Robert F. Kennedy Jr., a Democratic presidential candidate, at a House hearing on July 20, 2023. Photo by YouTube/Screenshot

By Jacob Kornbluh July 20, 2023

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the Democratic presidential candidate accused of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories about COVID-19, aggressively pushed back against his critics during a House hearing on Thursday. Republican leaders had refused requests by House Democrats to disinvite Kennedy over his remarks about Jews.

“In my entire life, I have never uttered a phrase that was either racist or antisemitic,” RJK Jr. said in an opening statement at a hearing on government censorship held by a House Judiciary Committee subcommittee. “There is no evidence of that.”

RFK Jr. on COVID-19

The political scion, 69, a vaccine skeptic who has associated himself with conspiracy theorists, was condemned by major Jewish groups and politicians for falsely claiming — in a video published on Saturday — that COVID-19 was an “ethnically targeted” bioweapon that spared Jews and Chinese people. His comments drew on a blend of old and new hatreds about Jews, falsehoods about how they are responsible for disease in general and complicit in the  COVID-19 pandemic in particular.

Holding up a letter signed by more than 100 House Democrats urging the cancellation of his testimony, RJK Jr. said his remarks have been distorted for political reasons. “I didn’t say those things,” he said. “I denounce anybody who uses the words that I have said to imply something that is negative about people who are Jewish. I never said those things.”

Invoking Israel

Kennedy went on to claim he has “a better record on Israel” than anybody in Congress. “I’ve fought more ferociously for Israel than anybody, but I am being censored here,” he said. “I don’t believe there’s a single person who signed this letter who believes I’m antisemitic.”

The presidential candidate had also lashed out against his critics in the days before the hearing. In one instance he accused Jon Levine, the Jewish New York Post reporter who broke the story about his remarks, of devaluing the term antisemitism and “inflaming fear, hate, and suspicion.”

RJK Jr. is expected to hold a campaign event on Tuesday to discuss antisemitism and Israel. It is being hosted by celebrity Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, who has come to Kennedy’s defense, in New York City. In a statement, Kennedy said “no subject will be off limits” at the event.

“At this dangerous time for American and world Jewry, where antisemitism is on the rise across the globe, it is imperative that those seeking the presidency deliver their unambiguous proposals for combatting Jew-hatred,” he said.

At the hearing, Jewish Democrats challenged Kennedy to clarify his comments. “Tour rhetoric creates a climate of mistrust, antagonism, and even hatred or violence against Jewish people,” Florida’s Debbie Wasserman Schultz said in a tense exchange with RJK Jr., citing his past comments comparing vaccine and mask mandates to the Holocaust. Kennedy in return accused her of slander and lying about his statements.

Dan Goldman, a first-term Democrat from New York played a video of last week’s remarks and asked Kennedy whether he “should be worried about my genetics as an Ashkenazi Jew” since he contracted Covid in March of 2020. “Not at all,” Kennedy replied.

This post has been updated.

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