The White House condemned longshot presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr after he said COVID-19 was designed to target certain ethnicities and spare Jewish and Chinese victims.

Kennedy, the son of former Attorney General and assassinated presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy, is running against incumbent President Joe Biden for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination.

The 69-year-old made the remarks at a press dinner on Tuesday, July 11 on Manhattan’s Upper East Side.

During a question-and-answer portion of the dinner, Kennedy began speaking about the COVID-19 pandemic, which he compared to genetically-engineered bioweapons.

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The exchange was filmed by a journalist attending the event, and later published by a New York Post reporter who was present for the dinner.

‘We’ve put hundreds of millions of dollars into ethnically targeted microbes. The Chinese have done the same thing. In fact, COVID-19, there’s an argument that it is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacked certain races disproportionately. The races that are most immune to COVID-19 – because of the structure, the genetic differentials among different races of the receptors – COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.’

He continued: ‘We don’t know if it was deliberately targeting them or not, but there are papers out there that show the racial and ethnic differential and impact. We do know that the Chinese are spending hundreds of millions of dollars developing ethnic bioweapons, and we are developing ethnic bioweapons.’

The remarks drew instant condemnation from other Democratic politicians, COVID-19 researchers, Jewish organizations, and even his own family members.

On Monday, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre called the remarks ‘an attack on our fellow citizens.’

‘The claim made on that tape is false,’ Jean-Pierre said. ‘It is vile, and they put our fellow Americans in danger – if you think about the racist and anti-Semitic conspiracy theories that come out of saying those types of things.’

‘These are deeply troubling comments and I want to make clear that they do not represent the views of the Democratic Party,’ Democratic National Committee Chair Jamie Harrison said.

‘The assertion that Covid was genetically engineered to spare Jewish and Chinese people is deeply offensive and incredibly dangerous,’ said Ted Deutsch, the CEO of the American Jewish Committee.

He continued: ‘Every aspect of these comments reflects some of the most abhorrent anti-Semitic conspiracy theories throughout history, and contributes to today’s rise of anti-Semitism.’

Kennedy himself pushed back on the reporting, which he called ‘mistaken.’

‘I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews,’ he said on Twitter. In the same post, Kennedy doubled down on the claim that the virus is ‘most compatible with Blacks and Caucasians and least compatible with ethnic Chinese, Finns, and Ashkenazi Jews.’

‘I do not believe and never implied that the ethnic effect was deliberately engineered,’ he added.

But the comments have continued to draw condemnation since the video was published, including from Kennedy’s own sister.

‘I STRONGLY condemn my brother’s deplorable and untruthful remarks last week about Covid being engineered for ethnic targeting,’ said Kerry Kennedy, who runs a human rights nonprofit named after her father. ‘His statements do not represent what I believe or what I believe or what Robert F Kennedy Human Rights stand for.’

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