Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the nephew of former President John F. Kennedy, denied allegations of antisemitism Saturday after The New York Submit revealed video of the Democratic candidate suggesting that Covid-19 was an “ethnically focused” bioweapon genetically engineered to spare Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese language individuals.
Kennedy’s newest foray into conspiracism got here at an Higher East Facet press dinner final Tuesday. “COVID-19. There may be an argument that it’s ethnically focused. COVID-19 assaults sure races disproportionately,” Kennedy stated whereas consuming linguini and clam sauce. “COVID-19 is focused to assault Caucasians and black individuals. The people who find themselves most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese language.”
Kennedy’s feedback echo “well-worn anti-Semitic literature blaming Jews for the emergence and unfold of coronavirus which started circulating on-line shortly after the pandemic broke out,” The Submit famous. The paper quoted an infectious illness skilled who stated she didn’t “see any proof that there was any design or bioterrorism that anybody tried to design one thing to knock off sure teams.”
The dinner reportedly “descended right into a foul bout of screaming and polemic farting” after host Doug Dechert and “octogenarian artwork critic Anthony Haden-Visitor” started yelling at one another over local weather change, which Dechert known as a “hoax.” At one level within the argument, Dechert “let rip a loud, extended fart whereas yelling, as if to underscore his level, ‘I’m farting!’”
On Twitter, Kennedy called the most recent Submit story “mistaken” and stated he had “by no means, ever advised that the COVID-19 virus was focused to spare Jews.” He claimed to have been arguing that the “U.S. and different governments are creating ethnically focused bioweapons,” and that proof demonstrating the disparate racial influence of Covid-19 is “a sort of proof of idea for ethnically focused bioweapons.” “I don’t imagine and by no means implied that the ethnic impact was intentionally engineered,” he stated.
In subsequent tweets, Kennedy accused Submit reporter Jonathan Levine of getting “exploited this OFF-THE-RECORD dialog to smear me by affiliation with an outlandish conspiracy principle.” Levine wrote Saturday that Dechert had stated it was on the file, and a second attendee confirmed to the Submit that Dechert advised him the identical.
