Family members of Democratic presidential hopeful Robert Kennedy Jr joined the White House on Monday in condemning his “deplorable” claim that Covid-19 was engineered to target some ethnic groups and spare others.
The former attorney and nephew of John F Kennedy made the extraordinary assertion during a recent dinner in New York city, saying the virus was “targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people”.
His remarks, also alleging development by China of viruses as a bioweapon, were captured on video, and published by the New York Post on Saturday, drawing accusations of racism and antisemitism.
“There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. Covid-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” he said. “The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
At the media briefing on Monday afternoon, the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, denounced the remarks.
“The claim made on that tape is false. It is vile,” she said. “They put our fellow Americans in danger if you think about the racist and antisemitic conspiracy theories that come out of saying those types of things. It’s an attack on our fellow citizens, our fellow Americans. So it’s important that we speak out.”
Kennedy’s relatives took to social media on Monday to join in the condemnation.
“I STRONGLY condemn my brother’s deplorable and untruthful remarks last week about Covid being engineered for ethnic targeting,” his sister Kerry Kennedy, chair of the Robert F Kennedy human rights advocacy group named for their father, wrote.
“His statements do not represent what I believe or what Robert F Kennedy Human Rights stands for, with our 50+ year track record of protecting rights and standing against racism and all forms of discrimination.”
Rory Kennedy, also Kennedy’s sister, also took a stand against her brother in an email to the Guardian.
She said: “My feelings about my brother Bobby’s recent statement regarding Covid and ethnic targeting are very much aligned with my brother Joe, sister Kerry, and nephew Joe III – all of whom I admire for speaking out against him. There is a great deal of hate in the world and remarks like Bobby’s only serve to fuel that hate.
“Such conspiracy mongering not only creates more divisiveness, it actually puts people’s lives in danger.”
Their rebukes were echoed by the Democratic former Massachusetts congressman Joe Kennedy III, nephew of the businessman who is challenging Joe Biden for next year’s Democratic presidential nomination.
“My uncle’s comments were hurtful and wrong. I unequivocally condemn what he said,” the younger Kennedy, US special envoy to Northern Ireland, wrote in a tweet.
Close Kennedy family members weighing in reflects the growing outrage at Kennedy’s words, which he tried to disavow on Monday in a statement sent to the Guardian by his campaign staff.
“The New York Post story is mistaken. I have never, ever suggested that the Covid-19 virus was engineered to ‘spare Jews,’ and I unequivocally reject this disgusting and outlandish conspiracy theory,” he said.
“New York Post reporter Jon Levine exploited this off-the-record conversation to smear me as an antisemite. This cynical maneuver is consistent with the mainstream media playbook to discredit me as a crank – and by association, to discredit revelations of genuine corruption and collusion.”
Separate messages sent to the Guardian purportedly from Kennedy’s personal email address cite Wikipedia links to press articles about the plausibility of ethnically targeted bioweapons.
“The study is solid, and not at all controversial,” one of the messages says of a research paper by the British Medical Association, reported by the Guardian in 2004, that “rogue scientists” could develop bioweapons designed to target certain ethnic groups based on their genetic differences.
Kennedy, a conspiracy theorist and vaccine skeptic who in June announced, then later retracted, a claim that he had “conversations with dead people” every day, also came under fire on Monday from leading Democrats.
“These are deeply troubling comments and I want to make clear that they do not represent the views of the Democratic party,” Jaime Harrison, chair of the Democratic National Committee, said in a tweet.
Meanwhile Kyle Herrig, executive director of the Congressional Integrity Project, wrote to Ohio Republican Jim Jordan, chair of the House subcommittee on the weaponization of federal government, asking him to disinvite Kennedy from a hearing scheduled for Thursday.
