RFK Jr. In The Crosshairs Of Civil Rights Groups ... After Anti-Muslim Remarks

Published October 28, 2026 7:10 AM PDT

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is in hot water with a civil rights group after he made what some believe were bigoted remarks about Arab Muslims during a campaign event in Michigan.

President Trump's Secretary of Health and Human Services made the controversial comments Monday while stumping for Republican Mike Rogers in Grand Rapids, MI, saying that Arab Muslims have never won any major international awards and fail to produce science and literature, which is totally false.

Kennedy said, “There's 500 million Arabs in the world, and yet they don't produce science, they don't win the Nobel Prize, they don't win the Fields prize, they don't win the Wolf Prize, they don't produce literature."

On Tuesday, the Council on American-Islamic Relations blasted Kennedy, describing his statements as "a textbook display of unvarnished racism and bigotry."

Thing is ... Arabs have won all of the prizes RFK Jr. mentioned.

And Peter Hotez, a professor at the Baylor College of Medicine, told NBC that his late friend and colleague, Nobel Prize winner Ahmed Zewail, would totally disagree with Kennedy since Zewail was Arab.

We've reached out to the Department of Health and Human Services ... so far, no word back.