Megyn Kelly came to the defense of Democratic presidential hopeful Robert F. Kennedy Jr. by lashing out at his sister Kerry Kennedy for condemning his recent remarks about COVID-19.
“Look at these terrible family members. No one was asking ‘How does RFKJ’s sister feel about his latest remarks?’” Kelly tweeted on Monday.
“She just felt the need to kick @RobertKennedyJr when he was down. Nice,” she tweeted.
RFK Jr. caused a stir last week when he suggested COVID-19 may have been “ethnically targeted.”
Kerry Kennedy repudiated her brother’s remarks in a statement through the nonprofit she heads — the Washington, DC-based Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights.
“I strongly condemn my brother’s deplorable and untruthful remarks last week about Covid being engineered for ethnic targeting,” she said.
“His statements do not represent what I believe or what Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights stand for, with our 50+-year track record of protecting rights and standing against racism and all forms of discrimination.”
Kerry Kennedy, 63, the former wife of ex-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and RFK Jr. are two of 11 children who were born to the late Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and his surviving wife, Ethel Kennedy, 95.
RFK Jr.’s nephew, former Rep. Joe Kennedy III (D-Mass.), also repudiated his uncle’s statements on Monday.
“My uncle’s comments were hurtful and wrong,” Kennedy III, now the special US envoy for Northern Ireland, wrote on Twitter.
“I unequivocally condemn what he said.”
The Post was the first to report comments that RFK Jr. made last week during a press event at an Upper East Side restaurant.
RFK Jr., who has fought being labeled an anti-vaxxer, told an assembled crowd: “There is an argument that [COVID] is ethnically targeted. COVID-19 attacks certain races disproportionately.”
“COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese,” he said.
“We don’t know whether it was deliberately targeted or not but there are papers out there that show the racial or ethnic differential and impact,” the 69-year-old Kennedy said.
His remarks were widely condemned as antisemitic, prompting the political scion to attempt damage control.
“The @nypost story is mistaken. I have never, ever suggested that the COVID-19 virus was targeted to spare Jews,” he tweeted.
“I accurately pointed out — during an off-the-record conversation — that the U.S. and other governments are developing ethnically targeted bioweapons and that a 2021 study of the COVID-19 virus shows that COVID-19 appears to disproportionately affect certain races since the furin cleave docking site is most compatible with Blacks and Caucasians and least compatible with ethnic Chinese, Finns, and Ashkenazi Jews.”
The Department of Energy and the FBI have assessed that COVID-19 escaped from a lab in Wuhan, China, but there is no evidence it was designed to spare certain religious groups or ethnicities.
The Post has sought comment from Kerry Kennedy.
This story originally appeared on NYPost