House Democrats’ campaign arm blasted Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for what it described as antisemitic and anti-Asian “racism and hate,” and called him “unfit for public office,” in a statement Monday.
The statement comes as Kennedy faces mounting criticism after the New York Post reported that Kennedy repeated unsubstantiated conspiracy theories linking COVID-19 to Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people, at a press event on the Upper East Side last week.
“There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately,” Kennedy reportedly said. “COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
“We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact,” Kennedy added, the Post reported.
In a statement Monday, Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Wash.), the chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said Kennedy’s comments “demonstrate him to be unfit for public office.”
“Last week, RFK Jr. made reprehensible anti-semitic and anti-Asian comments aimed at perpetuating harmful and debunked racist tropes,” DelBene said.
“Such dangerous racism and hate have no place in America, demonstrate him to be unfit for public office, and must be condemned in the strongest possible terms,” she added.
DelBene’s statement comes amid a wave of Democratic condemnation of Kennedy.
Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison condemned Kennedy’s remarks on Twitter and said they do not reflect the views of the party.
“These are deeply troubling comments and I want to make clear that they do not represent the views of the Democratic Party,” Harrison said.
Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.) also slammed Kennedy, writing on Twitter, “Hard to imagine a son who has done more to dishonor his father’s name than RFK Jr.”
After facing swift backlash, Kennedy tried to walk back his remarks, saying the Post was “mistaken” and that he “never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews,” adding, “I do not believe and never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered.”
Kennedy in the past has come under fire for remarks against the COVID-19 vaccine and for invoking the Holocaust. In a 2022 speech in Washington, D.C., he compared Nazi Germany’s oppression and extermination of millions of Jews to restrictions on Americans during the pandemic. He later apologized for those comments.