Several members of the Kennedy household have condemned a bigoted conspiracy principle from the Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who prompt that the coronavirus was “ethnically targeted” to spare Jews and Chinese individuals.
In feedback at a current occasion in New York City, a recording of which was first printed by The New York Post, Mr. Kennedy stated: “Covid-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.” He added, “We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not.”
His sister Kerry Kennedy referred to as his remarks “deplorable and untruthful” and stated they didn’t symbolize the ideas espoused by Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the group she leads — named after their father, the previous legal professional basic and presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy.
His brother Joseph Kennedy II issued the same assertion, telling The Boston Globe: “Bobby’s comments are morally and factually wrong. They play on antisemitic myths and stoke mistrust of the Chinese. His remarks in no way reflect the words and actions of our father, Robert F. Kennedy.”
And former Representative Joseph Kennedy III wrote on Twitter on Monday afternoon: “My uncle’s comments were hurtful and wrong. I unequivocally condemn what he said.”
Mr. Kennedy rejected criticism of his feedback on Sunday, saying in a prolonged Twitter put up, “The insinuation by @nypost and others that, as a result of my quoting a peer-reviewed paper on bio-weapons, I am somehow antisemitic, is a disgusting fabrication.” (The paper he referred to didn’t assist the claims he made.)
It was removed from the primary time that Mr. Kennedy’s kin felt compelled to disavow his phrases or actions.
Once an environmental lawyer identified for his work to scrub up the Hudson River, Mr. Kennedy — now a long-shot candidate working in opposition to President Biden for subsequent yr’s Democratic nomination — has grow to be a number one purveyor of anti-vaccine misinformation. Long earlier than the coronavirus pandemic, he helped popularize false claims of a connection between childhood vaccines and autism, and since Covid vaccines grew to become accessible, he has sought loudly and continuously to forged doubt on their well-documented security.
Last yr, Mr. Kennedy prompt that unvaccinated Americans would quickly be extra persecuted than Anne Frank, who was murdered by the Nazis. Several of his siblings criticized him for that remark, as did his spouse, the actress Cheryl Hines, who referred to as it “reprehensible and insensitive.”
He has superior many different conspiracy theories as nicely, together with claiming that there’s a hyperlink between antidepressants and mass shootings (there isn’t) and that Republicans stole the 2004 presidential election (they didn’t).
Despite his promotion of misinformation and a few coverage views extra aligned with the Republican base than the Democratic one, Mr. Kennedy is polling comparatively strongly — between 10 and 20 % in a number of surveys, nowhere close to sufficient to overhaul Mr. Biden, however nonetheless putting numbers in opposition to an incumbent.
Source: www.nytimes.com