races,” Kennedy said at a recent dinner in New York. The comments were videotaped and first published through the New York Post on Saturday.
“COVID-19 is aimed at attacking Caucasians and Black people. The most immune people are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” he continued, adding, “We don’t know if he targeted intentionally or not, but there are articles there that show the differential and the racial or ethnic impact. “
Kennedy then posted a video on Sunday, saying in part, “No one reported that those were intentionally designed adjustments and I certainly don’t think they were intentionally designed,” but calling it “kind of evidence of the concept that you can expand biological weapons that will target safe ethnicities. “
Kennedy, a former environmental lawyer and nephew of President John F. Kennedy, announced in April that he would run for the Democratic presidential nomination, in a challenge to President Biden. For the past 15 years, he has been outspoken against vaccines. motion and a well-known conspiracy theorist whose claims have prompted complaints from public health officials and those close to him.
His comments prompted a number of Democrats to speak out.
“These are deeply troubling comments and I need to make clear that they constitute the prospects of the Democratic Party,” Jaime Harrison, chairman of the Democratic National Committee, tweeted Saturday.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee criticized Kennedy’s “reprehensible anti-Semitic and anti-Asian comments,” adding, “Such harmful racism and hatred have no standing in America, prove unworthy of a public workplace, and will have to be condemned in the most powerful terms imaginable. “conditions”.
Democratic Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida said Kennedy’s claims amounted to “despicable anti-Semitic tropes and Sinophobia” and “insulted countless families who have lost loved ones to the virus,” while Rep. Ted Lieu of California noted, “Millions upon millions of other people have died from COVID-19 around the world, adding Jews or Chinese Americans. “
“If you’re still the crazy, narcissistic, racist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. , that says more about you than it does about him,” Lieu said.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey Kennedy a “shame on Kennedy and the Democratic Party’s call” in a tweet in reaction to the video.
“For the record, my entire family, who are Jewish, contracted covid,” Gottheimer wrote. “President McCarthy and Jim Jordan prohibit this anti-Semite from testifying before Congress and spewing his misinformation and hatred. “(Kennedy is scheduled to testify Thursday before the GOP-led House Special Subcommittee on the Militarization of Federal Government. )
The Anti-Defamation League, a civil rights organization that fights anti-Semitism and extremism, denounced Kennedy’s comments.
“The claim that COVID-19 is a biological weapon created by Chinese or Jews to target Caucasians and blacks is deeply offensive and fuels the Sinophobic and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about COVID-19 that we have noticed evolving over the past three years,” the organization’s spokesperson said in an email Sunday.
Manjusha P. Kulkarni, co-founder of Stop AAPI Hate and executive director of the AAPI Equity Alliance, said the organizations “categorically condemn” Kennedy’s “reckless and destructive comments,” presenting studies showing how language used by political leaders can influence racism and discriminatory policy.
“Dangerous rhetoric rooted in misinformation and bigotry will not have to be normalized. As the 2024 election cycle accelerates, Asian American communities rightly worry that politicians will continue to double down on anti-Asian rhetoric to agitate their base,” Kulkarni told CBS News in a statement. “Our studies show that when political figures use anti-Asian rhetoric, they inspire acts of racism and discrimination against Asians in the United States. “
Jane Shim, director of the Stop Asian Hate project, criticized Kennedy’s “dangerous rhetoric” in comments to The Washington Post, calling his comments “irresponsible” and “hateful. “
Kennedy attempted to respond to the complaint of his initial comments in a tweet shared Saturday night, where he said “the New York Post story is wrong. “
But that message repeated most of the false theories Kennedy shared in the video, adding one that reflects the discredited Russian propaganda akin to the war in Ukraine, which claims the U. S. is not going to be able to do so. The U. S. government is “developing ethnically directed biological weapons,” which he said showed how virus-safe homes made “ethnic Chinese, Finnish, and Ashkenazi Jews” less vulnerable than blacks or Caucasians.
Scientists later debunked his claims about the study, which genetic studies conducted early in the pandemic for clues about threat points for severe symptoms.
One of the study’s authors told CBS News that its findings “never supported” Kennedy’s claim, adding, “This kind of misinterpretation will hurt educational studies for us to end the pandemic. “
Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a virologist at the University of Saskatchewan, commented on Twitter, “Enzymes like furin are compatible with other ethnicities,” referring to a facet of the virus referenced through Kennedy. “The consensus sequences of Jewish or Chinese proteases are one in biochemistry, but they are in racism and anti-Semitism. “
Kennedy’s most recent comments were not the first time he sparked outrage with comments about COVID-19 and the Jewish people. In a 2022 speech, he made public the measures of adaptation to “fascism” and claimed: “Even in Hitler’s Germany, you can simply cross the Alps to Switzerland. You can hide in an attic like Anne Frank did.
“These analogies are traditionally misleading and hurtful to Jews and, frankly, have an ancient reminiscence of who the Nazis were and what they did,” Aryeh Tuchman of the ADL’s Center on Extremism told The Associated Press at the time. of your agenda. “