Fact-check identified Arab winners and shortlisted candidates for major prizes
The Guardian reported that Robert F Kennedy Jr, the US health secretary, faced backlash Wednesday after a Monday night campaign stop in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he falsely asserted that Arabs had never produced science or won major awards in science or literature. Kennedy was appearing in support of Mike Rogers, the Republican US Senate candidate trailing his Democratic midterms opponent Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim, in polling.
Kennedy said: “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.”
An Associated Press fact-check published Tuesday found that Arabs have won, or been shortlisted, for all of those awards in recent years, contradicting Kennedy’s statement.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called Kennedy’s Islamophobic remarks “a textbook display of unvarnished racism and bigotry,” while 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.” She also wrote that “Arab Americans are our neighbors, colleagues, health care professionals, scientists, educators, and public servants” and that their contributions to science, literature, medicine and countless other fields “are undeniable.” She added: “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.”
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,” Murphy said, in remarks reported by Reuters.
Kennedy made the remarks while criticizing the Muslim Brotherhood, which The Guardian described as a global Islamic group with branches that have been designated terrorist organizations by the US government. Kennedy said the group’s rise had “created stagnant societies,” 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.”
Kennedy also appeared at a campaign rally on Friday at Alico Arena on the campus of Florida Gulf Coast University in Fort Myers, Florida, in a photograph published with The Guardian’s report and credited to Mark Schiefelbein of AP.
The Guardian reported that other Trump administration officials made claims linking El-Sayed to Islamic radicalism. At a rally in Port Huron, Michigan, on Sunday, President Trump called the Democrat “a jihadist” who was “on the side of the terrorists.”
At an event in Howell, Michigan, on Tuesday, Vice President JD Vance sought to connect El-Sayed’s politics to protests in Paris that saw thousands arrested, according to The Guardian. Vance said: “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.” The Guardian identified Piker as an outspoken socialist commentator and influencer.
The Guardian said Rogers had also spoken out against El-Sayed’s alleged links to the Muslim Brotherhood, while noting questions over Rogers’s own relationship with the group. In 2012, as chair of the House intelligence committee, Rogers 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 ties to the group and disavowed it at a town hall event in Michigan last week that went viral after 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.
The episode brought a fact-checked error by the health secretary into a Michigan Senate contest already shaped by claims about the Muslim Brotherhood and El-Sayed’s politics. The Associated Press review contradicted Kennedy’s statement, while the Council on American-Islamic Relations, Protect Our Care, Scholten and Murphy condemned the remarks or their wider campaign context. El-Sayed continues to deny ties to the organization.