RFK Jr.'s Michigan Remarks About Arabs and Muslim Brotherhood Draw Criticism

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced criticism after remarks about Arabs at a Monday night campaign event in Grand Rapids, Michigan, supporting Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers. Kennedy said there are 500 million Arabs in the world and that they do not produce science, win the Nobel, Fields or Wolf prizes, or produce literature. He also said Muslim princes in the 13th century had more books than all of Europe and that the Muslim Brotherhood destroyed that tradition and created stagnant societies.

The Associated Press published a fact check on Tuesday saying Arabs have won or been shortlisted for those awards in recent years. The Council on American-Islamic Relations called the remarks bigotry, and HuffPost reported it called for his dismissal. Protect Our Care condemned a "racist tirade." Democratic Rep. Hillary Scholten of west Michigan, who has not endorsed Rogers' opponent Abdul El-Sayed, said the comments were disgraceful. Rogers trails El-Sayed, a Muslim Democrat, in polling, according to The Guardian.

The left-leaning Guardian US and HuffPost lead with the backlash and the factual errors. The Guardian cites the AP fact check, CAIR, Protect Our Care and Scholten. HuffPost uses a more sarcastic tone, lists specific Arab Nobel and Wolf laureates, and says Kennedy campaigned for Rogers and John James. The right-leaning Blaze frames the speech as a scathing message about the Muslim Brotherhood in a final-week push for Republicans. In the excerpt it quotes Kennedy saying Christians were expelled and fell from 20% to 4% of the population in what he called genocides. The excerpt does not mention the fact check or the criticism. Both sides agree Kennedy spoke Monday in Michigan for Republican candidates. They differ on whether the story is about inaccurate claims about Arabs or about the Muslim Brotherhood. Alternative and independent outlets had not reported this story at the time of writing.