{"id":229011,"date":"2026-10-28T13:36:06","date_gmt":"2026-10-28T13:36:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/rfk-jr-faces-widespread-rebuke-over-his-anti-arab-remarks-nbc-news\/"},"modified":"2026-10-28T13:36:06","modified_gmt":"2026-10-28T13:36:06","slug":"rfk-jr-faces-widespread-rebuke-over-his-anti-arab-remarks-nbc-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/rfk-jr-faces-widespread-rebuke-over-his-anti-arab-remarks-nbc-news\/","title":{"rendered":"RFK Jr. faces widespread rebuke over his anti-Arab remarks – NBC News"},"content":{"rendered":"

BREAKING: At least 64 people killed and 80 injured after two trains collide in Spain, reports say<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.<\/a> faced widespread rebuke from civil rights groups, health care advocates and Democrats on Tuesday over anti-Arab comments that the Council on American-Islamic Relations cast as \u201ca textbook display of unvarnished racism and bigotry.\u201d
In his remarks Monday at a campaign event in Michigan<\/a> where Republican Mike Rogers is running for the U.S. Senate against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed<\/a>, Kennedy falsely claimed that Arabs had not won major international awards and \u201cdon\u2019t produce\u201d science and literature.
\u201cThere\u2019s 500 million Arabs in the world, and yet they don\u2019t produce science, they don\u2019t win the Nobel Prize, they don\u2019t win the Fields prize, they don\u2019t win the Wolf Prize, they don\u2019t produce literature,\u201d he said.
El-Sayed responds to Trump's attack on his name and faith
Arabs have won all those prizes. Peter Hotez, who is a professor at the Baylor College of Medicine and specializes in vaccine development and tropical medicine, said his late colleague, Nobel Prize winner Ahmed Zewail, who was Arab and died in 2016, \u201cwould disagree\u201d with Kennedy\u2019s comments.
The Department of Health and Human Services did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
U.S. rights advocates have raised concerns over escalating rhetoric against Muslims, Arabs, immigrants and ethnic minorities by President Donald Trump<\/a> and his allies during the ongoing midterm election campaign.
\u201cRobert F. Kennedy Jr.\u2019s vile anti-Arab rant is a textbook display of unvarnished racism and bigotry,\u201d the Council on American-Islamic Relations, which documents hate against Muslims and Arabs in the U.S., said Tuesday.
\u201cHis sweeping erasure of Arab contributions to humanity is not only maliciously false, but it also fans the flames of anti-Arab and anti-Muslim hate at a time when communities are already vulnerable to bigoted attacks from other public officials nationwide.\u201d
Kennedy said the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, one of the Arab world\u2019s oldest and most influential Islamist groups founded almost a century ago, had \u201ccreated stagnant societies.\u201d
Republicans have claimed, without evidence, that El-Sayed has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood even as the Democrat has publicly disavowed the group and denied any connection to it.
El-Sayed, a medical doctor and former public health official who would be the first Muslim U.S. senator if elected, has faced a host of anti-Muslim attacks during the campaign. Over the weekend, Trump invoked the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks when speaking about El-Sayed, whom he has also repeatedly and falsely called a \u201cjihadist.\u201d
A spokesperson for El-Sayed\u2019s campaign on Tuesday accused Kennedy of making racially charged comments in an attempt to influence voters.
\u201cIt\u2019s rich to have an anti-scientist come to Michigan to lecture a doctor with two doctoral degrees who has spent his entire career working on public health,\u201d said Cole Wozniak, the spokesperson.
Senator Chris Murphy, D-Conn., also criticized Kennedy\u2019s comments.
\u201cI really think everyone needs to pay attention to this coordinated campaign to delegitimize Muslim Americans \u2014 not just as citizens but as humans,\u201d he said in a post on X<\/a>.
The U.S. health care advocacy organization and nonprofit Protect Our Care cast Kennedy\u2019s comments as a \u201cwildly racist tirade.\u201d
Kennedy, who has pushed his anti-vaccine views<\/a> in his role as the top health official, was also in Michigan on Monday to promote funding for Detroit\u2019s health department and touted agreements with hospitals to offer healthier food.
© 2026 NBCUniversal Media, LLC<\/p>\n

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BREAKING: At least 64 people killed and 80 injured after two trains collide in Spain, reports say For YouSettings news AlertsThere are no new alerts at this timeHealth Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. faced widespread rebuke from civil rights groups, health care advocates and Democrats on Tuesday over anti-Arab comments that the Council on American-Islamic […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":229012,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-229011","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-us","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229011","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229011"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229011\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229012"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229011"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229011"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229011"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}