Robert F Kennedy Jr , the US health secretary, faced backlash on Wednesday for a “wildly racist tirade” during a campaign stop in Michigan in which he falsely asserted that Arabs never won major awards in science or literature.
Kennedy was speaking at the Monday night event in Grand Rapids in support of Mike Rogers, the Republican US Senate candidate who is trailing his Democratic midterms opponent Abdul El-Sayed , a Muslim, in polling.
“There’s 500 million Arabs in the world, and yet they don’t produce science, they don’t win the Nobel prize, they don’t win the Fields prize, they don’t win the Wolf prize, they don’t produce literature,” Kennedy said.
A factcheck published on Tuesday by the Associated Press showed that Arabs have won, or been short-listed, for all those awards in recent years.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called Kennedy’s Islamophobic remarks “a textbook display of unvarnished racism and bigotry”, and the US healthcare advocacy organization Protect Our Care condemned his “wildly racist tirade”.
Hillary Scholten, a Democratic congresswoman representing west Michigan, who declined to endorse El-Sayed this summer, said Kennedy’s comments were “disgraceful and have no place in public service”.
In a statement posted to her Facebook page late Tuesday, Scholten said: “As secretary of health and human services, he has a responsibility to serve all Americans, not use his position to demean entire communities with bigoted and demonstrably false claims.
“Arab Americans are our neighbors, colleagues, health care professionals, scientists, educators, and public servants. Their contributions to science, literature, medicine, and countless other fields are undeniable.
“The last I checked, Secretary Kennedy has neither a medical degree nor a Nobel peace prize, and his rhetoric has undermined public confidence in health science. Maybe he should sit this one out.”
Kennedy’s comments came as part of an attack on the Muslim Brotherhood , a global Islamic group with branches that have been designated terrorist organizations by the US government.
The rise of the group had “created stagnant societies”, Kennedy said, ending what he called “a golden age [in which] Islamic lands were the center, the foundation for art and literature and science and engineering, and they were highly tolerant and pluralistic and cosmopolitan”.
Other Trump administration officials have tried to paint El-Sayed as a supporter of Islamic radicalism, including the president himself, who at a rally in Port Huron, Michigan, on Sunday called the Democrat “a jihadist” who was “on the side of the terrorists”.
JD Vance, the vice-president, escalated the inflammatory attacks at an event in Howell, Michigan, on Tuesday, during which he sought to connect El-Sayed’s politics to violent leftwing protests in Paris that saw thousands arrested.
“I guarantee you, if those rioters were burning down New York, or Detroit, the Hasan Pikers and El-Sayeds would be right there leading them and cheering them on,” Vance said, referring to Piker , an outspoken socialist commentator and influencer .
Rogers has also spoken out against El-Sayed’s alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood, despite questions over his own relationship with the group. In 2012, as chair of the House intelligence committee, he said the US should have talks with the movement after Mohamed Morsi, who was backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, won the Egyptian election.
El-Sayed has repeatedly denied any ties to the group, and disavowed it in a town hall event in Michigan last week that went viral for a confrontation over the issue with a heckler who turned out to be a former aide to Josh Hawley, the Republican US senator for Missouri.
Chris Murphy, the US senator for Connecticut who joined other senior Democratic politicians canvassing for El-Sayed in Michigan last week, also condemned Kennedy’s comments.
“I really think everyone needs to pay attention to this coordinated campaign to delegitimize Muslim Americans, not just as citizens but as humans,” he said, reported by Reuters.
