On Monday, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. told a GOP rally in Grand Rapids, Michigan, for Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers: “There’s five hundred 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.” The clip, posted by Bulwark Clips, has more than 5 million views.
In a second clip posted by TheBlaze, Kennedy said: “All of that tradition has been destroyed by the Muslim Brotherhood. They have created stagnant societies,” and added, “Talking about the Muslim Brotherhood is not Islamophobia.”
Rogers has repeatedly tied his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, to the Brotherhood, a charge El-Sayed has called “insane.” President Trump has also called El-Sayed “a jihadist.” Trump said this week: “he’s a vicious, violent jihadist and he has no place in our government.”
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) wrote: “I really think everyone needs to pay attention to this coordinated campaign to delegitimize Muslim Americans – not just as citizens but as humans. These increasingly hysterical attacks are a prelude to Republicans bringing us to a very, very dark place after the election.”
I really think everyone needs to pay attention to this cordinated campaign to delegimatize Muslim Americans – not just as citizens but as humans.
These increasingly hysterical attacks are a prelude to Republicans bringing us to a very, very dark place after the election. https://t.co/F4tAiO21Sc
— Chris Murphy
(@ChrisMurphyCT) October 27, 2026
Dr. Peter Hotez, director of the Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, responded to Kennedy’s remarks: “My late colleague and brilliant co U.S. Science Envoy with me in the Obama Admin the Caltech Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Ahmed Zewail would disagree. God rest his soul he didn’t have to endure this, and of course RFK Jr forgets that it was the Arab scientists of the Middle Ages who kept Aristotle, Hippocrates, Galen alive to hand it down in the Renaissance.”
Commentator Mehdi Hasan cited a more recent one: “One of the men who won the Nobel Prize for Chemistry last year was a Palestinian-American, Omar Yaghi. Racist POS.”
On the right, Turning Point USA spokesman Andrew Kolvet called Kennedy’s comments a “truth nuke,” writing: “Dare one of their apologists to try and refute what the man said.” And conservative activist Laura Loomer wrote: “A Palestinian murdered RFK Jr’s father and you’re surprised he is critical of Muslim Arabs? The media hates reality. Anyone with common sense needs to be speaking out about Arabs.”