The health secretary blamed the Muslim Brotherhood and later defended his remarks. An Egyptian scientist's Nobel Prize remains an awkward obstacle.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., official HHS portrait, 2025. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, public domain.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was campaigning for Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers in Grand Rapids on October 26 when he pronounced on the scientific output of an entire people. Al-Monitor reported his remarks. After invoking the world's Arab population, the Health and Human Services secretary said:
“and yet they don't produce science.”
Caltech might want a word. Its October 12, 1999 announcement records Ahmed Zewail's Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Born and raised in Egypt, Zewail used ultrafast lasers to study how atoms move during chemical reactions. The American University of Beirut's profile identifies him as Arab and American. That is a scientist doing science. Award-winning science, since Kennedy also said Arabs don't win Nobel Prizes.
He dismissed their literary output, too. Egyptian novelist Naguib Mahfouz won the literature Nobel in 1988. The awards committee appears to have misplaced Kennedy's instructions.
The surrounding argument matters. Kennedy praised the historic intellectual achievements of Islamic societies, then blamed the Muslim Brotherhood for destroying that tradition. Even Hannity's approving account preserves that context. He was making a case against a political movement while supporting Rogers against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed.
On October 30, Kennedy issued a lengthy defense on X. HuffPost, republished by AOL, reported that he accused journalists of omitting context and said his target was Islamism, rather than Arabs or Islam. He pointed to patents and scientific staffing in Arab-majority countries. He also repeated allegations linking El-Sayed to the Brotherhood. El-Sayed has publicly disavowed it.
Criticize a political movement. Compare research output between countries, with actual figures and an explanation of what they measure. Those arguments can be examined. But a later argument about particular countries does not make his sweeping claim about Arabs true. Zewail's Egyptian origins did not evaporate when he worked at Caltech. And Arab identity is not interchangeable with Muslim religious belief.
We recently covered Greg Gutfeld treating Muslim political participation as a gotcha in a discussion of the same Michigan candidate. Kennedy offered a different objection, with a much grander historical theory. Unfortunately for the theory, Caltech kept a press release. It is dated 1999. Somebody at HHS should be able to locate the ancient document.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. was campaigning for Republican Senate nominee Mike Rogers in Grand Rapids on October 26 when he pronounced on the scientific output of an entire people. Al-Monitor reported his remarks. After invoking the world's Arab population, the Health and Human Services secretary said:
“and yet they don't produce science.”
Caltech might want a word. Its October 12, 1999 announcement records Ahmed Zewail's Nobel Prize in Chemistry. Born and raised in Egypt, Zewail used ultrafast lasers to study how atoms move during chemical reactions. The American University of Beirut's profile identifies him as Arab and American. That is a scientist doing science. Award-winning science, since Kennedy also said Arabs don't win Nobel Prizes.
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