Topline
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. denied that he was racist or anti-Semitic throughout heated exchanges with Congress members Thursday, as Democrats pressed him on current feedback he made about Covid-19 concentrating on particular ethnic teams.
RFK Jr. was pressed by Home members Thursday over anti-semitic and racist feedback. (Photograph by Jamie … [+]
Key Information
Kennedy Jr. was testifying throughout a Home listening to over on-line censorship when Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) introduced up feedback made by Kennedy Jr. final week throughout a cocktail party in Manhattan—the place he stated Chinese language and Ashkenazi Jewish individuals had been much less vulnerable to Covid-19 whereas Caucasian and Black individuals had been targets of the illness.
Kennedy Jr. stated the feedback — recorded in a video revealed by the New York Submit— had been a couple of examine funded by the Nationwide Institutes of Well being and performed by “Cleveland Clinic scientists,” which Wasserman Schultz stated was not cited by him within the video revealed by the Submit.
Kennedy and Wasserman Schultz spoke over one another as Kennedy pointed and stated, “You’re slandering me, that is dishonest.”
Wasserman Schultz additional pressed Kennedy Jr. over feedback he made final yr evaluating Covid-19 public well being insurance policies to ways utilized by Nazi Germany in opposition to Jewish individuals, asking if Kennedy Jr. rejects the comparability, to which Kennedy Jr. replied, “Congressman, what you’re saying is a lie.”
Rep. Dan Goldman (D-N.Y.) performed a video displaying the feedback Kennedy Jr. made about Covid-19 concentrating on Jewish individuals and requested if he, Goldman, must be involved about his genetics as an Ashkenazi Jewish one that contracted Covid in 2020—an inquiry Kennedy Jr. responded to by saying “In no way. And that assertion that you just noticed there’s a truncated model of a bigger assertion the place I used to be describing a examine.”
Kennedy Jr. additional defended himself saying he has by no means been against vaccination and that each assertion made about him through the listening to was “inaccurate.”
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) advised Kennedy that his feedback deliver “disgrace on a storied identify that I revere,” referring to his father, Robert F. Kennedy, who served because the sixty fourth U.S. lawyer basic and was a senator earlier than his assassination in June 1968.
Kennedy Jr. stated he was not allowed to reply to the questions made about his controversial feedback, including, “That is typical of the accusations in opposition to me at this listening to. They’re baseless. Each single one.”
Key Background
Kennedy Jr. has promoted a number of different conspiracy theories along with his declare that Covid-19 targets sure races and offers others immunity. The presidential candidate has claimed that the 2004 election was stolen attributable to voter fraud that benefited former Republican President George W. Bush and that vaccines may cause autism, amongst different debunked claims. Kennedy Jr.’s household publicly denounced his claims about Covid-19 concentrating on sure ethnicities. His brother, Joseph Kennedy II, advised The Boston Globe this month that the statements had been “morally and factually fallacious . . . play on antisemitic myths and stoke distrust of the Chinese language”’ and “by no means mirror the phrases and actions of our father, Robert F. Kennedy.” His sister, Kerry Kennedy, additionally levied additional criticism, calling his assertion “deplorable and untruthful.”
Contra
Kennedy Jr. has pushed again in opposition to the “anti-vaxx” label given to him by detractors and has claimed his kids are vaccinated. Nonetheless, throughout Thursday’s listening to, he stated that he has personally saved up with vaccinations aside from the Covid-19 vaccine.
Additional Studying
Democrats Revolt In opposition to RFK Jr. Over ‘Reprehensible Anti-Semitic And Anti-Asian Feedback’ (Forbes)
