DNC chair slams RFK Jr’s claims COVID was engineered to spare Jews, Chinese
The head of the Democratic party was one of many to distance himself from Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Saturday after The Post revealed the presidential hopeful spewed conspiracies that COVID-19 was “ethnically targeted” to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese people.
“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, tweeted.
RFK Jr. dished out the idea earlier this week that the deadly virus was a genetically engineered bioweapon intended to target Caucasians and black people.
“There is an argument that it is ethnically targeted,” the 2024 candidate said during a Tuesday press event at Tony’s Di Napoli on East 63d Street.
“COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.”
The exclusive report brought on a barrage of criticism from Democratic leaders
“Hard to imagine a son who has done more to dishonor his father’s name than RFK Jr.,” Bronx Rep. Ritchie Torres tweeted.
“RFK Jr. is a complete crackpot who has no business being anywhere near the presidency.”
California Rep. Ted Lieu pointed out that millions of people died from the virus worldwide, including wide swaths of people of Jewish and Chinese descent.
“If you still support the wacky, narcissistic, racist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., then that says more about you than it does about him.”
Marianne Williamson, who is also running for the 2024 Democratic nomination, denounced his comments, calling them “sinister and unfounded.”
“Whether intentionally or not, his remarks amplify sinister and unfounded notions that are both anti-Semitic and anti-Chinese,” she wrote.
Kennedy’s comments repeated hate speech that emerged shortly after the pandemic broke out placing the spread of the virus on the Jewish community, according to The Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry at the University of Tel Aviv’s 2021 Antisemitism Worldwide Report.
Americans of Asian descent also became the subjects of increased hate crimes, especially in New York City, as theories that COVID-19 was leaked from a Chinese lab were circulated.
RFK Jr, a long-time vaccine skeptic later rejected, walked back on his controversial dinner conversation shortly after The Post’s report broke.
Kennedy claimed he never suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews and whines that the event had been off the record.
Event organizer Doug Dechert told The Post it was on the record.
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