RFK Jr. Leaves Anti-Arab Remarks Unanswered At Detroit Health Visit

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. left his anti-Arab remarks unanswered at a Detroit health visit as a civil rights group demanded that he lose his Cabinet job.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations called for the health secretary’s immediate firing. The Muslim civil rights group tied its demand to his job running a federal agency whose work reaches Americans across ethnic and religious lines.

In its statement, CAIR called the remarks “utterly disqualifying for public office.” It also noted that his attack swept in Muslim and Christian Arab Americans.

Kennedy made the claims in Grand Rapids on October 26 while campaigning for Republican Senate candidate Mike Rogers. Rogers is running against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, who is Muslim and has an Arab family background.

“There are five hundred million Arabs in the world. And yet they don’t produce science,” Kennedy said, according to Michigan Advance. “They don’t win the Nobel Prize.”

The record includes winners from both science and literature. CAIR cited Egyptian-American chemist Ahmed Zewail, who won in 1999, and Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz, who received the literature prize in 1988.

Omar Yaghi shared the 2025 chemistry prize with Richard Robson and Susumu Kitagawa. The UC Berkeley professor was born in Jordan to Palestinian refugees, according to his university.

Their work produced materials called metal-organic frameworks. Those structures have uses that include collecting water from dry air and trapping carbon dioxide. Yaghi’s award came the year before Kennedy’s claim.

Kennedy blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for the decline he alleged. El-Sayed has denied involvement with the group and publicly rejected it, Michigan Advance reported.

His public statements on science had drawn scrutiny before. AllHipHop previously covered Hillary Clinton’s criticism of Kennedy and President Donald Trump over their claims about vaccines and pregnancy medications in September 2025.

In Detroit, Kennedy instead discussed recovery services after visiting the Detroit Wayne Integrated Health Network. Michigan Advance reported that he did not address the anti-Arab comments while taking questions.

The visit concerned STREETS, a federal program for people facing homelessness and serious mental illness or substance use disorders. HHS announced that Detroit’s Health Department was among eight recipients sharing $96 million. Each was set to receive $3 million annually for four years to connect treatment with housing and other recovery support.