{"id":659793,"date":"2026-10-28T17:46:16","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T17:46:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/659793\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T17:46:16","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T17:46:16","slug":"rfk-jr-assailed-over-wildly-racist-tirade-about-arabs-at-michigan-campaign-stop-robert-f-kennedy-jr","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/659793\/","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr assailed over \u2018wildly racist tirade\u2019 about Arabs at Michigan campaign stop | Robert F Kennedy Jr"},"content":{"rendered":"

Robert F Kennedy Jr<\/a>, the US health secretary, faced backlash on Wednesday for a \u201cwildly racist tirade\u201d during a campaign stop in Michigan<\/a> in which he falsely asserted that Arabs never won leading awards in science or literature.<\/p>\n

Kennedy was speaking at the Monday night event in Grand Rapids in support of Mike Rogers, the Republican US Senate candidate trailing his Democratic midterms opponent Abdul El-Sayed<\/a>, who is Muslim, in polling.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s 500 million Arabs in the world, and yet they don\u2019t produce science, they don\u2019t win the \u2060Nobel prize, they don\u2019t win the Fields prize, they don\u2019t win the Wolf prize, they don\u2019t produce literature,\u201d Kennedy said.<\/p>\n

A factcheck<\/a> published on Tuesday by the Associated Press showed that Arabs have won, or been shortlisted, for all those awards in recent years.<\/p>\n

The \u2060Council on American-Islamic Relations called Kennedy\u2019s Islamophobic remarks \u201ca \u2060textbook display of \u200bunvarnished racism and bigotry\u201d, and the US healthcare advocacy organization Protect Our Care condemned his \u201cwildly racist tirade\u201d.<\/p>\n

Hillary Scholten, a Democratic congresswoman representing west Michigan, who declined to endorse<\/a> El-Sayed this summer, said Kennedy\u2019s comments were \u201cdisgraceful and have no place in public service\u201d.<\/p>\n

In a statement<\/a> posted to her Facebook page late Tuesday, Scholten said: \u201cAs secretary of health and human services, he has a responsibility to serve all Americans, not use his position to demean entire communities with bigoted and demonstrably false claims.<\/p>\n

\u201cArab Americans are our neighbors, colleagues, health care professionals, scientists, educators, and public servants. Their contributions to science, literature, medicine, and countless other fields are undeniable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe last I checked, Secretary Kennedy has neither a medical degree nor a Nobel peace prize, and his rhetoric has undermined public confidence in health science. Maybe he should sit this one out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kennedy\u2019s comments came as part of an attack on the Muslim Brotherhood<\/a>, a global Islamic group with branches that have been designated terrorist organizations<\/a> by the US government.<\/p>\n

The rise of the group had \u201ccreated stagnant societies\u201d, Kennedy said, ending what he called \u201ca golden age [in which] Islamic lands were the center, the foundation for art and literature and science and engineering, and they were highly tolerant and pluralistic and cosmopolitan\u201d.<\/p>\n

Other Trump administration officials have tried to paint<\/a> El-Sayed as a supporter of Islamic radicalism, including the president himself, who at a rally in Port Huron, Michigan, on Sunday<\/a> called the Democrat \u201ca jihadist\u201d who was \u201con the side of the terrorists\u201d.<\/p>\n

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JD Vance, the vice-president, escalated<\/a> the inflammatory attacks at an event in Howell, Michigan, on Tuesday, during which he sought to connect El-Sayed\u2019s politics to violent leftwing protests<\/a> in Paris that saw thousands arrested.<\/p>\n

\u201cI guarantee you, if those rioters were burning down New York, or Detroit, the Hasan Pikers and El-Sayeds would be right there leading them and cheering them on,\u201d Vance said, referring to Piker<\/a>, an outspoken socialist commentator and influencer<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Rogers has also spoken out against El-Sayed\u2019s alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood, despite questions<\/a> over his own relationship with the group. In 2012, as chair of the House intelligence committee, he said the US should have talks with the movement after Mohamed Morsi, who was backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, won the Egyptian election.<\/p>\n

El-Sayed has repeatedly denied<\/a> any ties to the group, and disavowed it in a town hall event in Michigan last week that went viral for a confrontation over the issue<\/a> with a heckler who turned out<\/a> to be a former aide to Josh Hawley, the Republican US senator for Missouri.<\/p>\n

Chris Murphy, the US senator for Connecticut who joined other senior Democratic politicians canvassing for El-Sayed in Michigan<\/a> last week, also condemned Kennedy\u2019s comments.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really think \u200beveryone needs to pay \u200cattention to this coordinated campaign \u200bto delegitimize Muslim Americans, \u200bnot just as citizens but as humans,\u201d he said, reported<\/a> by Reuters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, faced backlash on Wednesday for a \u201cwildly racist tirade\u201d during…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":659794,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[42,43,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-659793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=659793"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/659793\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/659794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=659793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=659793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=659793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}